September 25, 2025 • 43 mins
You probably know it's important to slow down and get a good night's sleep, but did you know getting enough sleep allows your brain to function at its peak?
In this episode, Renee shares how proper rest restores dopamine, clears out waste (yep!), improves memory, and boosts executive function.
Learn simple ways to get your rest and boost brain function.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:29):
Hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with ADHD.
Hi, I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast.
I'm excited to be here. It's early morning.
I think this is the first time I've ever recorded early in the
morning. So we'll see how it goes. And if you're watching
on video, I can't get the zoom to work, so this is a little
farther back, but I'm sure you don't care, so.
And I'm going to zip up my jacket, so all the little things I
(00:52):
got to do so I'm not distracted by now.
I don't know if I want to wear it that way, but I'll just keep
going. But today's episode is about rest.
And it's interesting because I was going to record this last
night, but I thought, you know, I came back from a yoga class
I teach from 7 to 8 on Wednesdays, and I've recorded
(01:13):
in the evenings before, but I just felt like I needed some downtime
instead of talking, and so I did. And then
I thought, well, then you're going to have to get up earlier
because I want to get this out tomorrow morning.
So I went to sleep earlier, about an hour earlier
than I normally do. But it's the time that I
used to go to bed, and I've been wanting to go to bed earlier,
(01:35):
and I thought, how fitting for today's topic because getting
rest is important and getting enough sleep is important.
And one of the key things is going to bed early enough.
And sometimes when you have adhd, you keep thinking of other
things to do. You think, this is important, I need to do this.
This is important, I need to do that.
And you don't get the rest you need.
(01:56):
And you stay up, and you stay up, and then you still have to
get up at the same time. So I'm glad I did that.
I think we'll see. We'll see how my brain performs because according
to the studies, it'll do better. But it's not just the rest
that you get for sleep. It's also the rest that you get during
the day, throughout the day. If you feel that
(02:17):
you've been pushing it, you realize, I need to slow down, I need
to slow down. You need to listen to those signals.
And there are times when we need to push and there are times
that we need to slow down. In yoga, in Sanskrit, there's a
name. It's like Sthira and Sukta or something like that.
And it's a balance between effort and ease.
And I love that because we do need to find that
(02:39):
balance. We need to put forth effort at times.
We need to push ourselves. If we can get ourselves to do something,
we need to push ourselves to do that.
And there are times that we need to slow down from the pushing,
that we need to say, it's time to pause, it's time to rest.
It can't keep going forever. Our bodies aren't built to do that.
Our bodies are actually built to recover when we rest.
(03:02):
And it's pretty interesting to learn the science behind this
because it applies to our ADHD brains in ways that
I didn't realize. And at first, I have to admit,
it sounded hokey. I thought, is this real science?
Is this real? And it is. So I have some
resources and stuff, so let me see what I can find here.
(03:25):
But if you think of. Of just
the things that we do during the day, like we go get gas for
our cars and we stop and we put gas in the car
so it can keep going. If we don't do that, or even if you have
a hybrid car or an electric car, you have to recharge that car
so it can keep going. It can't keep going on its own.
(03:47):
And we're like that with our bodies, we need the rest.
But with our ADHD brains, we need a proper amount of
dopamine to function, to be able to get ourselves
to a point where we can accomplish things, where we can
do what we need to do, where we can go through our lives
in a way that's meaningful. And if we had.
(04:10):
They used to call gas stations, filling stations.
I don't know if you knew that. My dad probably still calls it
a filling station, but it's where you go and fill up your car
with gas. And when you get sleep, when you get
enough rest, it's like plugging your phone in to recharge it.
It's like putting gasoline in your car.
Your ADHD brain runs low on dopamine faster than
(04:31):
others, and it needs more dopamine to function properly.
Some say it's because we have more dopamine receptors.
Some say it's because the dopamine that we have doesn't
always process right with the receptors.
And so we need more than most. And the downtime helps restore
the dopamine and helps it function better.
(04:54):
So that is exciting to know. The other thing is, you know,
these are all the things that we know in life, that our houses
don't just stay clean on their own. Our cars don't stay clean
on their own. My car Is pretty dirty right now.
And wouldn't it be nice if we always had someone to do that for
us? Some of you might. I don't. And if you
(05:16):
had a house that was just in a disastrous mode, and maybe
you're raising your hand and you're saying, I do.
If you had someone to come in and just clean, it's pretty fabulous.
When my second oldest daughter got married several years ago,
it was right before Christmas, so we drove couple
days to get to her wedding. We did a big road trip and
(05:37):
a road trip back. And then we had her kind of
an open house at our house. She didn't graduate or grow up
where we lived at the time. So we had an open house instead of
a big reception where people who lived around could come
or some of our current friends could come and meet her and
stuff. And my husband said, maybe we should
(05:59):
have someone come clean the house when we get back.
So you don't have to worry about that.
We don't have to worry about that. After getting back from the
trip, on top of preparing for the open house, someone
just comes in and cleans the house, which ended up being, I think,
three ladies that came. I got a reference from someone else.
The three ladies came in and cleaned.
It was the nicest thing. And it was interesting to see how they
(06:20):
worked because they worked from the ceiling down.
I don't know that they actually cleaned the ceiling, but it made
sense in their method because they started up top.
So if there are spiderwebs or whatever and clean, dusted, whatever
they did to clean. And then at the end they cleaned the
floors. And I thought that's kind of cool.
I love their method because anything you clean higher up maybe
ends up on the floor at the end and you just clean that up.
(06:43):
But I loved their system. And when you rest, it's
like your brain has a little cleaning crew that comes through
at night. They call this the glymphatic system.
And so like the lymphatic system, like lymph nodes take care
of the waste and things that aren't, you know, like when
(07:04):
you get. Okay, maybe I'm not very much of a
scientist when it comes to lymph tissues, But I do know that
one of their jobs is to take things like disease and stuff
and put. And, you know, like you get the swollen lymph nodes
and stuff. It's part of the process to help you heal as that
comes in and impacts your body. Anyone who understands the lymphatic
(07:27):
system better than me, feel free to help me out
here. But just know that I know that I don't
know it fully. I just know that it works.
As far as like cancer cells developing, disease developing.
You also have a glymphatic system. And if you haven't heard
of this, it is newer. Science 2012 newer.
(07:51):
For some of you who are younger, that might sound like a long
time ago. If you've lived a lot longer, it seems pretty 2012
could have been a couple years ago, it's really 13 years ago.
But the glymphatic system takes out the waste products
in your brain that builds up during the day.
And without that cleanup, your brain feels more confused,
(08:16):
you have more brain fog and that sort of thing.
I can give you a little more details if you want.
Let me find that
because I thought I really want to understand it.
Even though when my brain understands something, I have
to understand it. So I believe it. But my ability to recall
(08:37):
and give that information out isn't as good as some.
So similar to the lymphatic system, it's
a waste clearing system, but it's for your brain.
It was discovered in 2012 for researchers by researchers at University
of Rochester, I believe that's New York, right.
(08:58):
And it uses cerebrospinal fluid, csf, to
flush out metabolic waste products from brain cells, including
beta amyloid proteins, which are linked to Alzheimer's,
dementia, when they built up. So it's taking these things that
(09:18):
could build up and cause problems, whether it's just in your
daily life or even long, and flushes the waste
away. It's the most active. This process is the
most active while you're in deep sleep.
So you know there's the REM sleep when you're in that
deeper sleep and you're able to get that cycle, that's when it's
(09:40):
the most active. Without enough rest, your brain can't
do its job in cleaning that up, which contributes to brain fog,
slower mental processing and long term risks.
So that's pretty interesting to learn about.
And there are other ways teaching yoga.
I know there are other ways to get your brain into that
(10:04):
state, a similar state. It's not exactly the same state,
but if you've ever done yoga, I don't know if
this happens just in a meditation session, but in yoga, traditionally
the last pose is Shavasana. And people even have T shirts that
say I'm only here for Shavasana or tank tops or whatever.
(10:25):
And Shavasana, if you do it long enough and
if you learn how to do it, or it might just happen on
its own. You reach a state where your brain
gets that deep, deep rest. They call it yoga nidra.
And like I said, I'm not really good at repeating the details,
but I've experienced it and once I experienced it and saw
(10:48):
what it does to recharge my brain and how it makes me
feel throughout my body, it's pretty fabulous.
Usually in my yoga classes, I do shavasana for 10 minutes.
It gives people more of an opportunity to get to that point.
