The One ADHD Tip All Teens Should Know
When it comes to ADHD there are a lot of quick tips and tricks that can be extremely helpful for teens who struggle with any aspect of having ADHD. However, one of the most pervasive and consistent issues I see in practice with teens with ADHD has to do with waking up in the morning. Getting up on time for any activities or class is difficult for most teenagers, but for those with ADHD, it’s particularly tricky. Sleep disruption is a common symptom of ADHD, with over 50% of children reporting sleep issues by the age of 12, and this number jumping to over 70% by the time most people with ADHD reach adulthood. Sleep disruption can include anything from falling asleep, being asleep, to waking up. In teens, waking up is already extremely difficult, so this is often where I see the most struggle.
Typically what I hear is that alarms are not effective. Teens can pick the loudest and most obnoxious alarm meant to startle them or scare them awake, but after a week or a month or perhaps a little longer, they stop responding to it. They developed the capacity to sleep right through it. This is an extremely frustrating situation for both teens and parents. It can be disruptive for school, for events, and can generate an intense amount of anxiety around the process of going to school and getting ready.
The reasoning for this eventual desensitization towards alarms is not entirely clear, but likely has to do with how ADHD brains interpret stimuli. New stimuli are almost always prioritized over stimuli that has become common. Because these alarms are only associated with sleep artificially through the situation created by the alarms themselves, eventually the stimulus can become meaningless if it is no longer new. Volume is irrelevant, and eventually you will run out of different obnoxious sounds on your phone.
In practice, I have found that there is a very simple solution to waking teens with ADHD that can decrease the stress and anxiety surrounding waking up, well also proving much more effective than the beeping, blaring, buzzing counterparts of common alarms. This alternative is deceptively effective, when given time and coupled with healthy sleep hygiene. Utilizing nature noises such as bird chirping can be far more effective to wake up people with ADHD. These sounds are associated with waking and morning through years and millennia of evolution. Our brains instinctively know that chirping birds means daytime. Therefore, alarms that mimic the natural sounds of daybreak are much more likely to wake teens with ADHD, even when the alarm is not on maximum volume. Pairing this with other forms of waking such as lamps that provide something that mimics sunrise can also be effective for particularly deep sleepers.
Mornings can be a very contentious time for teenagers in general, particularly before something like school or an obligation, and struggling with their alarms or knowing that they don't wake up to their alarms adds an additional layer of stress. By simply swapping out these artificial sounds with nature sounds that are more commonly associated with dawn and waking, teens with ADHD can significantly reduce the stress they experience in the morning.
If you’re a teen and believe you might have ADHD, or if you’re a parent who suspects your teen might need extra support, please reach out to Mindful Healing for our ADHD Assessment!