Sweet Dreams! How to Fall Asleep Faster and Go to Bed Earlier as a Mom with ADHD #184
Are you listening to this podcast at 1:30 AM while rage cleaning your kitchen?
…when you “should” be sleeping?
Ask me how I know.
Sleep issues often go hand in hand with ADHD. In today’s episode, I’m sharing what’s working for me to fall asleep quickly and go to bed earlier. But it doesn’t include all that stuff you’ve heard a million times before and roll your eyes at. (I’m looking at you, “consistent bedtime.”)
Sure, we know that’s all helpful stuff, but as moms, we have a different bar to measure against.
When ADHD people struggle to fall asleep, it’s often because our brains are going 100 mph. When we’re anxious, our brains are also going 100 mph.
Coincidence?
Personally, I don’t think so.
You can learn how to drift off to sleep quickly and peacefully.
You can learn what to do when you feel your panic rising to find calm and stay present in the moment.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Stop Medusa Mom: 10 ways to hold it together when you are about to lose your ish
You can learn how to drift off to sleep quickly and peacefully.
You can learn what to do when you feel your panic rising to find calm and stay present in the moment.
To help you, I’ve put together Slow Down, Be Present: a calming audio private podcast for both sleep and anxiety. And it’s only $9. Snag yours here: https://www.patriciasung.com/slowdown
***Get the private podcast for free as a member of Successful Mama Meetups when you join by April 18th!
Plus Successful Mama Meetups now has a second meeting time on Wednesdays at 9 PM Eastern (3 PM Hawaii, 6 PM Pacific, 7 PM Mountain, 8 PM Central which is Thursdays at 9 AM Hong Kong, 11 AM Sydney)
Patricia Sung 00:00
Hey there. So this episode is one that aired on my regular podcast. But it has a lot of good tips in it. And I'm putting it in here just so that you have easy access to it and you don't have to hunt around for it. So yes, it is available on my regular podcast, but here it is for easy access on How to Slow Down Your brain before bed. Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy. You can figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home or your family. I get your mama, parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life creatively, lovingly and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families well, at the end of the day, we just want to be good moms. but spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess mama, you can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story. And I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to motherhood in ADHD. Before we jump into this episode, let's read our review of the week is from striving to be spiritual fivestars called so needed. This podcast is so needed and will help so many mamas out there such great tips for ADHD mothers, my thank you striving I so appreciate your encouragement. And Mama, if you have not done a review or read the podcast on your app, please go in and do that because that helps this podcast be heard by more and more mamas out there. That's what we're trying to do spread the good word. Let's jump into this week's episode.
Patricia Sung 01:59
Hey there successful mama. It's your friend Patricia Sung. Well, today we are talking about sleep. Sleep has always been a really rough thing for me. I have borderline narcolepsy. Just sleep study when I was in college when I was struggling so much. And at the time, granted, this was a long time ago, to have an official diagnosis of narcolepsy, you had to have six of the nine symptoms. Well, I have five. So apparently not good enough to actually have it. But yet more than half. So I don't understand how that doesn't count. But hey, I'm not in charge. I don't read the rules. But let's just say sleep is a struggle bus for me for most of my life. And while I know that I could literally go on and on about good ideas about sleep. I want to give you some really tangible actionable items that have been working really well for me, because in the last month so in March, our theme for March and successful mama meetups was listening to yourself and your body, which generally speaking when you have ADHD, we don't do very well. I will not get on my soapbox right now about drama, and everyone telling you that you perceive things wrong. And also we just are with so many things, grab our attention, we oftentimes just don't notice what's going on with our bodies. If you've not gone and listen to the episode at the beginning of March with Elizabeth brink and in a Lopez go back to that one because it was a good one. We talked about learning how to listen to your body in terms of like, starting to read those little clues things like hey, when am I thirsty? How am I feeling? Just cluing into your body.