For some people, that's challenging.
It's the most advanced part of their yoga class because how do
you stay still for 10 minutes? You learn.
(11:09):
You learn to stay still for 10 minutes.
And it's usually done just lying on your back.
Could just be on a mat, could be on the floor.
You could have, if you're at home, you could even put your legs
up on a coffee table or a couch or bed.
You know, just the, the calves and stuff.
It's relaxing that way. Or legs up the wall, you move
to the wall and have your legs literally supported by the wall.
(11:30):
Feels pretty great. For most people, everyone's a little different.
But you find your way where your body can be still and you
try to find that stillness in the mind to give yourself that
rest. It's kind of hard sometimes when you have a very
scattered, overactive mind, but that's where you learn ways
to do it, whether it's focusing on your breathing.
(11:52):
Sometimes I should do a little meditation session on here.
I think I'll do that. Maybe I'll make that one of my podcasts
for next week while I'm gone because that will be so easy for
me to record. And if the idea of meditation sounds
woo woo or you know, what she talking about, it's just a way
to relax. It's a, you know, like there's a calm app.
(12:13):
Clearly people need that and use it.
And it's a way to get your body to rest.
And it can happen in 10 or 20 minutes in the middle of
the day where you can get that reset or even if
you don't feel tired, you just get that.
It helps clear your mind. It really, really does.
So another way that rest helps your brain is
(12:38):
in just daily terms. Think of having, well, old fashioned
daily terms. Think of having a filing cabinet.
In the old days there were, and maybe they'll still are metal
filing cabinets. And when I was growing up, usually in a classroom
or something, there was the tall metal single drawer filing
cabinet that maybe had, I don't know, three, five drawers.
(13:00):
They could be really tall, really heavy.
And they just have a ton of files in there.
Probably hanging files for the most part.
Maybe not. And then there were the shorter ones, too.
I even had a few of them. When I decided to get a little more
organized, I bought a few oak lower filing
cabinets just to have to the sides of my desk.
(13:22):
Because paperwork's always been hard for me, and that gave
me a way to put it away and file it away.
I haven't done that in a long time. When we moved that time,
I thought, oh, I don't need these anymore, and got rid of them.
But now I have three. I guess they're boxes,
filing boxes. I like them a lot. I know they're the
(13:42):
paper cardboard boxes. When you watch a TV show
or something, whenever someone gets fired or they quit, they're
cleaning out their office and they always have this cardboard
filing box and they're picking it up like, I'm leaving
the office. It looks like that, except it's made of some
fabric. It's from Amazon. And they're not cheap, but they're
(14:03):
good enough quality for what they do.
If you had to move them a lot, maybe they're not great quality,
but they have a lid. The ones I have are light green.
If you see this room, I kind of like that light green color.
And they help me with filing my taxes and things
like that. Not actually filing my taxes, but, you know, putting
my taxes in a file box, but. And then
(14:26):
also with, you know, Google Docs and Google Drive, that's basically
a filing cabinet. I'm sure Microsoft has one too.
There's probably a lot of systems online where you can file
your ideas, your documents, your
spreadsheets, all those things. So if you had a memory filing
(14:46):
cabinet we think of, wouldn't it be nice to
be able to file a thought away and be able to access it
in our brains? Sometimes we can. Sometimes we are
able to recall things that we know are in there, and other
times we just can't. And it's really interesting to
(15:07):
see that when you're trying to do it on the fly,
you're trying to think of something and you're talking to somebody
and you. I know, I know this. I know I know this.
It'll come to me later. It comes to you later because you're
in a state of rest. Your brain's not having to work as
hard at that moment to think of it. And then it just
pops into your head because your brain is more rested.
Not sleep rested, not lay down rested, but maybe just walking
(15:30):
away. Going in the other room, getting a sip of water,
and the idea comes to you. So when your brain is not
maxed out, when it has more restrictions, there are things that
are filed away that come back to you.
There's a process to get those pieces of information
that are in your brain filed properly.
(15:53):
I did not know this. I did not know this.
This is kind of fascinating. So if you think of
your desk, your table, if you have a desk.
I have. I don't have a desk in this house.
I gave mine to my son because I wasn't using it properly, you
know, I wasn't using it enough to. To whatever the
word is. Value. There's a better word.
(16:14):
But it's not coming to me because it's not.
It's not filed properly, I guess. But to make use
of it, to make it so that I needed it, I gave it to
him because he needed a bigger space for his computer and stuff.
I have a laptop. I'm using a little pottery bar and children's
table that I bought on Marketplace for my grandchildren.
But it's a good size. It's kind of too small for them.
(16:36):
It was smaller than I thought it would be, but I still bought.
I drove to the place and thought, well, it's still cute, even
though it's really, really little. But back to the filing cabinet
for your brain. If you think about your desk, your table, the
floor, however you try to make sense of your papers and
they're just scattered. I always think of that as
an indication of my brain when I'm working on things.
(16:59):
It's so scattered and it's really hard to find
things. You might start out by making stacks, but then you keep
spreading things out and the stacks aren't very neat.
My husband used to walk by when I was
doing things like that. You know, taxes, or back in the
days of scrapbooking or paying bills, when it
(17:21):
was more paper oriented. And he'd walk by and kind of take
the stacks and make them more an actual stack
than a fuzzy stack. If you're thinking of something that's
out of focus and neat. But we actually have that
with our brain too. So when we are sleeping, we're sleeping.
Well, it's when your br takes things that you've learned during
(17:44):
the day and files it away neatly. Isn't that interesting?
Because it seems like. And there's probably more
to this, but it seems like the things that you
remembered from your childhood as a teenager, in
young adulthood, that they got filed away neatly.
(18:07):
And I remember more of those Things than the last 10
year things. Those things maybe aren't stored as well.
Why is that? Did I get better rest when I was younger?
Probably. I probably slept better. My mom was more in control
of that. As a child, you just got the sleep that you needed.
As a teenager, you didn't have as much responsibility.
Maybe you stayed up late, but then you slept in.
(18:30):
And that's kind of fascinating to think of that maybe those
memories that you have from those periods of your life are filed
away better. There are things that can happen in
life that can make you lose access to that and
that's, you know, maybe trauma or different things in
your life that you want to forget some things and you
(18:53):
end up forgetting other things. There's probably a lot of information
on that that I haven't looked up. But if you want to
have a better,
a better filing system for what's going on now, get your sleep.
Get your sleep and getting into a pattern where you can
wake up on your own before your alarm clock.
That's your real sleep pattern. That's your real sleep mode.
(19:18):
Maybe you're somebody that there's no way you could wake up when
you need to without your alarm clock.
But maybe try going to bed a little earlier, maybe see if there's
actually a flow, a rhythm that you could get into.
You still set your alarm because you want to make sure you don't
not wake up. And that might make it harder
to sleep. For me it is if I am not sure I
(19:41):
have my alarm on or what if I don't hear that, then I'm
awake more during the night, not sleeping as well.
And let's see what else here. So this is kind of fascinating
too. So if you've ever tried noise canceling headphones,
earbuds, the headphones work better.
(20:02):
I have these. If you're watching on their beats.
I use them to listen after the podcast to hear how good
the quality is. And I don't know. I
bought them for my husband for Christmas a couple years ago because
he liked noise canceling earbuds for the airplane and I
(20:24):
think he bought a, like a less expensive set from Sony
or something and it wasn't that good quality.
I used it a few times because it's nice not to hear the plane
and stuff and you know, all the announcements and everything,
but it wasn't that great. And then you had to kind of hold
it and push it in to get it to work.
It was a cheaper set. So I bought this for him for
(20:44):
Christmas two years ago on a Black Friday sale.
And I think because it's bigger, I don't think he's ever taken
it on a plane. And my hope was, is that when
we were in our room at night and we were both looking at our
phones, or if I'm watching tv, sometimes he'll go on his phone
and then watch a video and it's playing while I'm
(21:05):
watching something else. And I thought, oh, if he has that, then
I think these ideas are going to magically happen.
Then he'll use the headphones, because that would be nice to
do. He could block out my sound, and then I won't hear
his sound. So I guess this was. I guess this was kind
of a selfish gift in a way, because I thought it would benefit
me. And then I could use it on flights and stuff.
(21:26):
But he never did that. He's still. You know, it's just easier
for him just. And him to watch things on his phone.
And so. Yeah, but I have learned that I
can use this or my AirPods with my TV.
I can use it as a Bluetooth device, and then I can block
out other things and have really good sound.
