The ADHD sleep hack nobody talks about!

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In this episode, I'm going to help you

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sleep, but not before you finish listening. Hi, I'm

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Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and welcome to the weenie

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cast squirrel. I'm ridiculously

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excited about the topic of this episode. It is one of my

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absolute all time favorite activities and I love talking about it because

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I think it is the most magical thing that any

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human can devote time to. I'll give you a guess what it

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is. No, you're wrong. It's sleep.

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Get your mind out of the gutter.

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And I say this having formerly been the type of person who

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would always say, well, I'll sleep when I'm dead. I'll just sleep 4 hours

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tonight and I'll catch up on sleep on the weekend. That's massively

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unhealthy. And if you have ADHD like

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we all do, it is really bad for your

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ability to manage your ADHD symptoms.

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So some of the health benefits of sleep, and I'm reading this

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literally off of the ucdavis.edu website, it

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promotes growth, which, I mean, I think I'm done growing, but sure,

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if I am going to grow a couple more inches, great.

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I will let sleep do the heavy lifting there. It promotes heart health.

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Okay. Having a healthy heart is a really good thing. It supports

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weight management. And as a woman who grew up in the

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United States and learned from a very young age to hate my

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body, as most women do, can we please do

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something about that? Can we please start doing some more body positivity stuff

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for young girls and for women? Like, I like to approach that from a healthy

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standpoint. There's no one number that you need to see on the scale

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to be successful, to be hot, to be healthy.

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But being a healthy weight really does support your health and your

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ability to live longer. So sleep helps you get there.

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It helps you combat germs and keep your immune system strong,

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which after the last few years, I think is pretty important,

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it helps you reduce the risk of injury. As an adhder

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who's very clumsy, who has fallen down the stairs multiple times

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and manages to injure herself at least once or twice a year,

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I need this. I need to mitigate that risk some way.

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And if sleep is one of the ways I can do it, then yes, please.

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You know the next thing on this list, it literally says it helps you increase

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your attention span, which we all need. It also boosts

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your memory and your ability to learn. I know when I'm

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tired, when I haven't slept well. There are so many more moments in

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the day where I walk into a room and think, what the fuck did I

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come in here for? And then I have to turn around and retrace my

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steps and figure out what it was. And sometimes I remember

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and sometimes I don't, and I'm just wandering around my house,

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just not knowing what I'm doing. And I know you've been there,

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too. In addition to that list, I'm going to add some things.

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Okay, UC Davis, if you're listening, you can add this to your list as

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well. When you're well rested, you're also way more

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creative. You have ability to access parts of your

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brain that makes connections between completely disparate

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things and allows for you to come up with really innovative solutions

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to big problems and a little problems. It makes you more

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creative in your content creation. When you are well rested,

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you're also in a better mood. I'm far more likely to be in a shitty

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mood when I haven't had enough sleep, right. If I'm well rested, like that

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is half the battle of being in a good mood. You just have to make

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sure you don't spill your coffee and you have the most perfect day ahead of

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you. In addition to being more creative, you are

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also far more grounded in

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the positive beliefs you have about yourself. In coach training,

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one of the things that we learned about were saboteurs. And saboteurs are basically those

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voices of doubt that play up and tell you that you suck and that

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you fail at everything. You're not gonna finish this. Oh, you look

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fat today. And this and that and the other thing, they tear you

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down to keep you in your comfort zone. And

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those voices like, yes, they're a part of you, but they're also not true.

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Those voices, their only job is to keep you safe and to keep you in

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your comfort zone, even if your comfort zone low key sucks.

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Doing the scary, brave thing is outside that comfort zone. And

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those voices don't want you doing that, even if it has the potential for

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big payoff, like starting a business. So

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when you are tired, those voices pretty much have an

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open door policy because you're too tired to really tap into your positive

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voices. You're too tired to tap into your intuition and

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into your heart energy and into your inner leader. And I know those are

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all really super coachy words, but it really does

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make a difference when you're able to ground into that

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power and into that knowledge of everything that you're capable of.