Patricia Sung 03:42
So while we've been talking all about listening to your body this month, on one of the weeks, I asked the moms to share some of their tips on basic necessities of life that is moms are hard for us. So things like nourishment, drinking water, movement, sleep, these basic functions of life that we need to do in order to be a functional human, that are very difficult as moms. And while overall the group had a ton of good ideas about moving and nourishment. When we were bringing up sleep. Pretty much everybody was just kind of looking at it like oh no, you got any ideas? Oh no, you got to do yes. And across the board. Clearly sleep is hard for moms. When you are in that baby seat or toddler stage like you're just trying to survive. And I always remind myself like this is a reason that sleep deprivation is used as a torture mechanism because it is that hard on your body. You are not imagining it. It is very difficult. If you are in that stage, please do not feel like you need to implement 400 ideas like do what works for you. If you want to try need You're fine, but like do not put pressure on yourself to come up with some brilliant idea here. Sometimes you're in that phase of like, I just need to survive. That is okay. What I see in a lot of moms is that when we get past that toddler stage, and we get into, you know, kids who are actually sleeping slightly more, which is not always true after you get past the toddler stage, but you get to this point where like, Okay, I actually can sleep more hours consecutively. And it's almost like your body is so used to getting up all the time that you are then having trouble sleeping, because your body's just like, oh, this is what we do. We have in the middle of the night, you're like, Whoa, I so know that. Yes, this is hard. I don't want you to feel guilty, I am going to offer what I can. And keep in mind, like my youngest is five. So I am well past the baby stage. And at this point, the thing keeping me up at night is me. So given that this is such a big struggle with moms across the board, I'm going to share a little bit about what's working for me right now.
Patricia Sung 06:04
Okay, first, I am using the focus mode on my phone at bedtime is meant to be like a work like option on your phone, like I am trying to work hard right now. And I want to be focused, I don't want to be distracted by my phone. Instead, I turned it at 8:15pm. And it goes all the way until 6am. So that means that like for if I want to override and like look at Instagram, it's going to tell me like, Hey, your focus mode is on Are you sure you want to use it for five minutes? And then I think about it like, oh, okay, if I say five minutes, cool, then every five minutes, actually, it takes four minutes at four minutes turns the screen black and white, which is I find extremely annoying. And you have to tell it like, okay, cancel that don't do it. So yes, you can basically like quote unquote, snooze the thing, but it is irritating to me and I will exit out of it faster than I would if I just started on it. There are apps you can download that will like literally not let you override it. That is an option too. But I found that like, it turns off basically everything that's not essential, so that I'm not getting notifications for anything. And just as a side note, like I actually don't have very many notifications turned on on my phone in the first place. Like I don't get any social media notifications like unless I go in there. I don't know who messaged me. Second thing I do his brain dump all my thoughts before bedtime.
Patricia Sung 07:29
So like on workdays, I tried brain dump all my stuff, before I wrap up work, I'll do it as part of my evening routine. But I don't brain dump as my like bedtime routine. Because at that point, like I'm trying to slow my brain down not think of all the things that I have to do. So brain dumping earlier in the day so that I'm not brain dumping when I'm trying to sleep. You can do that. If you really are just like too many thoughts in your head. You can bring them then. But I just listened to no one else to it. No, it was a friend who was saying like, I No, no, no, it was my my neuroplasticity teacher, she was saying like, she's like, I wonder if people are just training their brains to think of all the things right before bed. And then your brain thinks like, this is the time we do this? No, I don't know brain is not. I don't want to train my brain to do that. So I don't want to bring them anything if I don't have to. So I'm just gonna bring them earlier. So now brain dumping in the bedtime routine and bring them in earlier. Get it all out of my brain. So it's not swirling around, because why does this happen? You lay down to go to sleep, nothing else is going on. And this is the whitespace that your brain is like, Oh, well, let me tell you about this. Let me remind you about this because it's the first time you have slowed down all day. And your brain finally gets to tell you lots of good stuff. This is why I'm a proponent of whitespace during the day. It's why I teach it in my classes as you need those little spaces during the day for your brain to have whitespace so that you can let your brain do all of its magical thinking. Because if you are so busy during the day that you don't ever have that time your brain is going to come tell you at some point all the things that wants to let you know, and I don't want it to be when I'm trying to go to sleep. Okay, anyway, tangent All right back on track.