(21:47):
But anyway, yeah, I use it way more than.
And he does. I take it on flights. It's really, really fabulous
if you want to go into. If you really want to be able to rest
on a flight. In fact, my son called me yesterday.
He had to do an overnight flight to Fort Lauderdale
from college and an overnight flight back because he's
(22:09):
interviewing with dental schools in the middle of college and
you didn't want to miss too much time.
And he said, I gotta learn to sleep better on a plane.
And I thought, yeah, it's hard, especially when you're doing
a cheap flight and the seats are so uncomfortable and.
But you know, when you find a system that works, having those
headphones on. And then if you have a hooded sweatshirt, if
you don't get too hot. I don't get too hot.
I'm always cold. You put the hooded sweatshirt over, and it kind
(22:32):
of dims the light over your eyes. So you've got
your headphones. You've got that on in your own little cave.
And then because you have the hood, even if you don't
want to bring one of those neck pillows, you can take something
else. It could be a T shirt. You could take something else from
your bag and have it in your. Under the thing.
Bag and put it around your neck and the hood will hold
(22:54):
it there. Anyway, that's my latest thing.
But. And then, you know, there's supplements like Ashwagandha
and things that help you feel more sleepy.
But okay, back to noise canceling mode.
So noise canceling can be nice to drown out other things.
And if you use noise canceling earbuds for other reasons, overstimulation,
it's really nice. Sometimes we can't block out
(23:17):
the stimulation. Part of that stimulation can come from our
own brains. And we've just got so much going on.
There's a lot going on during the day.
We can't always be in noise cancellation heaven.
And maybe we like the excitement too.
Maybe we like lively environments. But your ADHD
(23:40):
brain may take on more stimulation than others.
Do you think it does? Think of sounds.
Think of visuals. Think of how clothes fit.
Do any of those affect you more? Do they affect
your body and your brain? Do you hear sounds
(24:00):
and think, this is making my brain feel like I'm
going crazy? Maybe you don't, but I do.
When I turn on a YouTube video and they have music in the background,
unless it's very, very faint,
I can't even hear the person. It's not that I can't hear
the person. I just can't hear both things at the same time.
(24:22):
It's too much stimulation. Or if you go into an
environment, are some environments really easy to be in?
And other ones, it could just be like noticing things that
are crooked on the wall to distract you.
But I teach yoga, and most environments I've taught in
I've really enjoyed. But there's one fitness room at this
(24:44):
gym that I teach at. They have three locations and one of them
is upstairs. It has a low ceiling and it's a long room
and it kind of feels like a cave. I know a ton
of people go to classes there and they have a stage.
I don't like to be on the stage. I tried teaching down lower.
They had really loud fans and you couldn't turn them off.
(25:06):
They weren't just like the ceiling fans to keep you cool.
They were. They're antiviral fans. They echoed too much.
And other people complained to that too.
They said, it's hard to do yoga in here.
I thought, yeah, yeah. Eventually I just said, I can't teach
here anymore. But the room itself, even if the
fans were fixed, I just didn't like it.
(25:26):
And it was just the wrong kind of stimulation for me.
I don't know. I think it was a ceiling thing.
I don't know. Do we get like that when my.
I don't know if I mentioned this before.
When my youngest son who's the one that taught me, I have ADHD.
Because he told me when he went to college, learning from his
friends, I think I might have ADHD. Can I meet with the doctor
(25:48):
when I come home? And I thought, what?
Like, I've raised six kids, what makes you think you have
adhd? Now I have a whole different understanding.
But when he was a baby,
he had five older brothers and sisters, and he's three years
younger than the youngest sister above him.
(26:10):
So a lot of activity. A couple in high school, our house
was busy and noisy. And I never tried to have my
house be quiet. When my kids went to sleep, that's when I vacuumed,
that's when I cleaned up their room.
I just figured, they can go to sleep.
I gotta get things done right? This is my time.
So I never tried to keep the house quiet.
(26:30):
And they fell asleep to noise. And I also did things like played
music for them and stuff like that. And sometimes I shut their
door. But
he was different than my other babies.
I liked. I breastfed all my kids. I liked
to feed him and hold him in my lap and let him
fall asleep and put him in bed.
(26:53):
I didn't put them in bed and have them fall asleep.
I just held them. That was my time. And I would even tell my
other kids, because when you have a baby and you have
five other kids to take care of, you can't give as much
time to your baby as you did, maybe the other ones.
And so I would give him more time to play on
the floor. I wasn't holding him as much.
Other people were holding and playing with him, but I wasn't.
(27:14):
So I thought, I get disrupted so much from being
with him that in the evening, okay, everyone, leave
me alone. This is my time with my baby.
I can feed him, he can go to sleep. We named him James.
I played Rocket by Sweet Baby James.
James Taylor album all the time. That was my exciting
thing. When we decided to name him James, I'm like, I can play.
(27:36):
I can play that music. I can play that album.
So I would feed him. And I mean, Snotty
was always playing. That was more like a nap time thing that
I play that music. But back to the evening, he would never
fall asleep on my lap. And I kept thinking, this is crazy.
This is crazy. Why is he having a hard time falling asleep?
You know, I stand up and kind of, you know, and everything.
(27:57):
He'd fall asleep. And one night I just thought, what's going
on here? And I took him in his room and put
him in his crib and his little baby shoulders just did a
whole, like, I'm so glad to be in
my crib by myself in a room where nobody else is making any
noise. And he shared a room with two brothers.
(28:19):
Excuse me.
And, you know, he was used to stimulation that way, too.
He grew up listening to the Beatles in his crib.
So
the music he listened to. And he still loves the Beatles.
But that was super interesting to see.
From the time he was a baby, when he needed rest,
(28:39):
he couldn't have that stimulation anymore.
It was like, it's over, Mom. Let me be in here alone.
Let my body relax and let me go to sleep.
And so that was his way of having that noise cancellation.
Getting away from all that. Right. Was physically removing him.
Have you ever done that where you've been in a space where it's
just too much and you have to walk outside, go for a walk?
(29:02):
You need to get away from that stimulation.
Your brain takes in so much stimulation during the day
that you need proper rest. You need that
sleep. It's like hitting a noise cancellation button.
It gives your brain the space to quiet down.
And it might seem ironic because
(29:26):
at nighttime, you might feel like, I can't get my brain to
quiet down. I'm laying in bed and I'm thinking of all
these other things. I have a song in my head.
I have. Who knows why all this happens.
A couple months ago, I had actually, was it even.
It was probably just last month that.
I know the little details probably don't matter to you, but I
would have a certain song in my head for about four, five days
(29:49):
in a row, and it would just be in my mind.
I'd sing it, whatever. And I found that when I went to
sleep at night, it was in my head. When I woke up to go to the
bathroom, it was in my head. I'd go right back to sleep.
When I woke up, there it was singing again.
And I thought, that's so crazy that I was able to sleep in
between. And
sometimes our brains are just going and going.
(30:10):
And you need to find what can help your brain quiet when
you're going to sleep. Whatever it is, it can be an
app. It can be white noise. I listen to podcasts
with a relaxing voice with an engaging topic where I can
follow it, enjoy it. But it's not a funny podcast.
(30:31):
I've tried it with my funnier podcasts, or when their voices
get a little, you know, louder and stuff doesn't work as well.
But that's my mode. Or an audiobook but sometimes the audiobooks,
you have to be careful. Sometimes they'll have like a chapter
in between thing where it plays some music that's too loud or
something, or the commercials are too loud, so you
(30:53):
have to find that one that works for you.
And you have to learn to use your timer on your phone because
at some point it needs to stop. And one time I was taking
a nap, I must have been sick because I usually don't take very
long naps. And I put on this podcast that I listened
to. And in my nap, I started dreaming, so I
(31:13):
must have gotten to that REM state or whatever, because usually
I don't nap that long or I don't want to wake up.
But anyway, in my nap, I started dreaming that
I was having this conversation with two people.
And it was almost like I was in a phone booth in the olden days.
Phone booths are small. And these two women were talking to me.
And they kept talking. And I thought, okay, I need to get away
(31:35):
from you now. I need to not hear you talk anymore.
So I walked out of the phone booth and then sat in a booth, like
in a restaurant, and they kept talking.
And I thought, okay, it's really nice talking to you, but I need
to go now. And in my dream, I kept going away.
It was the voices of my podcast. I didn't put a sleep timer on,
and they kept talking because they were still talking.