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When you're too tired, you just can't do it effectively.

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One of my favorite discoveries about starting a business is that

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sometimes my work for the day

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includes taking a nap. And I am all about the

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naps. I used to be anti nap, if you can believe it, but then I

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discovered this magical thing called the granny napkin. And it's not a long

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nap, it's a 20 or 30 minutes er where you lay down, you set a

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timer and you just kind of doze for 20 or 30 minutes. You don't go

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into a deep sleep. And I think the reason I was anti nap is because

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I was so sleep deprived that when I laid down for a nap I would

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just literally sleep for like two full REM cycles and I would wake

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up feeling like I was in a different universe, in a different like time zone.

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And that can fuck with you. But the reason I that

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happened was because I was so sleep deprived. So the benefits to

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sleeping well, to getting enough sleep, are

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just never ending. It can make you live longer, it can make you

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happier, it can make you healthier and it's going to make you more

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creative and effective in this business you're working on. I think those are all good

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things. I will also add that when you're sleep deprived, your

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cortisol also shoots up, so you have higher anxiety when you're tired,

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which is probably why those saboteur voices come in and we don't want

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that. But we're still humans living in a very busy world

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where we're expected to spend time with our friends, have a

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meditation practice, work out every day, cook three really healthy

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meals, call our moms, you know, text our dads

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because our dads really don't like talking on the phone. Let's be real. We have

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to shower, we have to do our hair, we have to do our makeup. If

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you're a makeup wearer, we have to pick out a nice

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outfit. We have to wear that outfit. We have to manage not to spill anything

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on that outfit so that we don't have to change another time in the day.

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We have to spend time with our kids or for babies. We have to make

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sure that they get enough food and attention and exercise.

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We have to volunteer so that we can be morally superior to everyone

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else and, you know, also give back to the community

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and good things like that. And we have to do

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everything to be successful in our businesses or our work. It's hard

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to fit in a good 8 hours of sleep with all that shit on your

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plate. We're going to talk about sleep with the best intention of

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you getting more of it. I want to name that. I

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consistently get eight to 9 hours of sleep a night. As I'm

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talking about this, I only got six last night, and I'm paying for it.

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When you train your body to get eight to 9 hours of sleep, it's

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really hard for your body to get less than that because

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it gets spoiled and it doesn't want to give up what it actually needs. So

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how to do you set yourself up to actually be able to sleep enough?

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And it's so important for those of us with

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ADHD to get enough sleep because our brains work so

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hard throughout the day. Neurotypicals are lucky. They

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wake up and they just go into their automatic routine. They

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don't have to make all the decisions that we have to make, you know, for

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us. We wake up and we're like, okay, cool. I need to shower, I need

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to brush my teeth, I need to eat breakfast, and I need to work out

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what order should I do it in. And you have to decide it every single

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day. There's no automatic routine. There might be for a few months,

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but then you fall out of it and you have to find a new one.

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You don't realize it, but making even those most simple decisions

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throughout the day, it's taxing on your brain. It requires your

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brain to need more rest. And that's just the

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basic human requirement stuff. It's not even the business ownership.

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When you add the business owner stuff, the decision fatigue just goes through

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the roof. Okay, so it is really important that we get enough sleep, and I'm

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going to talk through a couple ways that you give yourself enough sleep.

