Sleeping naturally with ADHD

Many children and adults who have ADHD also have a sleep disorder—almost three out of four children and adolescents, and up to four out of five adults with ADHD (CHADD).

The most common sleep issues I come across in my clinic with ADHD clients is difficulty falling asleep, restless sleep, frequent waking and children not falling asleep in their own bed. Other sleep disorders include nightmares, night terrors, sleepwalking and sleep apnea. We have specific remedies to match each of these individual sleep disorders, their unique underlying cause, ADHD traits and other coexisting conditions.

Individually prescribed homeopathic remedies can resolve sleeping issues in children and adults by addressing root cause/s such as anxiety, restlessness, restless leg syndrome, breathing disorders (sleep apnea, adenoids), hormonal imbalances etc. We don’t simply use sedative medicines to induce sleep or give anti-depressant medication to alter brain chemistry. The homeopathic approach asks why is there a problem with sleep in the first place?.

Gabor Mate, a physician specialising in childhood development and trauma believes the problem with sleep in ADHD children is separation anxiety. And for ADD adults like himself who dread going to bed and turning the light off is due to an underlying fear of being alone with one’s urgent mind. Mate suggests that this is due to ‘implicit memory of finding oneself, in infancy, cut off from contact with the parent’ and how ‘the unconscious fear of reactivating that implicit memory is what leads to the adult’s aversion to lying down to sleep without any diversions’. This is something we can help homeopathically. Pulsatilla is one of our main remedies for separation anxiety.

Not getting enough sleep, or needing to sleep at times that doesn’t quite fit with school or work schedule can have debilitating long-term effects. Chronic over-tiredness can cause physical illness, behaviour and mood changes. In children with ADHD it can increase hyperactivity, impulsivity, meltdowns and aggressiveness. It’s a vicious cycle.

As Mate points out ‘sleep is essential for the brain to regenerate the sensitive neurological apparatus of alertness and attention’.‘The re-programming that takes place in our dreams has a beneficial effect upon ordinary mental functioning’ too. Without a full 8-10 hours sleep at night it is impossible for our brain and entire system to function as it should.

Some parents who are caught in this chronic cycle of sleep deprivation feel they have no choice but to give medication. But as a solution it is far from ideal. It can only ever be a short-term intervention due to issues around dependency, side-effects and possible interaction with other ADHD medications.

Although sleep inducing medications are not approved for use in children it is common for doctors to prescribe the likes of benadryl (antihistamine), ambien (adult sleep medication), desyrel/ trazodone (anti-depressant) and Clonidine (high blood pressure medication) to ADHD children "off-label". The list of side-effects associated with each of these drugs is frightening.

Some doctors and naturopaths recommend melatonin as a natural aid but again we don’t know what the long-term consequences of taking this supplement are. For some children it seems to work. For others it can cause bad dreams, frequent waking later in the night or waking early. According to Jennifer Kozek other possible side-effects include increased seizure activity, anxiety, testicular atrophy, increased risk of type 2 diabetes,agitation, constipation and other behavioural changes’.

Based on my own research I personally would avoid taking melatonin unless it’s irregular use to get through a short crisis period. We simply do not know what we are doing when taking hormones and interfering with our delicate, intelligent circadian rhythm and melatonin cycle. Kozek recommends increasing intake of essential cofactors in the production of melatonin - vitamin B3, B6, B9 and the amino acid tryptophan as an alternative to melatonin supplementation.

The great thing about homeopathy is that it offers a solution that is safe, effective, gentle and free from side-effects. Homeopathy can help you or your child get the sleep you need by working with your body rather than against it.

I’ve included some common sleep symptoms and indicated remedies below to illustrate how many different remedies we have to choose from to match and resolve your individual sleep problem. It is not a one size fits all. Remedies are always prescribed according to how well they match the whole patient.

If you would like to find out more about how homeopathy can help you book your free 15 minute consultation here.
https://www.myradicalremedy.com/

Sleep; disturbed; anxiety, from:
ACON alum am-c ambr ant-c aq-mar arg ARS bar-c BELL bov BRY calc calc-f cann-s carb-an CARB-V CAST CAUST cham CHIN COCC coff con culx-p cycl dig dulc FERR GRAPH HEP herin HYOS IGN KALI-C kreos lach lact lyc MAG-C mag-m mang MERC MERC-C nat-c NAT-M nicc NIT-AC nux-v perl petr ph-ac phel PHOS plat posit puls ran-s rat rhus-t sabin SEP SIL spong squil SULPH tab thuj verat zinc

Sleep; disturbed; midnight; after; two am. - four am.:
am-c am-m arist-cl bani-c berb helx-t KALI-C kali-fcy kali-p mag-m mand merc ph-ac phos rib-ac sulph teg-a

Sleep; disturbed; dreams, by; nightmare:
acon alum alumn ars bell bov calc calc-f cast cinnb coff-t con cycl daph gamb guai ign kali-n lac-d lach LYC mand meph mez mobil-ph NAT-C NAT-M nat-s NIT-AC op petros phyl-a puls rhus-t sec SIL SOLIN sulph ter

Sleep; disturbed; restlessness, with:
agar BAPT carb-an cina clem cocc iodof kali-n kreos lac-del lach lam laur mag-m merc nat-c nat-m nicc nit-ac petr plan puls RHUS-T sabad sabin sars sel sep sulph thuj torul trachy-a zinc-s

Sources

https://chadd.org/about-adhd/adhd-and-sleep-disorders/

https://chadd.org/about-adhd/adhd-and-sleep-disorders-diagnosis-and-management/

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/special-reports/adhd-24-hour-disorder

https://www.webmd.com/children/news/20070801/sleep-drugs-often-presecribed-for-kids#1

Gabor Mate. Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder.

Jennifer Kozek. Healing without Hurting: Treating ADHD, Apraxia and Autism Spectrum Disorders Naturally and Effectively without Harmful Medications