(31:55):
And in my dream, I. My brain knew, you need
to stop talking. But in my real life, I didn't know what
was happening. Let's see back here. I am going
to see if I can pause for a second to get a sip
of water. I don't know how to just do that without it
making noise. So just a second. I actually dropped.
(32:18):
I mean, I have a cold drink here of water, and then I also have
Throat Coat tea. Have you ever tried that?
It's by, I don't know, organic medicinals or something like that.
It's called Throat Coat. And it is the best for soothing your
throat if you like the taste of licorice in a tea, which I
didn't even know it was licorice. I guess licorice is good for
your throat. But my husband said, oh, that's licorice.
(32:40):
And I thought, no, it's not. Because I usually just had Red Vines
and it doesn't taste like Red Vines.
And I never liked black licorice. But when I really think
about that, it kind of tastes like black licorice without being
yucky. And I guess black licorice is like really more of a
licorice taste. And I don't know if you've ever seen actual
licorice plants. It's like a weed. One time we
(33:02):
were going for a walk years ago, my husband said, look, that's
licorice and you can bite it and taste it.
I'm like, what? And it was the same taste.
So who knew? That's our little. That's our little
informative bit about licorice. But yeah, throat coat tea,
if you never tried it, it's fabulous.
Fabulous. So, last thing, executive function.
(33:24):
So when you have adhd,
you it's very, very likely you have executive dysfunction.
It is a key element in adhd, especially the attentive type.
So the ability to plan and make decisions, have self
control. That could be more the hyperactive, impulsive type,
(33:45):
but it can also be the inattentive type.
Because how much control do you have with your brain
to stay focused? The inattention is on the
thing that you're trying to pay attention to.
Yes, you have a lot of things that you pay attention to,
but what about the thing that you need to pay attention to?
So that executive dysfunction, that inability for your working
(34:09):
memory to take some information, I'm going to put my keys
down. You're not taking that information and remembering where
you put them down. If you don't put them in the same place every
time. And that helps. That causes you to
lose things, to not keep track of things.
And when you don't have the proper rest, it's going
(34:31):
to be worse. Last night, and so I have this little
system. We have an ice maker, but I also bought a little silicone
ice tray with a lid that they sell like at TJ
Maxx and stuff. And it has really big ice cubes.
And I bought it because of our ice. And my collection, my ice
maker stops working. I'll have another source.
And it has really huge ice cubes. So I keep making them
(34:54):
because now that I teach hot yoga, I need the bigger ice cubes.
They keep the water cooler longer and it just adds to our
ice production. So I'll just. I kind of have.
That's part of my daily thing that every once in a while I'll
think, take that out, put it on the counter.
It sticks to it when you first take it out.
So it has to sit there for a little bit and then you can take
(35:15):
it out. And if I forget about it, I come in
and it's a puddle of water. And I think, oh, I forgot.
And so last night I thought, go in and take
that out, and just a few minutes later come
back in and put it in the freezer. Because tomorrow morning you
need to get your water bottles, your smoothie, everything ready
(35:36):
to go to hot yoga. Because I really have to
make sure I'm hydrated before, during, after, eat something right
after so that it doesn't just wipe me out for the
rest of the day. It's my whole hot yoga teaching method.
And so I thought, okay, I'll do that.
And I go in the other room because it
was kind of the last thing I need to do.
(35:57):
I need to go in the bathroom, brush my teeth, and I was going
to come back in. I go back in the kitchen, I don't even see it.
A lot of times I miss it because I don't go back in the kitchen.
I go in the kitchen, I don't see it.
I turn off the light in the pantry. I walk out in the dark and
go to get in bed.
And somehow I remembered, you still have the ice in
(36:18):
there. I must have done four or five things in between, because
by the time I went back in there, it had melted quite a
bit, but not completely. So I assessed.
Do you want to just stick it back in the freezer like you normally
do, or do you want to just use these ice cubes that aren't as
big, but throw them in there, refill it.
Maybe I'll have some new ones in the morning to add to it.
(36:39):
And I thought, yeah, do that. So I did that.
But I
stumbled and knocked things over. And because I was
in the dark, I'm trying to be quiet.
My husband's already fallen asleep, and it's pretty echoey there.
And I think, just, you know, get out the water and pour it in
and put it away. So I do. And usually I spill water all over
(37:00):
the counter and everything. I'm like, whatever, put it away and
think, just go back to bed. But I decide to put one
more thing over on the counter by the sink.
And when I do, I knock over a giant water bottle that still
had water in it. And it's, you know, one of those kind of
hydroflas, tall metal ones. Knocks over on the
floor, water goes all over the floor.
(37:22):
I'm in the dark. I'm in my last thing of the day.
But I wasn't doing anything carefully.
I wasn't even giving myself the advantage of sight.
I was trying to do it in the dark. So I turned on
the lights, found a towel, and just kind of laughed because that's
my Life. That's my life. But yeah, yeah, yeah.
(37:44):
Oh, but yeah, all these things. It's pretty fascinating because
we have lower dopamine levels for what we
need to use. And I didn't know that sleep
could help. I knew that other things could help boost that.
Dopamine, dopamine production, dopamine function like exercise,
(38:05):
like ADHD medication. There are even some supplements that help
some people. But sleep is really important.
And
the glymphatic system, I mean, who knew we had waste products?
Which makes sense because we have waste products in our body.
We go to the bathroom, we eat, and that nourishes our body
(38:26):
in that way. But we also have a cleaning system for the brain
and a filing system. Kind of makes sense.
I knew about the working memory that it needs to go in there.
I didn't know it need to get even tucked away even more
as we rest. Kind of wonderful to know.
(38:50):
And I'm sure you know ways to rest to get
your sleep. I mean, sleep is the number one one, but really
listening to your body and fitting it in, scheduling it.
I tell people when they come to my classes, I even teach some
stretch classes and do it more in a yoga mode, but
without as much yoga talk. But sometimes you have
(39:14):
to schedule rest like it's an appointment.
And that is why people go to yoga classes or a stretch class,
because they realize I'm not going to do this on my own and
my body needs it. But if you can get yourself to do
it on your own, even at home, I have yoga videos.
You could do some at home if you wanted.
But just tell yourself at this time of day or
twice a week, I'm going to do this. When you've been really going,
(39:36):
going, going, plan in some downtime, take breaks, all of
those things. Take a nap if you need it.
Take a quiet time even, you know, if you're getting places
late and you really plan to get somewhere early, sometimes that'll
just make it so you get there on time.
But if you do actually get there early, sit in your car,
let yourself close your eyes a little bit, set an alarm so you
(39:58):
don't sleep past it. You know, if you can fall asleep in your
car or even just close your eyes and enjoy a moment.
But you need to treat rest as this, recharge, this restoration
in your body to help your brain do its absolute best.
It is a strategy, not a luxury. I mean, it's a luxury
(40:20):
too, but it's an ADHD tool to get the rest that
you need. And if you're having a hard time going to
sleep, try to go to sleep earlier. It's not always easy, but
start by going to sleep earlier and see if that helps you
get into a pattern. Because maybe you do need more sleep and
maybe you don't. I've worried often because I'm good with six
hours if I get sick. I try to get myself
(40:43):
to sleep longer if I can, but usually I wake up after
six hours. And I used to worry because every article,
every expert says eight hours. And I asked my
doctor last time I went in, just my family doctor and maybe she
doesn't know everything, but I just said, should I be worried
if I'm just getting six hours of sleep?
(41:04):
Is that causing some disadvantage in my body?
She said, are you tired during the day?
And I said, no. She said, then you shouldn't be worried.
So that's good, huh? Good, good, good.
Thank you so much for being here. Happy Thursday.
If you're listening today, thank you for listening.
Share my podcast with a friend or two or more.
Spread the word. Help other people figure out their brains
(41:27):
and get them to work better. Or at least just, you know, get
the rest we need so we can not max out.
We do the best we can. It's not always going to be perfect.
We might have our evenings where we knock things on the floor
and have to clean up water at the end, but it's part of
life when you have ADHD. Thank you so much.
(41:49):
I will be back with more episodes next week,
even though I'll actually be out of town.
And I'll be back the following week.
But have a lovely fall day. If you get fall weather,
fall colors. That's amazing. And I guess
that's it. I have such a hard time saying goodbye.
Bye.
(42:16):
I butter my toast Spread on some grape
jelly I don't need to fast But
I'm a chef and a good one My grandma
can't hear me the breakfast is done and
I'm getting colder forever older so I run
(42:44):
Open window broken shadow
Frozen dreams are left for. Tomorrow.