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All right, I'm going to talk through a couple things. And full

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permission here to, as you're listening to this

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episode, to just say, fuck off, Katie. No, that's not

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happening. It's fine. These are just best practices. You don't have to do all of

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them. You don't have to do any of them. But if you want to get

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better sleep, these are things that are going to help you. Squirrel. Squirrel. For those

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of you who get defiance around someone telling you what to do,

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take a deep breath. This is not that episode. Squirrel. Okay, so the things

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that will get in the way of you getting good sleep. First and

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foremost, one of my favorite things in the world next to sleep is

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caffeine. You should not be having caffeine

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less than 10 hours before you plan on sleeping. I used

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to be that person who could drink a cup of coffee at 09:00 p.m.. And

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be able to fall asleep. I don't know what happened to my

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body chemistry as I've gotten older, but now I can't have a

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cup of coffee later than 1130 in the morning. It's really depressing. I

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love coffee. I think it's one of the most delicious things ever discovered. And I

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wish I could drink it all afternoon, but I can't because I won't be able

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to sleep. When you have adrenaline in your system, it actually counteracts the

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melatonin, which is another hormone that basically tells your body it's time

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to sleep. So you wanna be very careful about caffeine consumption.

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Light can mess with your circadian rhythms. The

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thing that made me realize just how brutal light can be

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to your circadian rhythm was when I was going live

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during the pandemic later in the evening. Cause when I go

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live in the evening, there's not a whole lot of natural light in my office.

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And so I was using a very powerful ring light.

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And so this ring light was just blasting my face

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and my eyes. And what I found is if I went live

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at, like, 07:00 p.m. With the ring light, normally I'd be able

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to work, you know, 07:00 p.m. To like, 08:00 p.m. And get some projects done.

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And that's fine, just working on my computer. And afterwards I'd be able

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to, like, go to bed around nine and fall asleep around ten. But if I

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have that ring light on, there's no way in hell I'm falling asleep before

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00 a.m. It's one of the reasons I haven't really been going live a lot

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lately, because I've become so conscious of it, it can mess with

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you. And it's so funny because you can be absolutely exhausted. But if

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your circadian rhythm is off and your brain thinks it's time to be awake

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because there are bright lights around, or there have been, your brain just

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will not shut down. And we all know what

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is impossible when your brain can't shut down. It's impossible to

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see. Of course, we've all seen the, like, random

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studies about, like, looking at your phone and looking at the tv

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and looking at any kind of screen. The blue light can

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actually impact you as well. I'm a realist, and I'm also

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someone who really enjoys sending senseless reels to my friends late

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at night. Like, yes, absolutely. If you have the willpower

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to not look at your phone for an hour or two before bed.

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Dude, you are doing better than I am. It's possible for some.

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I'm not in my era of being good with my

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phone,

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so that's kind of how we want to set ourselves up for

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proper sleep. Those are the things that are really going to get in the way.

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Like, what about when it comes to falling asleep, though, right? Because

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you can be exhausted. You can be so

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worn out from physical activities, from a

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really long work day. But if something's going on,

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if there's something stressful happening, or maybe your brain just

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decides to, like, go through the memory file of all of your embarrassing moments

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and make you replay them over and over and over again one night. That happens

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a lot, doesn't it? You know, my brain really loves replaying this

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moment where I slipped and ate shit in the hallway

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in high school and everyone laughed at me and, like, my brain, like,

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wants to come up with the mean comeback that I could have had. But what

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mean comeback could I have had against, like, 17

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kids laughing at me for falling on my ass? If you

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were in that hallway, then stop listening to this podcast. You're not

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allowed to get any of the advice that I give. Take it back. I'm doing

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take backs. Any advice you've gotten from me now, stop

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using it. Go and be really uncomfortable with your

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adhd and your business. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.

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So anyway, when you have those moments and your brain is just trotting out all

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the embarrassing things and all the things you should be stressed out about, how do

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you turn that off? There are a few ways that I do

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this, and you're gonna laugh. The number one way that I turn off this

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voice is I play like any of the seven Harry Potter

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books on audible. Ex speliarmus. Jim Dale has one of the most

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soothing voices I've ever heard in my life. I

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could fall asleep to that man talking all day long. I think the other thing

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that helps here is I have read these books countless times. I

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can't even keep track of how many times I've read them. I've also listened to

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the audible books so many times.

