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Fixing Autism Sleep Issues
1.8k Plays11 months ago
Why do autistic people struggle with sleep? Do autistic people have a different sleep cycle? How can we fix autism sleep issues?
In this episode of the Thoughty Auti Podcast, Thomas Henley talks to Dr. Megan Neff from Neurodivergent Insights about the sleep issues autistic people face and how to fix them.
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Chapters:
00:00 - 01:10 Introduction
01:10 - 04:09 Catch Up With Megan
04:09 - 5:03 Alexithymia In Therapy
05:03 - 09:00 The Importance Of Sleep
09:00 - 21:31 Autistic Issues with Sleep
21:31 - 34:29 Autistic Strategies To Fix Sleep
34:29 - 40:42 The Vagus Nerve & Breathing Techniques (Q&A)
40:42 - Pain, Sleep and CBi Therapy (Q&A)
42:04 - 45:07 Sleep Supplements (Q&A)
45:07 - 46:37 Conclusion
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:06
Speaker
Good day and welcome back to the 4DOT podcast with your host, Mr. Thomas Henry, of course. And today we're going to be covering the topic of sleep. Last episode, we talked to Emma Stone, which was a very enlightening episode where we were talking about cerebral palsy, sort of the lived experience angle of that. Well, today we're gonna be talking about sleep, which is something I think a lot of neurodivergent and autistic people could struggle with. And this is going to be the second appearance
00:00:36
Speaker
of our guest, of course, from New Year Diversion Insights, Dr. Megan Neff, which is gonna be a really great episode. I'm hoping that I can take some tips about sleep or have a bit more of an understanding about it.
Dr. Neff's Work and Insights
00:00:50
Speaker
Without further ado, let us introduce Megan. Hello, Megan, how you doing? Hello, great to be back with you. I'm doing, I don't know, never asked me that question. I never know how I'm doing.
00:01:06
Speaker
The Alexithymic Haze. Yes, exactly. The Alexithymic. How in the world do I summarize all of the things? I'm here. This is your second appearance on the 4080 podcast. What I'd like to know is what have you been up to since we last did one of our episodes?
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, it was. That was probably about over a year ago. So I guess kind of big things is I've I've gone full time with neurodivergent insights in writing. And so that's been a fun, like career shift and self care for autistic people just came out last month.
00:01:46
Speaker
um which was really exciting and also yeah kind of like you I don't know that I always access those emotions of excitement but I know up here that's an exciting thing to have happened um yeah so writing speaking um continuing to learn I just I like what I do because I just get to keep learning and going on random deep dives into things all things neurodivergent
00:02:13
Speaker
Yes, I think we share that interest. I have realised that for anybody who hasn't watched the previous podcast, which I highly recommend that you do, at least after this, would you be able to give us a bit of a sort of a brief introduction into the kind of work that you've done and what kind of stuff you do online?
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah, so, um, about three or four years ago, I started neurodivergent insights after discovering, um, that one of my children and myself were autistic and just realizing like, wow, so much of what I experienced in my training did not prepare me to see this either in myself or my child.
00:02:52
Speaker
So I think the thing I'm most known for, I haven't actually don't make many original ones anymore. I'd like to, but I make Venn diagrams, misdiagnosis Monday, where I compare autism and ADHD with other conditions. And my whole reason I set out to do that was I had this realization of there's a lot of undiagnosed autistic ADHD adults, but they're in therapy. So they're getting diagnosed with something. And so that is really kind of the,
Importance of Sleep for Neurodivergent Minds
00:03:20
Speaker
I guess the cornerstone of
00:03:23
Speaker
at least how I started, was wanting to increase awareness around that. I've kind of pivoted to, I do a lot around neurodivergent wellness and adapting, like taking psychological principles and then adapting them for neurodivergent minds. I'm a clinical psychologist by training. So I think a lot about how do we take these ideas and then make them work for our brains.
00:03:45
Speaker
And most recently, I'm also gotten into community building. So I run a community of autistic ADHD adults and also co-host a podcast, Diversion and Conversations, where we're both autistic ADHD mental health therapists talking about kind of our experience, but then also giving the clinical lens. So that's a bit of what I do.