Time for a poem
(43:17):
rewind I run out of time to sing
melodies and harmonies I'm cut short
the silence of sound has yet been found but
not by me.
Hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with ADHD.
Hi, I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast.
I'm excited to be here. It's early morning.
I think this is the first time I've ever recorded early in the
morning. So we'll see how it goes. And if you're watching
on video, I can't get the zoom to work, so this is a little
farther back, but I'm sure you don't care, so.
And I'm going to zip up my jacket, so all the little things I
(00:52):
got to do so I'm not distracted by now.
I don't know if I want to wear it that way, but I'll just keep
going. But today's episode is about rest.
And it's interesting because I was going to record this last
night, but I thought, you know, I came back from a yoga class
I teach from 7 to 8 on Wednesdays, and I've recorded
(01:13):
in the evenings before, but I just felt like I needed some downtime
instead of talking, and so I did. And then
I thought, well, then you're going to have to get up earlier
because I want to get this out tomorrow morning.
So I went to sleep earlier, about an hour earlier
than I normally do. But it's the time that I
used to go to bed, and I've been wanting to go to bed earlier,
(01:35):
and I thought, how fitting for today's topic because getting
rest is important and getting enough sleep is important.
And one of the key things is going to bed early enough.
And sometimes when you have adhd, you keep thinking of other
things to do. You think, this is important, I need to do this.
This is important, I need to do that.
And you don't get the rest you need.
(01:56):
And you stay up, and you stay up, and then you still have to
get up at the same time. So I'm glad I did that.
I think we'll see. We'll see how my brain performs because according
to the studies, it'll do better. But it's not just the rest
that you get for sleep. It's also the rest that you get during
the day, throughout the day. If you feel that
(02:17):
you've been pushing it, you realize, I need to slow down, I need
to slow down. You need to listen to those signals.
And there are times when we need to push and there are times
that we need to slow down. In yoga, in Sanskrit, there's a
name. It's like Sthira and Sukta or something like that.
And it's a balance between effort and ease.
And I love that because we do need to find that
(02:39):
balance. We need to put forth effort at times.
We need to push ourselves. If we can get ourselves to do something,
we need to push ourselves to do that.
And there are times that we need to slow down from the pushing,
that we need to say, it's time to pause, it's time to rest.
It can't keep going forever. Our bodies aren't built to do that.
Our bodies are actually built to recover when we rest.
(03:02):
And it's pretty interesting to learn the science behind this
because it applies to our ADHD brains in ways that
I didn't realize. And at first, I have to admit,
it sounded hokey. I thought, is this real science?
Is this real? And it is. So I have some
resources and stuff, so let me see what I can find here.
(03:25):
But if you think of. Of just
the things that we do during the day, like we go get gas for
our cars and we stop and we put gas in the car
so it can keep going. If we don't do that, or even if you have
a hybrid car or an electric car, you have to recharge that car
so it can keep going. It can't keep going on its own.
(03:47):
And we're like that with our bodies, we need the rest.
But with our ADHD brains, we need a proper amount of
dopamine to function, to be able to get ourselves
to a point where we can accomplish things, where we can
do what we need to do, where we can go through our lives
in a way that's meaningful. And if we had.
(04:10):
They used to call gas stations, filling stations.
I don't know if you knew that. My dad probably still calls it
a filling station, but it's where you go and fill up your car
with gas. And when you get sleep, when you get
enough rest, it's like plugging your phone in to recharge it.
It's like putting gasoline in your car.
Your ADHD brain runs low on dopamine faster than
(04:31):
others, and it needs more dopamine to function properly.
Some say it's because we have more dopamine receptors.
Some say it's because the dopamine that we have doesn't
always process right with the receptors.
And so we need more than most. And the downtime helps restore
the dopamine and helps it function better.
(04:54):
So that is exciting to know. The other thing is, you know,
these are all the things that we know in life, that our houses
don't just stay clean on their own. Our cars don't stay clean
on their own. My car Is pretty dirty right now.
And wouldn't it be nice if we always had someone to do that for
us? Some of you might. I don't. And if you
(05:16):
had a house that was just in a disastrous mode, and maybe
you're raising your hand and you're saying, I do.
If you had someone to come in and just clean, it's pretty fabulous.
When my second oldest daughter got married several years ago,
it was right before Christmas, so we drove couple
days to get to her wedding. We did a big road trip and
(05:37):
a road trip back. And then we had her kind of
an open house at our house. She didn't graduate or grow up
where we lived at the time. So we had an open house instead of
a big reception where people who lived around could come
or some of our current friends could come and meet her and
stuff. And my husband said, maybe we should
(05:59):
have someone come clean the house when we get back.
So you don't have to worry about that.
We don't have to worry about that. After getting back from the
trip, on top of preparing for the open house, someone
just comes in and cleans the house, which ended up being, I think,
three ladies that came. I got a reference from someone else.
The three ladies came in and cleaned.
It was the nicest thing. And it was interesting to see how they
(06:20):
worked because they worked from the ceiling down.
I don't know that they actually cleaned the ceiling, but it made
sense in their method because they started up top.
So if there are spiderwebs or whatever and clean, dusted, whatever
they did to clean. And then at the end they cleaned the
floors. And I thought that's kind of cool.
I love their method because anything you clean higher up maybe
ends up on the floor at the end and you just clean that up.
(06:43):
But I loved their system. And when you rest, it's
like your brain has a little cleaning crew that comes through
at night. They call this the glymphatic system.
And so like the lymphatic system, like lymph nodes take care
of the waste and things that aren't, you know, like when
(07:04):
you get. Okay, maybe I'm not very much of a
scientist when it comes to lymph tissues, But I do know that
one of their jobs is to take things like disease and stuff
and put. And, you know, like you get the swollen lymph nodes
and stuff. It's part of the process to help you heal as that
comes in and impacts your body. Anyone who understands the lymphatic
(07:27):
system better than me, feel free to help me out
here. But just know that I know that I don't
know it fully. I just know that it works.
As far as like cancer cells developing, disease developing.
You also have a glymphatic system. And if you haven't heard
of this, it is newer. Science 2012 newer.
(07:51):
For some of you who are younger, that might sound like a long
time ago. If you've lived a lot longer, it seems pretty 2012
could have been a couple years ago, it's really 13 years ago.
But the glymphatic system takes out the waste products
in your brain that builds up during the day.
And without that cleanup, your brain feels more confused,
(08:16):
you have more brain fog and that sort of thing.
I can give you a little more details if you want.
Let me find that
because I thought I really want to understand it.
Even though when my brain understands something, I have
to understand it. So I believe it. But my ability to recall
(08:37):
and give that information out isn't as good as some.
So similar to the lymphatic system, it's
a waste clearing system, but it's for your brain.
It was discovered in 2012 for researchers by researchers at University
of Rochester, I believe that's New York, right.
(08:58):
And it uses cerebrospinal fluid, csf, to
flush out metabolic waste products from brain cells, including
beta amyloid proteins, which are linked to Alzheimer's,
dementia, when they built up. So it's taking these things that
(09:18):
could build up and cause problems, whether it's just in your
daily life or even long, and flushes the waste
away. It's the most active. This process is the
most active while you're in deep sleep.
So you know there's the REM sleep when you're in that
deeper sleep and you're able to get that cycle, that's when it's
(09:40):
the most active. Without enough rest, your brain can't
do its job in cleaning that up, which contributes to brain fog,
slower mental processing and long term risks.
So that's pretty interesting to learn about.
And there are other ways teaching yoga.
I know there are other ways to get your brain into that
(10:04):
state, a similar state. It's not exactly the same state,
but if you've ever done yoga, I don't know if
this happens just in a meditation session, but in yoga, traditionally
the last pose is Shavasana. And people even have T shirts that
say I'm only here for Shavasana or tank tops or whatever.
(10:25):
And Shavasana, if you do it long enough and
if you learn how to do it, or it might just happen on
its own. You reach a state where your brain
gets that deep, deep rest. They call it yoga nidra.
And like I said, I'm not really good at repeating the details,
but I've experienced it and once I experienced it and saw
(10:48):
what it does to recharge my brain and how it makes me
feel throughout my body, it's pretty fabulous.
Usually in my yoga classes, I do shavasana for 10 minutes.
It gives people more of an opportunity to get to that point.
For some people, that's challenging.
It's the most advanced part of their yoga class because how do
you stay still for 10 minutes? You learn.
(11:09):
You learn to stay still for 10 minutes.