Patricia Sung 09:12
Next step. One of the big things that I worked on with my ADHD coach was knowing like I did enough during the day, so that in the evenings, I don't need to be doing more projects. So I had this belief that I didn't realize I had about how like I wasn't doing a good enough job and I didn't get enough stuff done during the day. So what I do is after bedtime, I needed to do this project or that project and I have had to change like evenings are not my time to do projects. This makes me very sad. Because I am a night owl I would much rather do stuff from like 10pm to 2am and sleep in later but I kids in elementary school and that's not an option for me. So very sadly I had to change that To schedule of my life, and right now, after bedtime is not time for projects, which here we are, I have rewritten my brain with my neuroplasticity to know like, whatever I did during the day was enough, he was good enough, I don't have to do more stuff after bed, it's okay is not like the number of projects I completed on my to do list is not determining my value, it's fine. Now, this does not mean that I don't do anything at all after my kids get in bed. Sometimes I still have like a couple of things to clean up in the kitchen or like, oh, right, I forgot to pack that lunch for that field trip or whatever it was. But generally speaking, most of my stuff I have planned during the day so that once I get my kids in bed, I don't have a bunch of things that need to get accomplished.
Patricia Sung 10:50
Now hear me real loud and clear. I am not consistent on this. Remember, I am about persistence. So I am getting better and better at this. I would say there's still probably like two nights a week where I end up doing stuff after the kids go to bed. And I look at like more often than not did I go to bed at an earlier time in earlier is subjective. Depending on who you are, at an earlier time. More often than not. When I didn't. I'm like, Oh, I can feel that my body's like Patricia, we're trying to heal and get healthy, would you please go to sleep. That is the time where I am healing in that is a high priority for me. When I'm consistently not going to bed at a time, which allows me to get in the amount of sleep that I would like to get, I feel that and I can clearly identify that that is a link to how I feel and how clear my brain is and how like on the days where I don't get enough sleep. I'm definitely way more fuzzy, it's harder to get going. I'm Dragon, I'm more impatient and overwhelmed and frustrated. So through that self discovery process, I've realized that there's going to sleep earlier and matters more than getting things done. So I can clearly say that spending time working through like that belief of like, I'm not doing enough, I'm not good enough, because I didn't get enough things done has really helped me and allowed me to go to bed earlier, which I never could have told you beforehand. And that was connected, but it was for me. Maybe it is for you to maybe it's not.
Patricia Sung 12:15
The next thing I'm doing is that I changed my bedtime routine. And I haven't figured out an ID surefire way to make this happen. So it is still a bit of a mystery to me. A mystery. Just a work in progress. Can it be a work in progress? It's a work in progress. One thing that I found that really helps me go to bed earlier is when I get ready earlier now I like I think I've talked about this before 100 Have I? So good question. Like for my kids getting ready, like we do their bath time before dinner, because when they get out of the shower or the bath, I swear it's like you just poured sugar water on them and they're high energy after bath time in shower time. So we do that before dinner whenever we don't have something going on in the evenings. And that helps us like have just a way smoother bedtime transition because yes, they do eat dinner in their pajamas. But like then after that, it's like they can relax and have some like downtime before bed. And then we're only doing like go potty brush teeth kind of thing, read a story, say prayers, listen to a song and we're in bed. So that's helped a lot. When I was brainstorming with actually another friend who's a coach, she's in her internship so I volunteered to be one of her test subjects for her internship and she's a nurse practitioner and looking to get into oh man, what's it called? Like basically like health coaching but with a nursing background so they know they're a little more knowledgeable and health stuff, obviously. So maybe not a little probably a lot.