00:04:09
Speaker
that podcast. Yeah, you came on and we talked about Alexithymia. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. My favorite topic. Yes. I have a mixed relationship to it. I mean, I like talking about it, but also like it's really annoying to live with.
00:04:23
Speaker
yes it definitely is but especially when it comes to like the the aspects of like therapy and stuff like i always think about sort of my time going through the psychological roots as a child and just you know getting getting loads of techniques to use to
00:04:41
Speaker
manage my emotions and not being able to manage them properly because i didn't realize that i was feeling anxious or like you know talking very bluntly and just openly about like awful things that i've experienced and just having no emotional processing that goes on with this it's very
00:05:02
Speaker
It's like, well, um, today we're going to be talking about sleep and I think this is a very apt time for us to talk about it because last night or the other night before actually, I didn't get any sleep. And at the moment being like literally zero. Yes, I had zero. That is atrocious. I'm so sorry.
00:05:25
Speaker
it was all right i mean look the um chat got to see um thomas in a very sort of you know when you get sort of sleep deprived and you you find everything really funny you get just a little bit yeah we watched a bunch of memes um meme videos on the stream the other night which was was pretty funny um
00:05:46
Speaker
But yeah, good sleep last night, however, waking up,
Causes and Effects of Sleep Issues
00:05:51
Speaker
exactly functioning, all that stuff is really, really big issue for me. So I suppose a good place to start would be like just talking generally about sleep, because like I think most people know that, you know, sleeping like a certain amount of time every night is good for you and it sort of like resets your brain and stuff. But I'd like to understand a bit more about like
00:06:15
Speaker
why we do it and why it's beneficial for us to get like a nice amount of sleep. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I wish I'd like thought I had to a good metaphor here. Okay, imperfect, but I almost think of it like the cleanse cycle on if you were to do a cleanse cycle on your oven or your dishwasher, like to kind of clean out stuff. Sleep is kind of like a cleanse cycle that our body does. So it cleans out certain neurotransmitters
00:06:45
Speaker
Um, when we're in sleep, it also like helps with other neurotransmitters. So like serotonin, all this stuff that's good for mood. Um, so there's a lot of neurochemical things that depend on good sleep and are impacted by it. So that's where, so I actually used to work. Um, I used to work in a hospital setting and I worked in OBGYN for a long time. So I worked with a lot of new parents.
00:07:08
Speaker
and a lot of parents who are experiencing postpartum depression, my number one intervention at that time was like, you need one full sleep cycle. So three and a half to four hours is a full sleep cycle. So if someone was showing up with anxiety or depression and in that perinatal period or postpartum period, the first thing is just let's get you a sleep cycle. And a lot of neurodivergent people also struggle to get a full sleep cycle or to get sleep.
00:07:38
Speaker
That's often one of my first line of defenses for mental health, is if someone's struggling with depression, anxiety, and they're not sleeping well, is actually, let's get your sleep on track. Because just on a neurochemical level, there's so much that happens. Beyond that- That's a really big impact, doesn't it? Huge, huge, absolutely. Yeah, and it's not just like, oh, I'm tired. It's because of the impact on our chemistry.
00:08:06
Speaker
We also take our memories that we've kind of been holding that day and it goes into long-term memory during the process of sleep. So I have very little memories of when my kids were zero to five. And it's because I was sleeping horrifically and a lot of those memories just weren't getting placed into long-term memory. So it also impacts memory and learning.
00:08:31
Speaker
Um, so if we're like a student and we're struggling to sleep, but maybe, and we're studying and we're trying to get that information into our long-term memory, that's also going to impact like our studies. Um, so yeah, sleep is really, really significant and it's really, really hard for most autistic and ADHD people.