And it's usually done just lying on your back.
Could just be on a mat, could be on the floor.
You could have, if you're at home, you could even put your legs
up on a coffee table or a couch or bed.
You know, just the, the calves and stuff.
It's relaxing that way. Or legs up the wall, you move
to the wall and have your legs literally supported by the wall.
(11:30):
Feels pretty great. For most people, everyone's a little different.
But you find your way where your body can be still and you
try to find that stillness in the mind to give yourself that
rest. It's kind of hard sometimes when you have a very
scattered, overactive mind, but that's where you learn ways
to do it, whether it's focusing on your breathing.
(11:52):
Sometimes I should do a little meditation session on here.
I think I'll do that. Maybe I'll make that one of my podcasts
for next week while I'm gone because that will be so easy for
me to record. And if the idea of meditation sounds
woo woo or you know, what she talking about, it's just a way
to relax. It's a, you know, like there's a calm app.
(12:13):
Clearly people need that and use it.
And it's a way to get your body to rest.
And it can happen in 10 or 20 minutes in the middle of
the day where you can get that reset or even if
you don't feel tired, you just get that.
It helps clear your mind. It really, really does.
So another way that rest helps your brain is
(12:38):
in just daily terms. Think of having, well, old fashioned
daily terms. Think of having a filing cabinet.
In the old days there were, and maybe they'll still are metal
filing cabinets. And when I was growing up, usually in a classroom
or something, there was the tall metal single drawer filing
cabinet that maybe had, I don't know, three, five drawers.
(13:00):
They could be really tall, really heavy.
And they just have a ton of files in there.
Probably hanging files for the most part.
Maybe not. And then there were the shorter ones, too.
I even had a few of them. When I decided to get a little more
organized, I bought a few oak lower filing
cabinets just to have to the sides of my desk.
(13:22):
Because paperwork's always been hard for me, and that gave
me a way to put it away and file it away.
I haven't done that in a long time. When we moved that time,
I thought, oh, I don't need these anymore, and got rid of them.
But now I have three. I guess they're boxes,
filing boxes. I like them a lot. I know they're the
(13:42):
paper cardboard boxes. When you watch a TV show
or something, whenever someone gets fired or they quit, they're
cleaning out their office and they always have this cardboard
filing box and they're picking it up like, I'm leaving
the office. It looks like that, except it's made of some
fabric. It's from Amazon. And they're not cheap, but they're
(14:03):
good enough quality for what they do.
If you had to move them a lot, maybe they're not great quality,
but they have a lid. The ones I have are light green.
If you see this room, I kind of like that light green color.
And they help me with filing my taxes and things
like that. Not actually filing my taxes, but, you know, putting
my taxes in a file box, but. And then
(14:26):
also with, you know, Google Docs and Google Drive, that's basically
a filing cabinet. I'm sure Microsoft has one too.
There's probably a lot of systems online where you can file
your ideas, your documents, your
spreadsheets, all those things. So if you had a memory filing
(14:46):
cabinet we think of, wouldn't it be nice to
be able to file a thought away and be able to access it
in our brains? Sometimes we can. Sometimes we are
able to recall things that we know are in there, and other
times we just can't. And it's really interesting to
(15:07):
see that when you're trying to do it on the fly,
you're trying to think of something and you're talking to somebody
and you. I know, I know this. I know I know this.
It'll come to me later. It comes to you later because you're
in a state of rest. Your brain's not having to work as
hard at that moment to think of it. And then it just
pops into your head because your brain is more rested.
Not sleep rested, not lay down rested, but maybe just walking
(15:30):
away. Going in the other room, getting a sip of water,
and the idea comes to you. So when your brain is not
maxed out, when it has more restrictions, there are things that
are filed away that come back to you.
There's a process to get those pieces of information
that are in your brain filed properly.
(15:53):
I did not know this. I did not know this.
This is kind of fascinating. So if you think of
your desk, your table, if you have a desk.
I have. I don't have a desk in this house.
I gave mine to my son because I wasn't using it properly, you
know, I wasn't using it enough to. To whatever the
word is. Value. There's a better word.
(16:14):
But it's not coming to me because it's not.
It's not filed properly, I guess. But to make use
of it, to make it so that I needed it, I gave it to
him because he needed a bigger space for his computer and stuff.
I have a laptop. I'm using a little pottery bar and children's
table that I bought on Marketplace for my grandchildren.
But it's a good size. It's kind of too small for them.
(16:36):
It was smaller than I thought it would be, but I still bought.
I drove to the place and thought, well, it's still cute, even
though it's really, really little. But back to the filing cabinet
for your brain. If you think about your desk, your table, the
floor, however you try to make sense of your papers and
they're just scattered. I always think of that as
an indication of my brain when I'm working on things.
(16:59):
It's so scattered and it's really hard to find
things. You might start out by making stacks, but then you keep
spreading things out and the stacks aren't very neat.
My husband used to walk by when I was
doing things like that. You know, taxes, or back in the
days of scrapbooking or paying bills, when it
(17:21):
was more paper oriented. And he'd walk by and kind of take
the stacks and make them more an actual stack
than a fuzzy stack. If you're thinking of something that's
out of focus and neat. But we actually have that
with our brain too. So when we are sleeping, we're sleeping.
Well, it's when your br takes things that you've learned during
(17:44):
the day and files it away neatly. Isn't that interesting?
Because it seems like. And there's probably more
to this, but it seems like the things that you
remembered from your childhood as a teenager, in
young adulthood, that they got filed away neatly.
(18:07):
And I remember more of those Things than the last 10
year things. Those things maybe aren't stored as well.
Why is that? Did I get better rest when I was younger?
Probably. I probably slept better. My mom was more in control
of that. As a child, you just got the sleep that you needed.
As a teenager, you didn't have as much responsibility.
Maybe you stayed up late, but then you slept in.
(18:30):
And that's kind of fascinating to think of that maybe those
memories that you have from those periods of your life are filed
away better. There are things that can happen in
life that can make you lose access to that and
that's, you know, maybe trauma or different things in
your life that you want to forget some things and you
(18:53):
end up forgetting other things. There's probably a lot of information
on that that I haven't looked up. But if you want to
have a better,
a better filing system for what's going on now, get your sleep.
Get your sleep and getting into a pattern where you can
wake up on your own before your alarm clock.
That's your real sleep pattern. That's your real sleep mode.
(19:18):
Maybe you're somebody that there's no way you could wake up when
you need to without your alarm clock.
But maybe try going to bed a little earlier, maybe see if there's
actually a flow, a rhythm that you could get into.
You still set your alarm because you want to make sure you don't
not wake up. And that might make it harder
to sleep. For me it is if I am not sure I
(19:41):
have my alarm on or what if I don't hear that, then I'm
awake more during the night, not sleeping as well.
And let's see what else here. So this is kind of fascinating
too. So if you've ever tried noise canceling headphones,
earbuds, the headphones work better.
(20:02):
I have these. If you're watching on their beats.
I use them to listen after the podcast to hear how good
the quality is. And I don't know. I
bought them for my husband for Christmas a couple years ago because
he liked noise canceling earbuds for the airplane and I
(20:24):
think he bought a, like a less expensive set from Sony
or something and it wasn't that good quality.
I used it a few times because it's nice not to hear the plane
and stuff and you know, all the announcements and everything,
but it wasn't that great. And then you had to kind of hold
it and push it in to get it to work.
It was a cheaper set. So I bought this for him for
(20:44):
Christmas two years ago on a Black Friday sale.
And I think because it's bigger, I don't think he's ever taken
it on a plane. And my hope was, is that when
we were in our room at night and we were both looking at our
phones, or if I'm watching tv, sometimes he'll go on his phone
and then watch a video and it's playing while I'm
(21:05):
watching something else. And I thought, oh, if he has that, then
I think these ideas are going to magically happen.
Then he'll use the headphones, because that would be nice to
do. He could block out my sound, and then I won't hear
his sound. So I guess this was. I guess this was kind
of a selfish gift in a way, because I thought it would benefit
me. And then I could use it on flights and stuff.
(21:26):
But he never did that. He's still. You know, it's just easier
for him just. And him to watch things on his phone.
And so. Yeah, but I have learned that I
can use this or my AirPods with my TV.
I can use it as a Bluetooth device, and then I can block
out other things and have really good sound.
(21:47):
But anyway, yeah, I use it way more than.
And he does. I take it on flights. It's really, really fabulous
if you want to go into. If you really want to be able to rest
on a flight. In fact, my son called me yesterday.