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So the sounds, the storyline, the characters

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are all super familiar to me. There are only a few

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chapters in a few books that if I'm listening to at bedtime, like, have to

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listen, like, what's going to happen? It's like, I know what's going to happen. I

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probably could say word for word each line about what's going

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to happen. But here's what works about it is a. It's a

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voice. It's something for you to listen to and focus in on and kind of

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like distance yourself from your own inner voices. B,

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it's a storyline, but it's a familiar storyline, right?

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So you get sucked into the story but you're not hung up on like, what's

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going to happen next and what's going to happen next, you know, are Ron and

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Hermione going to end up together? If you haven't read the books, I will

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not ruin that for you. But they do.

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Just kidding. I had to ruin it. I'm sorry, Dumbledore. No, I'm

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not going to say that something

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happens with Dumbledore. That's all I will say.

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Although while we're on the topic, I really think the biggest villain

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in the whole series is Aunt Petunia.

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That bitch. Like, she knew that

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Snape and Lily were friends.

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She knew. I mean, just imagine

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if she had even in like a really bitchy, mean way

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been like, oh, my God, your mother was friends with this

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awful boy, Severus Snape. He was terrible, you know, but they were

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best friends. They were inseparable. And they ended up going to that terrible

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school together. Harry. And then Harry goes to

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Hogwarts and sure, he looks like his dad and that like, is

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a, gives Snape like a bad reaction, right? Cause he hated James

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Potter. But what if he just went up to

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Severus Snape, Professor Snape in the very beginning and was like,

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hi, Professor Snape, someone told me that you were really good friends with my

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mom. Imagine what could have happened with that relationship.

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Imagine like they could have gone on picnics. They could have been like, you know,

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the second godfather. Who knows? She didn't. She is the

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villain in that story. I will never forgive her for it.

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Moving on, if Harry Potter doesn't do it for you, pick a

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book that you've listened to a bunch of times that has a

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storyline and doesn't get your creativity running. I know

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some people are like, cool, I'll listen to self help. I'll listen to

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management books. I'll listen to creativity books. No, don't do it.

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Because you and I both know you're going to hear something and it's going to

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spark an idea for you and you'll be like, I have to get up and

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journal right now. I have to get up and I have to make an Instagram

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reel right now. Oh, my God. I have an idea for a blog post. I

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have to do it right now. And then it's going to be 03:00 a.m. In

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the morning and you're going to have 4 hours left to get a good night's

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sleep and you're going to be so annoyed that you tried

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to listen to this book. We both know that you'll be tired and grouchy and

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you'll probably blame me, and I don't like that. So don't try

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it. Sometimes we really just need like some kind of

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sound to drown out the voice. What I find incredibly

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helpful here is like on Spotify

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or on audible, you can find a playlist of like,

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thunderstorms with rain. You can listen

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to rainforests, you can listen to babbling

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brooks. The only thing with this, like, sometimes like the sound of running water can

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make you want to pee. So be careful with your water consumption.

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I've also discovered brown noise and it's

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just kind of like, like this static

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noise. It's amazing. It like, doesn't have

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a storyline, obviously. It's not. There's no melody to it. It

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doesn't sound like anything that happens in the natural world, but it just has this

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way of turning off your brain and allowing your brain just

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to kind of go blank. And sometimes that's all you need. You just need like

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three minutes of that to drift off to sleep. And if you want to try

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out the brown noise thing and you want some real top

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quality vetted brown noise, then go to

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weeniecast.com brownnoise and you can check

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out one of our favorite tracks. I was talking with my producer as we

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were talking through what this episode would be about, and we were talking about different,

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like, like sleep meditations. And we were

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joking about the weird, different storytelling recordings that

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you can listen to. Like Jeff Bridges actually has a

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whole album of storytelling that you can listen to as you

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fall asleep. It's called dreamingwithjeff.com

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Sleeping

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tapes. I love

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that idea and all that it

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implies, you know,

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sleeping tapes.