00:08:51
Speaker
yeah i mean that's that's an interesting one like um i suppose a sort of a good sort of follow-up question would be you know what why is sleep necessarily more difficult for us i mean like i know for myself um just just at baseline with no medication anything like that i really struggle getting to sleep
00:09:16
Speaker
but with the medication that I'm on, I'm on like a sedative sort of sedative medication called metazapine and it has like a very very long half-life so it pretty much just sedates me throughout the day but it also like the morning after waking up after after having it every single time feels like I've just gone on like a
00:09:39
Speaker
some kind of drug-fueled two-day bender or like a... That's so interesting. Yeah, this would be an interesting survey because I know when I take like, I can tolerate melatonin, but when I take over-the-counter sleep aids, like the next day, I feel so sluggish.
00:10:00
Speaker
Autistic people often do have more sensitivity to medication. So yeah, I'd be curious to do a poll of people, like how many can actually take some of those sleep medications without just feeling. The one that I have found, I don't know why, but TheraFlu sounds so messed up. But when I get a cold, I get kind of excited because I'm like, oh, I can take TheraFlu, like nighttime TheraFlu. And I want to get a really good night's sleep. Is it the drowsy version or something? Yeah, it's the drowsy version. I don't know why.
00:10:30
Speaker
For some reason, that is the one that will put me to sleep and I don't feel terrible the next day. But yeah, knowing we're more sensitive to those things that kind of suppress our system, I think it's obviously wise to be thoughtful about that. So I do know that I have seen some studies, particularly around autism and melatonin. I know that the common advice that people give
00:10:57
Speaker
for people is to avoid like blue light exposure because there's like receptors in our eyes which like melatonin production is inhibited by when we sort of see blue lights or give us this slight circadian rhythm, but I have I've heard that autistic people don't produce as much or like maybe
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, would it be helpful for me to go through kind of like the different ways or reasons why sleep can be hard for us? Like, yeah, that
Sleep Challenges and Routines
00:11:30
Speaker
would be great. Okay. Um, so yeah, I'm thinking I use bucket metaphors all the time. So I guess I'm thinking in buckets here again, too. But like, so medical. So we know in general,
00:11:41
Speaker
Autistic people and ADHD are just more vulnerable to all kinds of medical conditions. So gut, autoimmune, so many things. But including that are some sleep issues. So things like sleep apnea or any like breathing airway obstruction, that whole class of disorders.
00:11:58
Speaker
And it's so there could be a medical reason. Other medical like restless leg syndrome is more common among us. Yeah. So that I always recommend if someone especially if someone is actually getting like eight hours of eight to nine hours of sleep and they're still waking up exhausted. I recommend people see if they can do a sleep study and look into medical reasons. So that is one piece is co-occurring
00:12:24
Speaker
medical conditions impacting sleep. Then if we go over here to genetics, there are a few like
00:12:32
Speaker
So technically they're gene mutations. I always feel weird saying gene mutations when talking about autism or ADHD, because I don't think of our neurotype as a mutation, but technically gene mutations that can impact either melatonin or circadian rhythm. So with melatonin, what can happen is sometimes what's called a flattened melatonin curve. So ideally you have kind of a nice
00:13:00
Speaker
um big curve like it hits you know at that time the nighttime and it signals like okay it's time it's time for my body to go to sleep um and so for a lot of autistic people we might have a flattened curve so we're not getting that same that same signal of it's it's time to sleep
00:13:18
Speaker
or we can have circadian rhythm disruptions. So that might be, and this is seen a lot with ADHDers particularly where it's just like their natural circadian rhythm for some people might be to go to bed at 4 a.m. and wake up at 11, but our world doesn't always work like that. So yeah, is that your circadian rhythm? I have no idea. I think I must be running on like, I think my circadian rhythm is running on like a 25 hour clock.
00:13:48
Speaker
Like naturally, if I just let myself, I need a lot of sleep for some reason, like 10 hours. And it's very frustrating because I know you can probably identify with the need to sort of, the desire to sort of stay productive and like, you know, work on your own business and stuff. But is the length of sleep?