Patricia Sung 13:51
So the main goal that I went to her with was trying to sleep more how do I go to bed earlier in wow, I actually did not solve the problem at all. When I was working with her what it set up for wow, I actually did not solve the problem at all. When I was working with her what it set up for me was the ability to practice trying different things and being a lot more okay with the experimentation process because as much as I say that I realized that like when something in you is like a really like ground in struggle. It's not as easy to read, right? So like I set up all these ideas with her and I was trying things out and I'm like it was not going well. And it did not come together until I took my neuroplasticity training and applied it to what we had talked about together it's so funny how your brain needs like time to integrate things together like you can learn more how to stuff but you need space to like let your brain put it together my brain finally put it together and now I am okay with being a person who goes to bed early. This like weird thing about like, I didn't want to go to bed early like it sounded like I was wasting the day again. We're back to that like what you do you're not good at Not because you didn't get stuff done, but only old people go to bed like I don't really like rigid definition of what sleep could look like in a healthy way. It's like one of my favorite things about working with like therapists and coaches have is like it really, I really have to take a hard look at what like the way that I see things. And like, always surprising myself like, didn't think about that. He did. So working with Jennifer really helped me like experiment and like, what could it look like for me to do something different with my sleep in one of the best ways that I can go to bed early is doing the same things I did for my kid Shaka, I didn't even occur to me the time is that I also will get ready for bed before bedtime, I have noticed that one of the struggles I have is that by the time I am tired, and when I go to bed, I am also too tired and I don't want to get ready for bed. So I will continue to do whatever thing is not good for me, like stand in the kitchen and scroll Instagram while I eat granola instead of going to get ready for bed. So that transition point is difficult for me. So I moved the transition point earlier in the day so that it's in a time where I have more capacity I you know, I my medicine is still in effect. And that has made a big difference on the days where I can again, you know, if we have something going on in the evening, I can't do that. But like on the days that I can get ready for bed before I get the kids ready for bed that makes the transition smoother.
Patricia Sung 16:30
Now this sounds kind of crazy. I'm sure there's a mom listening who's like Patricia foster ever lovin mind to think I get ready for bed before my kids go to bed. You know what it, this may not be a solution for you, but I'm gonna throw it out there anyways, and let your brain marinate on it. And you might come up with like, not necessarily that you have to do what I'm doing. But like how can you creatively use what you already know and apply it in a way that would make sense for you. So here's what I do, I will get ready for bed either while they're doing their bath time, or like while they're having their quiet time between dinner and bedtime. And like when I'm on top of things, my bedtime routine doesn't take me that long in my head. It's like oh, so but really, it's like, I put on pajamas, I wash my face, I brush my teeth and took on my contacts. All in all, we're talking like five, six minutes, I can find five or six minutes to do that, because when I do that, I will put them in bed a come down and do the last couple of like cleanup things and make sure we're like my usually my kitchens already done. My bags are packed. But like just check, make sure we good hey, lock the doors turn on Melbourne. And then it's so much easier to just climb right in bed than to have to go do this like big transition. Next step that's helping me is not having my phone at bedtime. I was running into the issue of get my kids in bed. And then I would sit on my phone in the chair in their room and scroll my phone because they just wanted me to be in the room but like I'm not talking to you because you need to go to sleep. So I would sit there on my phone and scroll then of course like I don't scroll for like five minutes. I was on there for like an hour and a half. And like this is not working for me. I don't want to be here that long. But again, man at that point in the day we're transitions are really hard and it's hard for me to get off that chair. It's hard for me to stop scrolling. So now again, I don't do this every night. I'm going for more often than not I try not to take my phone with me to bedtime. This is uncomfortable because I have to sit in this chair in the dark even if it's like two minutes. I'm like this is the longest two minutes of my life and I cannot handle it. But what I have learned is one I assure as your groom getting out of that chair two minutes because I'm like no I'm done. Like I'm no longer sitting here damn go so that helps a lot. It is also made me more present at bedtime because I'm not looking at my phone in the boring parts when I'm like please go potty please go potty please go potty and then like I'm waiting for him to go potty and then I checked my phone randomly it's like ooh, dopamine machine. So again, it's super awkward feeling because I have to sit in these quiet times with nothing to do but I have realized that the trade off of that uncomfortable waiting time is better than sitting there for another 45 minutes scrolling my phone.