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Sleep, of course, implies waking up.

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Tapes imply

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recording. Yeah.

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Sharing things. I will never use it.

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It's weird. It's Jeff Bridges. But if you want to laugh, you should go check

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it out. We will put it in the show notes. So just go to

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dreamingwithjeff.com or click on it in the show notes. But here's what

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I want to say about guided meditation and using them for

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sleep. If you are trying to maintain a meditative

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practice and you're using a

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specific method of meditation, so say you're doing transcendental

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meditation or you are doing specific

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meditations on the Gaia app or on the calm app.

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You want to be very conscious of the types of meditation that you're

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doing to do meditation for and the types that you're

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using to fall asleep to. The reason

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being your brain will learn very

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quickly when a meditation comes on or when you go

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into a meditation, if you're doing something that's more free form, if you're

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using that to fall asleep, when you start meditating, your body, like,

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cool, time to sleep now. And instead of having a meditation,

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you will have a little nap when you're not expecting it. And

: 00:19:57

naps don't have the same impact as meditation. So if you

: 00:20:01

want to meditate, you have to really keep your meditation practice separate

: 00:20:05

from the sleep meditations that you follow. I

: 00:20:08

downloaded the app by Gabby Bernstein, the super attractor lady,

: 00:20:12

and I really like her app. I think it's really fun. I love

: 00:20:16

some of the manifestation work that she does on there, but I really, I

: 00:20:20

really love her guided meditations, but I actually don't use

: 00:20:24

them the way they're supposed to. I use them as sleep meditations

: 00:20:28

because I don't want to use any of the other meditations that I use

: 00:20:32

to fall asleep because I don't want to train myself to fall asleep. But

: 00:20:35

I find the music is really soothing. I really like that I'm falling asleep

: 00:20:39

to stuff that is all about manifesting and, like, getting in touch with my, my

: 00:20:43

inner self and, and so on and so forth. So whatever this is

: 00:20:47

for you, whatever is going to help you turn your brain off, find a

: 00:20:50

practice that you can stick to, but you want to be

: 00:20:54

deliberate about using that practice only for sleep and not trying to use it for

: 00:20:57

other stuff as well.

: 00:21:05

And I know I've touched on this already in this episode, but I

: 00:21:09

cannot stress it more that sometimes your job in your

: 00:21:13

business is to take a nap

: 00:21:16

genuinely. If you're a business

: 00:21:20

owner who's providing services or any kind of

: 00:21:24

solution to your clients, you need to think about what your

: 00:21:28

responsibility is to your clients, right. If they're paying

: 00:21:31

you money for your brain to be able to think things

: 00:21:35

through, you owe them a brain that is

: 00:21:39

able to think things through when

: 00:21:43

you're too tired, you can't do that.

: 00:21:46

Sometimes instead of, you know, blasting through emails

: 00:21:50

and, you know, going live and creating more content before your

: 00:21:54

next client call, sometimes you have to put all that stuff aside and

: 00:21:58

just lay down and get an hour's sleep. You owe it to your

: 00:22:02

clients who are paying you a buttload of money to be well rested and

: 00:22:05

at the top of your game. As I talk through this. I'm just

: 00:22:09

imagining, you know, someday I'm gonna have, like, a

: 00:22:13

whole retreat conference kind of thing, and smack dab in the middle

: 00:22:17

of the day, we're gonna have nap time. And you know what? Like,

: 00:22:20

underneath all the conference tables and everything, they're gonna be like those

: 00:22:24

mats that we had in kindergarten, you know, that you

: 00:22:27

unfold, and then everyone gets, like, their own little blank in their own little pillow,

: 00:22:31

and you just, like, go to sleep on the floor of the conference and just,

: 00:22:34

like, have a little, you know, 20 minutes granny nap. And then you, like, get

: 00:22:37

up, and then you get back to the conference, and you get to, like, be

: 00:22:40

in a good mood and, you know, almost like a midday sleepover. Wouldn't

: 00:22:44

that be fun if you would come to that conference

: 00:22:47

with that nap in the middle? Let me know. I'll put you on the list

: 00:22:50

to get a special rate. If you are really struggling with

: 00:22:54

sleep because you're experiencing too much stress,

: 00:22:58

that is not the point of starting a business. That is how a lot of

: 00:23:01

people start and run their businesses is from a place of fear

: 00:23:05

and just constant stress. That is not healthy.