00:14:13
Speaker
which I did, I did maybe see something about the length of sleep required might be a bit different. Oh, so yeah, so we on average, like our so okay, we have a lot of issues falling asleep. The other thing, okay, I'm diverging for a second. The other thing I just want to name is like cochlear and mental health conditions. Yes, we know we have a lot of so anxiety, depression, these things also impact sleep. So like anxious mind, you know, the mind is a sneaky little thing. Like as soon as we lie down in bed,
00:14:43
Speaker
the mind's like, Oh, I have an audience. So I'm going to start chatting that year. So if we have an anxious mind, that can absolutely impact sleep. The like default mode network stuff like resting brain state thing. I don't know if it's connected to that. It might be. I was just thinking more about like chatty kind of monologues that when we're anxious, we have we tend to have a lot of chatty thoughts and ruminate and then sensory stuff.
00:15:13
Speaker
is also obviously going to impact sleep. Okay. But what you were saying about length of sleep. So falling asleep is harder, but also our quality of sleep tends to be less. So like we autistic people tend to spend less time in REM sleep. REM is that really kind of deep restorative sleep. So I think average person spends about 25% of their time in sleep. And one study found we spend about 15%, which would mean we would need more time sleeping to get the same amount of REM sleep.
00:15:43
Speaker
Is that is that maybe what you're thinking of? Yeah, I'm just thinking as well like it's like diverging things in my brain like thinking about particular sort of substances that because there's like a crossover between ADHD and autism and like addiction and stuff and there's a lot of substances out there which like decrease REM sleep as well. So I am just imagining situation like
00:16:11
Speaker
That would be another one I think we should add to that is co-occurring substance abuse issues because we know that that's really high in our population and understandably, a lot of us go to substances to try to down regulate our nervous system.
00:16:29
Speaker
And then, yeah, it creates new issues like sleep and it becomes this whole cycle. And I think it's a cycle that is really understandable and hard for a lot of us to break. A lot of people in the chat are saying that someone bought a sleep-on ring and showed that they got about 9% to 11% REM sleep. Oh, yeah. That's all right. Someone said that they've spent 11 days before and with no sleep.
00:16:59
Speaker
Oh my, that would send a lot of people into like psychosis, I would think. Yeah. That's rough. Wow. It can be dangerous as well. Like that. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that wasn't a joke. Like it literally can send us into psychosis when we aren't getting sleep.
00:17:21
Speaker
I never had that. I have, I think the longest I ever stayed awake for was maybe two and a half days. It was because I was traveling for like a long time, but I really struggle sleeping in public because I'm like hyper aware of like the vulnerable state that I'm in when I'm in public and it's like,
00:17:46
Speaker
But that that that was I think the most I've ever got from not sleeping was just feeling exceptionally giddy Like I've never had any hallucinations or anything much Yeah, well, um, I suppose it now that we understand like a little bit about why it might be
Creating a Sleep-Friendly Environment
00:18:05
Speaker
more a
00:18:06
Speaker
difficult for us I think what one last thing that I might suggest in terms of difficulties is like the executive function around sleep schedules and things like I can imagine that if you struggle to
00:18:24
Speaker
detransition from working or like doing a hobby or something to sleep or you struggle transitioning from your bed to starting your day, like that that can sort of impact like your sleep hygiene and stuff. Right. Do you think that that could also be a factor? For sure. Yeah, like the the hype, the tendency to hyper focus
00:18:49
Speaker
like that, that a lot of my bad sleep spirals start that way is I got really hyper focused into a project stayed up late. And then it starts off a bad sleep cycle where the next day I maybe take a nap, I do extra coffee, and then I have a harder time falling asleep the next day and then it spins into an insomnia loop. So absolutely relatable. Yeah.
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah. And it often goes back to one of those neurodivergent traits. It's like, well, that was the domino that then, and so I talk a lot about, okay, know your sleep triggers, like know the things that start off one of those spirals and then know the resets. So like for me, if I'm in a spiral, sometimes a reset might be like, okay, I'm going to power through today without extra coffee, without a nap. I'm going to do a walk because I know that's going to help my body be tired. Um,
00:19:40
Speaker
to try to catch the spiral before it really spins. Oh, sorry, I'm diverging all over the place. Sorry, Thomas. I love it. Whenever I experience change in my life, that often will
00:19:54
Speaker
Lead to a season of insomnia for me and I've noticed that's also really common for autistic people like yeah Yeah, that well that makes sense doesn't it because I've seen other people sort of describe the way that we set up routines as sort of being like a step-by-step kind of process like I know that Usually there is something in my day, which is the gym which sort of sets up my entire evening to a certain degree so like
00:20:23
Speaker
If I don't go to the gym, like usually using my routine as I go to the gym, I have a shower. I brush my teeth. I put on my skin care stuff. I go. I mean, I brush my teeth before because sometimes I can't executive function myself out to brush my teeth again after I eat. It's a weird thing. So then.
