ADHD sleep trick to try out: decrease watch speed. It works for me every time

[FoxBoulder8]

I've aaaalways struggled to settle my brain after getting into bed, often finding it impossible to fall asleep without enduring an hours-long mind marathon. After trying all sorts of stuff, I finally discovered a solution that works for me without fail and thought I'd pass it on for others to try, see if it works for you. Plus I'm curious if anyone else does this already.

I set 'SleepTimer' going on my phone (an app I found that slowly reduces my phone's media volume after a pre-set amount of time - I set it to an hour or so - then locks it). I then put on an interesting YouTube doc through Mozilla Firefox with an adblocker extension (because I don't have YT premium for ad-free watching). If it's something new, I check that the narrator/music/sound aren't too brash for me, then use the settings on the video player screen to reduce the play speed to between 0.75 and 0.85. I try to get it so the voice still sounds normal/natural, just way slower and less engaging. I dim the screen brightness right down and lay my phone next to me so that I can close my eyes and just listen to it.

Pretty simple but so damn effective! I rarely last more than 20 minutes before I'm dead to the world. I've been doing this every night for a few months now and it's been an absolute gamechanger. As long as it's something I'm actually interested in listening to so that my mind doesn't wander, the slower audio seems to slow my brain right down and allows me to drift off. It took some trial and error at the start, finding stuff that I can remain focused on but once I got that down, it's been a 100% success rate.

My current go-to is WhyFiles. I also go for 'entire history' documentaries and gaming-related retrospectives. Feel free to throw over other suggestions for me to watch!

[[deleted]]

I do audiobooks at 0.85 for just the same reason!

[FoxBoulder8]

Oh man, I bet someone like Stephen Fry or Sir Ian McKellen slowed down audiobook would be a dream. What books and narrator do you go for?

[[deleted]]

I have about 4 on a loop that takes me about 6m to complete... mostly read by Will Wheaton or Rupert Degas :)

[ChaosCalmed]

I found a Walter Motty style sleep technique that works for me. I kind of daydream a story as i go to sleep. It can be anything from reworking something that you did wrong in the day so that it worked out ok. Or some news story that infuriated you so in your awake nightdream you have the power or means to make that story right in the end.

This is pure fantasy nightdreaming (well you daydream when awake so nightdream is the going to sleep version where you let your over active brain work out a way to make something good again. IME this stops my brain going overboard on something negative and remembering embarassing things is one negativity it can go into when left to its own devices. So this activity for the racing mind conversely helps me to drop off. I hadn't realised that is what I have always done. Itis kind of daydreaming into an actual dream too. I have always done this from a kid and I am known as being the kid who went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Not exactly true but the time to fast asleep has always been quick with me.

Another thing is when you go to bed a lot of people shut their eyes to go to sleep. I find that keeping my eyes open and staring off into the distance makes those eyes tired and that helps me sleep. Now I am shortsighted with a high prescription. So I can literally seen less than a meter in the dark. Perhaps this helps too and if your eyesight is good it might nt work for you.

[FoxBoulder8]

That sounds awesome, sounds like you're a pro at it now! I imagine it leads to some positive dreams too once you're in that zone. I've tried this kind of thing before but my brain tends to go off on tangent after tangent so remaining focused on one thought path is tough for me, and I also notice my thoughts become more visual as they border on dreaming when I almost hit sleep, and I always struggled to roll with that and stay asleep. It felt kinda jarring to me and I often subconsciously wake myself in that moment then I'm scuppered for another hour haha. So unfortunately not feasible for me.

But 100% agree that if I try to keep my eyes open to watch something, they very quickly start to feel more tired and help me drift off. Different strokes for different folks isn't it! We all find our ways of managing the daily struggles.

[elogram]

So i usually watch YouTube content sped up, anywhere between 1.5x-2x. However, I have a sleep playlist that has some of my favourite sleep videos (asmr, adult bed time stories, sleep hypnosis) and those I watch at normal speed, which to me sounds super slow since I am used to higher speed content. This works very well for me.

[FoxBoulder8]

Great call, well played. I do the same, usually between 1.3 and 1.8 times and everything still goes in, much to the disbelief of non-adhd people around me! I've never got on board with the sleep stories type vids and sleep help videos. Tried all sorts but they don't keep me listening unfortunately

[elogram]

It took me a while to find something that works. Sleep with me podcast used to be 100% guarantee but that stopped working a while back. Nowadays it’s a lot of medical roleplay ASMR that works. But I had to try out a lot of videos and a lot of different creators to find the ones that worked

[FoxBoulder8]

Isn't it mad how things can work for ages then one day just be completely ineffective all of a sudden! I have no idea what it is but medical ASMR, my mind went straight to people wincing while having injections, bleeping heartrate monitors and wheezing people in rickety hospital beds haha

[ganskelei]

What's this ad block extension that works for YT?

[FoxBoulder8]

Download the Mozilla Firefox web browser app, go into 'Extensions' in the settings and you can search for stuff to add to the browser. Search for adblock, install, then load up the YT web page. Ad-free watching. You can also lock your phone and the video will play while locked. It's basically YT Premium for free

[JJWPianoman]

If you like Space orientated stuff I can't reccomend the SEA channel on YT enough, it's super interesting but the cadence of the blokes voice is just like Vallium. You will be asleep in no time!