: 00:23:09

If you're running a business and you feel like the stress of it is

: 00:23:12

running your life, you need a better way to run that

: 00:23:16

business. There are so many bad models

: 00:23:20

of what it looks like to run a successful business. I can't tell you how

: 00:23:24

many people I've spoken to who really want to start a business, but they're

: 00:23:27

terrified because their parents owned a business and their parents

: 00:23:31

had to work 13 hours a day, seven days a week, and they never got

: 00:23:35

any time off. And usually one of them

: 00:23:38

at least died early from heart

: 00:23:42

problems, a stroke, something that was stress related.

: 00:23:46

And while this person I'm talking to is like, I really want to start a

: 00:23:49

business, but, like, I can't do that. I can't do that to myself. I want

: 00:23:53

to see my kids. I want to live past 60. I want to

: 00:23:57

be able to do all that life gives me. But that's the only model I've

: 00:24:00

had for what running a business looks like. You need a better

: 00:24:04

model if that's where you're at. If you're running a business like

: 00:24:07

that, you need a better strategy.

: 00:24:11

You need a better action plan.

: 00:24:17

One of the things that I constantly bang on about with my clients

: 00:24:21

is, we're not designing a business that is going to be

: 00:24:24

successful but also run your life. We're not

: 00:24:28

designing businesses that require you to basically be a robot and be

: 00:24:31

110% every single day. We're designing

: 00:24:35

businesses that can be successful in the right way to

: 00:24:39

support you living whatever dream life you have. You know, maybe it's

: 00:24:42

working 20 hours a week and getting to coach the softball

: 00:24:46

team for your kids middle school. Maybe you want to have the nomad

: 00:24:50

life. You want to work 30 hours a week, but you want to be able

: 00:24:52

to do it from anywhere in the world. Maybe you want

: 00:24:56

to work 40 hours a week and you want to be able to get

: 00:24:59

hired to speak on stages, being the keynote and getting

: 00:25:03

paid really well for it. All those things are possible, but you need to do

: 00:25:07

it in a way that if you get sick or if something happens, heaven

: 00:25:11

forbid, you lose someone you love, something really inconvenient happens.

: 00:25:14

Like you're in a car accident and you have to take a day off. For

: 00:25:18

you to have a sustainably successful business, your business

: 00:25:21

has to be able to withstand that. And if you don't have a model for

: 00:25:25

how to do that, you need to learn how to do that.

: 00:25:28

Because when you have a successful business that doesn't require

: 00:25:32

you to kill yourself to run it, that's when you actually

: 00:25:36

get to live life. That's when you actually can feel

: 00:25:39

happy about this business. Sleepless nights

: 00:25:43

of your business are the first sign that

: 00:25:46

things need to change. So if you're listening to this and you're

: 00:25:50

currently sleep deprived because you're stressing out about stuff, then your first

: 00:25:53

assignment is to go and take a granny nap.

: 00:25:57

Because they're amazing and I love them. I know you will, too, if that helps.

: 00:26:01

And that's your new practice. That's what you're going to do every day. You're just

: 00:26:03

going to have a granny nap. If that's what helps you reduce your stress and

: 00:26:07

sleep better at night and do better work, great. That is your fix it.

: 00:26:11

But if the granny nap does not help,

: 00:26:14

then you, my friend, need to start changing some stuff in

: 00:26:18

your business and in your sleep routines.