Patricia Sung 19:27
Okay another thing that helps me go to bed early is when I got the kids in bed, it comes down to a couple things. I go right to my room do not stop go do not collect $200 Do not sit on the sofa. Do not pause in the kitchen for snacks like notorious with my husband for like standing in the corner of the kitchen and eating snacks and scrolling my phone and like I can't do this anymore. So I do not stop until I get to my bedroom. There's no There's no sitting down and pausing or resting because again not moving then I gotta go right to my bedroom when I get to my bed. Finally, I tried to do something quieter, so not my phone. In something that's not a screen, I will tell you that my screen time in general has gone way down in terms of the television and my phone when I go to bed early. Sometimes I'm a little sad about that. Sometimes I'm not. But in that time, I try to do something that's on a screen. Or if I do end up like, Okay, well, we're gonna set up like if we watch a movie that night, but I'm a little blue blocker glasses. And sometimes a quiet thing is reading a book, pass, be careful about the book, because if it's gonna get really interested in it'll stamp reading for a long time. This is one of the things we talked about in the meetup was like, I don't want to be up till 2am reading this book. So I won't choose books that I know I'm going to be super into. But if I am reading a book, I also tell myself that I do not have to finish the chapter before I stop, I cannot help it. I'm like, maybe this is part of my OCD creeping in. But I want to finish the chapter. But the problem is, the chapter is always a cliffhanger. And then I want to know what happens at the beginning of this chapter. So my new rule is as soon as I started to feel tired, bookmark in close the book, I will figure out where I was next time I read the book, it'll be fine. I do not have to enter the chapter. Oh, that has been a really hard one since on Sunday, so that Billy's been really hard to just drop in the middle, the chapter that has helped me actually go to sleep. Another thing that helps me is just having a bed that I love, we have a Purple Mattress, I highly recommend, I have pillows that I love, I have sheets that I love, I have blankets that I love, like I love being in my bed, morning, Patricia does not want to get out of bed, so I have to make it really awesome. So that evening, Patricia also wants to get in the bed earlier.
Patricia Sung 21:48
Another thing that helps me get into the bed faster, is telling my husband to meet me there earlier, I'll make my way there faster, and not come up with a bunch of projects quite as often. If there's the goal, if you know me, side note, my husband does not require as much sleep as I do. I don't know if that I totally believe him when he says that. But he definitely sleeps less hours than I do. And I used to wait for him to go to bed. And then I would also go to bed, but I cannot function on that level of sleep. So I also had to have a chat with him of like, I cannot stay up with you can watch stuff. Like if you want to hang out with me. You got to come to the bedroom, you can talk to me there. And then you can go back and watch your show. But like I this is a no I cannot stop at the couch and hang out with you for a bakes neronian. Same thing. I'll be there. He's watching some sports game. And I would sit next to him to like, quote, spend time with him and hang out. And then I would end up like reading on my phone. I'm like, I don't care about the sports game. I don't need to be up on Instagram. Like just go sleep. So that is another experiment that did not help. Nope, not an option. So I will go to bed before him. And like I tell him like, too bad. So sad. I'm not staying up with you. You're on your own.
Patricia Sung 23:06
Other things I like to do. But I don't always do is create some like ambiance in going to sleep. I try to play like It's like cheesy spa music, but it makes me feel tired because it just like there's no words or anything. It's just you know, like, you know, the vibe, babbling brook and the instruments from the other side of the world. And it just calms me down and helps me sleep. My husband hates white noise. So I only can do that when he is also not going to sleep because it drives him bonkers. I also have like lower wattage lightbulbs in one of my lamps. So it's like, even when I move around the room, it's still like less light. I am at a smells person. But like you can do something like that. Again, like you don't need like a 15 step routine here. It's like what's one thing you could do that would be like more calming to your brain and be like, this is a signal for bedtime. I am also not going to give you a bunch of advice that you already know like you should go to bed at the same time every day. That's That's lovely for people with no responsibilities and no mental health issues. And no tiny humans, like you know, maybe one day I'll figure that out. If I do I'll make a podcast episode about it. But my my episodes not including any of that stuff.