He had to do an overnight flight to Fort Lauderdale
from college and an overnight flight back because he's
(22:09):
interviewing with dental schools in the middle of college and
you didn't want to miss too much time.
And he said, I gotta learn to sleep better on a plane.
And I thought, yeah, it's hard, especially when you're doing
a cheap flight and the seats are so uncomfortable and.
But you know, when you find a system that works, having those
headphones on. And then if you have a hooded sweatshirt, if
you don't get too hot. I don't get too hot.
I'm always cold. You put the hooded sweatshirt over, and it kind
(22:32):
of dims the light over your eyes. So you've got
your headphones. You've got that on in your own little cave.
And then because you have the hood, even if you don't
want to bring one of those neck pillows, you can take something
else. It could be a T shirt. You could take something else from
your bag and have it in your. Under the thing.
Bag and put it around your neck and the hood will hold
(22:54):
it there. Anyway, that's my latest thing.
But. And then, you know, there's supplements like Ashwagandha
and things that help you feel more sleepy.
But okay, back to noise canceling mode.
So noise canceling can be nice to drown out other things.
And if you use noise canceling earbuds for other reasons, overstimulation,
it's really nice. Sometimes we can't block out
(23:17):
the stimulation. Part of that stimulation can come from our
own brains. And we've just got so much going on.
There's a lot going on during the day.
We can't always be in noise cancellation heaven.
And maybe we like the excitement too.
Maybe we like lively environments. But your ADHD
(23:40):
brain may take on more stimulation than others.
Do you think it does? Think of sounds.
Think of visuals. Think of how clothes fit.
Do any of those affect you more? Do they affect
your body and your brain? Do you hear sounds
(24:00):
and think, this is making my brain feel like I'm
going crazy? Maybe you don't, but I do.
When I turn on a YouTube video and they have music in the background,
unless it's very, very faint,
I can't even hear the person. It's not that I can't hear
the person. I just can't hear both things at the same time.
(24:22):
It's too much stimulation. Or if you go into an
environment, are some environments really easy to be in?
And other ones, it could just be like noticing things that
are crooked on the wall to distract you.
But I teach yoga, and most environments I've taught in
I've really enjoyed. But there's one fitness room at this
(24:44):
gym that I teach at. They have three locations and one of them
is upstairs. It has a low ceiling and it's a long room
and it kind of feels like a cave. I know a ton
of people go to classes there and they have a stage.
I don't like to be on the stage. I tried teaching down lower.
They had really loud fans and you couldn't turn them off.
(25:06):
They weren't just like the ceiling fans to keep you cool.
They were. They're antiviral fans. They echoed too much.
And other people complained to that too.
They said, it's hard to do yoga in here.
I thought, yeah, yeah. Eventually I just said, I can't teach
here anymore. But the room itself, even if the
fans were fixed, I just didn't like it.
(25:26):
And it was just the wrong kind of stimulation for me.
I don't know. I think it was a ceiling thing.
I don't know. Do we get like that when my.
I don't know if I mentioned this before.
When my youngest son who's the one that taught me, I have ADHD.
Because he told me when he went to college, learning from his
friends, I think I might have ADHD. Can I meet with the doctor
(25:48):
when I come home? And I thought, what?
Like, I've raised six kids, what makes you think you have
adhd? Now I have a whole different understanding.
But when he was a baby,
he had five older brothers and sisters, and he's three years
younger than the youngest sister above him.
(26:10):
So a lot of activity. A couple in high school, our house
was busy and noisy. And I never tried to have my
house be quiet. When my kids went to sleep, that's when I vacuumed,
that's when I cleaned up their room.
I just figured, they can go to sleep.
I gotta get things done right? This is my time.
So I never tried to keep the house quiet.
(26:30):
And they fell asleep to noise. And I also did things like played
music for them and stuff like that. And sometimes I shut their
door. But
he was different than my other babies.
I liked. I breastfed all my kids. I liked
to feed him and hold him in my lap and let him
fall asleep and put him in bed.
(26:53):
I didn't put them in bed and have them fall asleep.
I just held them. That was my time. And I would even tell my
other kids, because when you have a baby and you have
five other kids to take care of, you can't give as much
time to your baby as you did, maybe the other ones.
And so I would give him more time to play on
the floor. I wasn't holding him as much.
Other people were holding and playing with him, but I wasn't.
(27:14):
So I thought, I get disrupted so much from being
with him that in the evening, okay, everyone, leave
me alone. This is my time with my baby.
I can feed him, he can go to sleep. We named him James.
I played Rocket by Sweet Baby James.
James Taylor album all the time. That was my exciting
thing. When we decided to name him James, I'm like, I can play.
(27:36):
I can play that music. I can play that album.
So I would feed him. And I mean, Snotty
was always playing. That was more like a nap time thing that
I play that music. But back to the evening, he would never
fall asleep on my lap. And I kept thinking, this is crazy.
This is crazy. Why is he having a hard time falling asleep?
You know, I stand up and kind of, you know, and everything.
(27:57):
He'd fall asleep. And one night I just thought, what's going
on here? And I took him in his room and put
him in his crib and his little baby shoulders just did a
whole, like, I'm so glad to be in
my crib by myself in a room where nobody else is making any
noise. And he shared a room with two brothers.
(28:19):
Excuse me.
And, you know, he was used to stimulation that way, too.
He grew up listening to the Beatles in his crib.
So
the music he listened to. And he still loves the Beatles.
But that was super interesting to see.
From the time he was a baby, when he needed rest,
(28:39):
he couldn't have that stimulation anymore.
It was like, it's over, Mom. Let me be in here alone.
Let my body relax and let me go to sleep.
And so that was his way of having that noise cancellation.
Getting away from all that. Right. Was physically removing him.
Have you ever done that where you've been in a space where it's
just too much and you have to walk outside, go for a walk?
(29:02):
You need to get away from that stimulation.
Your brain takes in so much stimulation during the day
that you need proper rest. You need that
sleep. It's like hitting a noise cancellation button.
It gives your brain the space to quiet down.
And it might seem ironic because
(29:26):
at nighttime, you might feel like, I can't get my brain to
quiet down. I'm laying in bed and I'm thinking of all
these other things. I have a song in my head.
I have. Who knows why all this happens.
A couple months ago, I had actually, was it even.
It was probably just last month that.
I know the little details probably don't matter to you, but I
would have a certain song in my head for about four, five days
(29:49):
in a row, and it would just be in my mind.
I'd sing it, whatever. And I found that when I went to
sleep at night, it was in my head. When I woke up to go to the
bathroom, it was in my head. I'd go right back to sleep.
When I woke up, there it was singing again.
And I thought, that's so crazy that I was able to sleep in
between. And
sometimes our brains are just going and going.
(30:10):
And you need to find what can help your brain quiet when
you're going to sleep. Whatever it is, it can be an
app. It can be white noise. I listen to podcasts
with a relaxing voice with an engaging topic where I can
follow it, enjoy it. But it's not a funny podcast.
(30:31):
I've tried it with my funnier podcasts, or when their voices
get a little, you know, louder and stuff doesn't work as well.
But that's my mode. Or an audiobook but sometimes the audiobooks,
you have to be careful. Sometimes they'll have like a chapter
in between thing where it plays some music that's too loud or
something, or the commercials are too loud, so you
(30:53):
have to find that one that works for you.
And you have to learn to use your timer on your phone because
at some point it needs to stop. And one time I was taking
a nap, I must have been sick because I usually don't take very
long naps. And I put on this podcast that I listened
to. And in my nap, I started dreaming, so I
(31:13):
must have gotten to that REM state or whatever, because usually
I don't nap that long or I don't want to wake up.
But anyway, in my nap, I started dreaming that
I was having this conversation with two people.
And it was almost like I was in a phone booth in the olden days.
Phone booths are small. And these two women were talking to me.
And they kept talking. And I thought, okay, I need to get away
(31:35):
from you now. I need to not hear you talk anymore.
So I walked out of the phone booth and then sat in a booth, like
in a restaurant, and they kept talking.
And I thought, okay, it's really nice talking to you, but I need
to go now. And in my dream, I kept going away.
It was the voices of my podcast. I didn't put a sleep timer on,
and they kept talking because they were still talking.
(31:55):
And in my dream, I. My brain knew, you need
to stop talking. But in my real life, I didn't know what
was happening. Let's see back here. I am going
to see if I can pause for a second to get a sip
of water. I don't know how to just do that without it
making noise. So just a second. I actually dropped.