Patricia Sung 24:23
Alright, so I have gone through all the things I do to actually get in the bed. And if you are somebody who then gets in the bed and then your brain is still moving and you can't fall asleep. I already mentioned the brain dump earlier in the day not at bedtime. But generally speaking from what I have very anecdotally asked different people with ADHD is that usually your brain is just like still on and it looks different for everybody. But your brain is not in sleep mode and it's not in to slow down and shut off mode. It's in go mode still. And this like speedy brain are overwhelmed, like whatever is going on also reminds me a lot of feeling anxious. So that seem like going more than I want to in this moment, whether it's like it's going too fast, it's too chaotic, it's too overwhelming. It's too loud. I've noticed a lot of commonalities between when you're trying to go to sleep and can't because your brain still moving, or you're feeling anxious because your brain is moving more than you want to in the moment. So that is you, this section is for you. What do we do when our brain is still on and we want it to be off.
Patricia Sung 25:33
Number one, we got to disrupt the pattern, we have to teach our brains that this is not the time to think of all the random things and that I should have put on the grocery list and what you know that phone call I forgot to make. I'm gonna bla bla bla, no brain, this is not the time for know that phone call I forgot to make. I'm gonna bla bla bla, no brain, this is not the time for that. Here's what we're doing right now. First, we're gonna disrupt that pattern, you may have been doing this pattern for years. So it may take us a little bit to rewrite it. But here's, we're gonna do, we're gonna disrupt it. If you need disrupting ideas, go over to my website, and you're going to download this free video I did. It's like 10 ways to calm down when you feel like Medusa mom is going to show up because you're overwhelmed or frustrated. Like here's how you can disrupt same kind of things you can do to disrupt when your brain is on overdrive for sleep or feeling anxious. Things like bilateral movement, tapping, having a soft gaze and like focusing on the peripheral. There's a whole bunch of ideas in that video. It's patriciasung.com/calm, and it's free. The videos like oh, man, I forgot now, the video is like eight minutes long if you leave it on regular speed shorter if you speed it up, and I demonstrate the ideas too, so you can see it being done.
Patricia Sung 26:45
Okay, then I want you to ask yourself right now, I'm going to ask you to brainstorm if it helps you to write it down. You can write it down. If you're like, alright, things down fine. Just think about in your head. I would like for you to describe for me, what does your brain sound like or feel like? Like? How would you describe all those thoughts that feel like too much? What is going on? How do you describe that? Generally speaking, people will tell me that it's fast in some way. It might be fast in like, a lot of things are happening at once, like you have a lot of thoughts coming, it could be that the thoughts like don't really ever finish and another one starts, it could be just that it's like a like a high pitch like I've been reading for about this interview, whatever not really, something about it is fast. And when we want to calm down, or we want to go to sleep, our goal is going to be to slow it down. I'm gonna circle back to that in a second. So right now either write down or in your head describe how it feels in that speediness. What are you hearing? What are you seeing? What are you thinking about? Is it complete sentences? Is it freezes? Does it look more like you're watching a movie? Are there sound effects? Do you notice if things are in color? Or black and white or sepia tone? Are your thoughts clearer? Or are they more fuzzy? Is it feel louder? Does it feel soft? Is there some kind of rhythm to it? Like is it like studies freight train? Is it sporadic? Is it more like staccato? Are there specific feelings you feel? Now know that you're not going to have all of these things. Some people tend to be more visual, some people tend to be more auditory. Some people literally just like I just know things, I don't see them or hear them. So however you would describe those thoughts. When you're trying to slow down, you're trying to go to sleep trying not to be anxious. What do you notice what's going on? Okay, no, we're gonna do the opposite of whatever your brain is currently doing. That would make sense here. Okay. So I want you to think about those thoughts. Like imagine you're laying in bed and the thoughts are going, if your thoughts