(32:18):
I mean, I have a cold drink here of water, and then I also have
Throat Coat tea. Have you ever tried that?
It's by, I don't know, organic medicinals or something like that.
It's called Throat Coat. And it is the best for soothing your
throat if you like the taste of licorice in a tea, which I
didn't even know it was licorice. I guess licorice is good for
your throat. But my husband said, oh, that's licorice.
(32:40):
And I thought, no, it's not. Because I usually just had Red Vines
and it doesn't taste like Red Vines.
And I never liked black licorice. But when I really think
about that, it kind of tastes like black licorice without being
yucky. And I guess black licorice is like really more of a
licorice taste. And I don't know if you've ever seen actual
licorice plants. It's like a weed. One time we
(33:02):
were going for a walk years ago, my husband said, look, that's
licorice and you can bite it and taste it.
I'm like, what? And it was the same taste.
So who knew? That's our little. That's our little
informative bit about licorice. But yeah, throat coat tea,
if you never tried it, it's fabulous.
Fabulous. So, last thing, executive function.
(33:24):
So when you have adhd,
you it's very, very likely you have executive dysfunction.
It is a key element in adhd, especially the attentive type.
So the ability to plan and make decisions, have self
control. That could be more the hyperactive, impulsive type,
(33:45):
but it can also be the inattentive type.
Because how much control do you have with your brain
to stay focused? The inattention is on the
thing that you're trying to pay attention to.
Yes, you have a lot of things that you pay attention to,
but what about the thing that you need to pay attention to?
So that executive dysfunction, that inability for your working
(34:09):
memory to take some information, I'm going to put my keys
down. You're not taking that information and remembering where
you put them down. If you don't put them in the same place every
time. And that helps. That causes you to
lose things, to not keep track of things.
And when you don't have the proper rest, it's going
(34:31):
to be worse. Last night, and so I have this little
system. We have an ice maker, but I also bought a little silicone
ice tray with a lid that they sell like at TJ
Maxx and stuff. And it has really big ice cubes.
And I bought it because of our ice. And my collection, my ice
maker stops working. I'll have another source.
And it has really huge ice cubes. So I keep making them
(34:54):
because now that I teach hot yoga, I need the bigger ice cubes.
They keep the water cooler longer and it just adds to our
ice production. So I'll just. I kind of have.
That's part of my daily thing that every once in a while I'll
think, take that out, put it on the counter.
It sticks to it when you first take it out.
So it has to sit there for a little bit and then you can take
(35:15):
it out. And if I forget about it, I come in
and it's a puddle of water. And I think, oh, I forgot.
And so last night I thought, go in and take
that out, and just a few minutes later come
back in and put it in the freezer. Because tomorrow morning you
need to get your water bottles, your smoothie, everything ready
(35:36):
to go to hot yoga. Because I really have to
make sure I'm hydrated before, during, after, eat something right
after so that it doesn't just wipe me out for the
rest of the day. It's my whole hot yoga teaching method.
And so I thought, okay, I'll do that.
And I go in the other room because it
was kind of the last thing I need to do.
(35:57):
I need to go in the bathroom, brush my teeth, and I was going
to come back in. I go back in the kitchen, I don't even see it.
A lot of times I miss it because I don't go back in the kitchen.
I go in the kitchen, I don't see it.
I turn off the light in the pantry. I walk out in the dark and
go to get in bed.
And somehow I remembered, you still have the ice in
(36:18):
there. I must have done four or five things in between, because
by the time I went back in there, it had melted quite a
bit, but not completely. So I assessed.
Do you want to just stick it back in the freezer like you normally
do, or do you want to just use these ice cubes that aren't as
big, but throw them in there, refill it.
Maybe I'll have some new ones in the morning to add to it.
(36:39):
And I thought, yeah, do that. So I did that.
But I
stumbled and knocked things over. And because I was
in the dark, I'm trying to be quiet.
My husband's already fallen asleep, and it's pretty echoey there.
And I think, just, you know, get out the water and pour it in
and put it away. So I do. And usually I spill water all over
(37:00):
the counter and everything. I'm like, whatever, put it away and
think, just go back to bed. But I decide to put one
more thing over on the counter by the sink.
And when I do, I knock over a giant water bottle that still
had water in it. And it's, you know, one of those kind of
hydroflas, tall metal ones. Knocks over on the
floor, water goes all over the floor.
(37:22):
I'm in the dark. I'm in my last thing of the day.
But I wasn't doing anything carefully.
I wasn't even giving myself the advantage of sight.
I was trying to do it in the dark. So I turned on
the lights, found a towel, and just kind of laughed because that's
my Life. That's my life. But yeah, yeah, yeah.
(37:44):
Oh, but yeah, all these things. It's pretty fascinating because
we have lower dopamine levels for what we
need to use. And I didn't know that sleep
could help. I knew that other things could help boost that.
Dopamine, dopamine production, dopamine function like exercise,
(38:05):
like ADHD medication. There are even some supplements that help
some people. But sleep is really important.
And
the glymphatic system, I mean, who knew we had waste products?
Which makes sense because we have waste products in our body.
We go to the bathroom, we eat, and that nourishes our body
(38:26):
in that way. But we also have a cleaning system for the brain
and a filing system. Kind of makes sense.
I knew about the working memory that it needs to go in there.
I didn't know it need to get even tucked away even more
as we rest. Kind of wonderful to know.
(38:50):
And I'm sure you know ways to rest to get
your sleep. I mean, sleep is the number one one, but really
listening to your body and fitting it in, scheduling it.
I tell people when they come to my classes, I even teach some
stretch classes and do it more in a yoga mode, but
without as much yoga talk. But sometimes you have
(39:14):
to schedule rest like it's an appointment.
And that is why people go to yoga classes or a stretch class,
because they realize I'm not going to do this on my own and
my body needs it. But if you can get yourself to do
it on your own, even at home, I have yoga videos.
You could do some at home if you wanted.
But just tell yourself at this time of day or
twice a week, I'm going to do this. When you've been really going,
(39:36):
going, going, plan in some downtime, take breaks, all of
those things. Take a nap if you need it.
Take a quiet time even, you know, if you're getting places
late and you really plan to get somewhere early, sometimes that'll
just make it so you get there on time.
But if you do actually get there early, sit in your car,
let yourself close your eyes a little bit, set an alarm so you
(39:58):
don't sleep past it. You know, if you can fall asleep in your
car or even just close your eyes and enjoy a moment.
But you need to treat rest as this, recharge, this restoration
in your body to help your brain do its absolute best.
It is a strategy, not a luxury. I mean, it's a luxury
(40:20):
too, but it's an ADHD tool to get the rest that
you need. And if you're having a hard time going to
sleep, try to go to sleep earlier. It's not always easy, but
start by going to sleep earlier and see if that helps you
get into a pattern. Because maybe you do need more sleep and
maybe you don't. I've worried often because I'm good with six
hours if I get sick. I try to get myself
(40:43):
to sleep longer if I can, but usually I wake up after
six hours. And I used to worry because every article,
every expert says eight hours. And I asked my
doctor last time I went in, just my family doctor and maybe she
doesn't know everything, but I just said, should I be worried
if I'm just getting six hours of sleep?
(41:04):
Is that causing some disadvantage in my body?
She said, are you tired during the day?
And I said, no. She said, then you shouldn't be worried.
So that's good, huh? Good, good, good.
Thank you so much for being here. Happy Thursday.
If you're listening today, thank you for listening.
Share my podcast with a friend or two or more.
Spread the word. Help other people figure out their brains
(41:27):
and get them to work better. Or at least just, you know, get
the rest we need so we can not max out.
We do the best we can. It's not always going to be perfect.
We might have our evenings where we knock things on the floor
and have to clean up water at the end, but it's part of
life when you have ADHD. Thank you so much.
(41:49):
I will be back with more episodes next week,
even though I'll actually be out of town.
And I'll be back the following week.
But have a lovely fall day. If you get fall weather,
fall colors. That's amazing. And I guess
that's it. I have such a hard time saying goodbye.
Bye.
(42:16):
I butter my toast Spread on some grape
jelly I don't need to fast But
I'm a chef and a good one My grandma
can't hear me the breakfast is done and
I'm getting colder forever older so I run
(42:44):
Open window broken shadow
Frozen dreams are left for. Tomorrow.
Time for a poem
(43:17):
rewind I run out of time to sing
melodies and harmonies I'm cut short
the silence of sound has yet been found but
not by me.
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