are super fast to slow them down. If you're thinking about, Oh, man, I really got me that does women instead think? Oh, man, I really need to make a phone call for that dentist appointment. If it's high pitched, say it low pitched. If it's a movie, change it and distill photos. Take those thoughts that are happening in one by one modify those five adjectives to be the opposite. That would feel more sleep friendly, or more calming down friendly. Now I'm gonna guess this is gonna feel super weird. You may have never even thought about how your thoughts sound at that moment. You may have never tried to change what's going on in your brain before. But also it's going to feel really weird that if your thoughts are always going 100 miles an hour to slow it down and be like I can't forget to return those library Books tomorrow. The goal here is weird. We want to disrupt the pattern that your brain has always done in order to create something different happening so that your brain doesn't just automatically go and do the same thing that it's done every night for the past six years, or 16 years or 46 years. We're trying to rewrite the way that we do things so that we're letting those neurons in the brain die out. And we want to grow and strengthen the ones that say at that time, we think slowly, we have a cool voice like Pete the cat, here we go real slow, so that our brain knows it's time to go to sleep.
Patricia Sung 30:45
Now that you have a clear plan to change your thought pattern in, I said, Five, you're welcome to do more or less, when you go to sleep. The next time after you listen to this, try doing those things while you're laying there. If you're feeling anxious somewhere, tries to changing the way that your thought pattern goes into something that is calmer, probably slower, more low key, so that you can start training your brain to think in a different way during those times. Now, this is helpful for you. I'm going to offer up a couple more ideas, because multiple of you have asked me to do a calming audio, and I did not feel qualified for that job. Lo and behold, I just learned how to do this in my certification class on neuroplasticity, I have put together a private podcast for calming audios for sleep and anxiety specifically for ADHD. Because I absolutely love these at night, when I can't fall asleep. I'll be honest, the more that I practice them, the easier it is to fall asleep, because my brain now knows Oh, this is what we do when it's time to go to sleep.
Patricia Sung 31:57
Now, if you are in successful while I mean apps, do not buy this, because it will be in your membership, you're gonna get an email invite. If you don't already have it. It will be there shortly. And if you'd like this private podcast, you can join successful mommy tips by next Wednesday, which is our next group discussion day. So not only will you have a famous discussion with other moms who get you you also have a private podcast of calming audio for sleep and anxiety because I just like throwing fun little bonuses in because my membership mamas are mean people. Oh, and good news. Successful mama meetups now has a second meeting time. So it's in the evening for me, which means it's the afternoon for Hawaii and it goes all the way through. If you're on the other side of the world for me in Asia and Australia. That will be Thursday morning for you. There's another time for you to come and join us and we have two meetings on Wednesdays, one in the afternoon for me and one in the evening for me. So head over to website check the time zones and see what that time is for you. To join us you go to patriciasung.com/meetup there you'll find the link.
Patricia Sung 33:05
Now if you're like hey Patricia I can do the membership for whatever reason. You can also buy the audio it's going to be $9 Nothing crazy. And you can grab it at patriciasung.com/slowdown. All one word. So if you want to join successful meetups patriciasung.com/meetup. You'll be there for the discussion. For April which our theme is emotional regulation. And if you just want the calming audios on a private podcast, you go to patriciasung.com/slowdown all one word, and then remember to go grab the free video of ways to disrupt the pattern. When you're on the struggle bus. That's Patricia sung.com forward slash Colin. All right, I have armed you with many a tool on how to slow down and go to sleep. You've also got the private podcast which is called Slow down be present because they want you to have as many tools as possible to make your life a little bit easier. Okeydoke successful, sweet dreams and I'll talk to you soon. For more resources, classes and community head over to my website motherhoodinadhd.com