00:20:47
Speaker
So that kind of kicks off my routine to get everything done before I need to sleep. But if I don't go to the gym one day, because I don't know, I woke up playing, I've got a deadline to do, it's like the whole routine just falls. And I'm just sort of left in what you were saying, that kind of anxious, like, default mode network kind of experience where there's just so many chatters and faults and I just can't like,
00:21:16
Speaker
You get into decision paralysis. We are such delicate creatures. Yeah, it's like one thing gets off and it's like, okay, it's all gone. Yeah. Yes, I relate.
00:21:30
Speaker
Well, what, what are some steps that we can take to improve six? I know you, you were talking about like a reset and such, but it would be nice. Good to know. And maybe we could try. Sure. Uh-huh. So.
00:21:51
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. First I'll just share like, this is how I visualize the sleep spiral, like where, you know, day one hyper fixated on a project. So then I just, I talk about mapping things a lot, whether we're not mapping our nervous system or mapping our sleep. So I think the first place to start after you is identifying your spirals. Cause again, I think because of how our brains work.
00:22:15
Speaker
we tend to have a lot of kind of vulnerable areas for spirals, whether it's, I always forget how to say it, revenge, procrastination, sleep, sleep, revenge, procrastination, or hyper fixation. And then identifying your resets. So that's just kind of bird eye view is knowing what makes you vulnerable to bad sleep cycles, and then also what your resets are.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah.
Managing Sleep with Chronic Conditions
00:22:44
Speaker
And then here's the thing I talk about a lot is, um, and this is back when I used to do behavioral psychology. So that was when I was working in, in hospitals with folks, I would draw from, well, I've added some for autistic people, but I would draw from sleep. These like six sleep buckets, as in these are different ways you can support your sleep. Now it's gonna.
00:23:05
Speaker
Where you want to start depends on the cause of your sleep issue. So this is also assuming that your sleep issue is not medical, right? So these are all what's called behavioral strategies to support sleep. So the sensory supports, that's the one I've added for autistic people, like just we want our sleep environment to be really sensory soothing and then identifying if there are noises or things waking us up. So me, that would be like having a fan on in the evening.
00:23:34
Speaker
Yep, exactly. Yeah, like for me, I've got like a really good blackout mask that blocks out light. I have earplugs and a white noise machine. Like I'm just, I work so hard to block out all of the things. I still, I still get woken up by the birds, but. Yeah.
00:23:53
Speaker
You already mentioned sleep hygiene and sleep routine, and those are just kind of basic sleep principles. But I think they matter more for us in the sense that because we don't necessarily get those internal cues of tiredness, if we have a flat and melatonin curve, or just if we have differences in inter-receptive awareness, so we need more of those external cues.
00:24:18
Speaker
So when we have a sleep routine, over time, the body learns like, oh, this is my signal, it's time to go to sleep. So I
Resources and Conclusion
00:24:26
Speaker
think sleep hygiene and sleep routines are harder for us. I also think they're more important for us. So those are two.
00:24:36
Speaker
And then relaxation strategies. So, you know, in our last podcast we did together on trauma, we talked about the nervous system a lot. So what often happens when we're in a bad sleep cycle is our sympathetic nervous system starts getting activated because we're stressed about the fact we're not sleeping. That's like the fight flight stress. It's like adrenaline's going up, cortisol's going up. We can't fall asleep when we're sympathetic dominant. So having some of those relaxation strategies that activate
00:25:06
Speaker
The parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and digest part of our nervous system, is really, really essential, especially for neurodivergent people because we do have that more sensitive nervous system that tends to be in stress more often.
00:25:21
Speaker
Yeah, I've seen some stuff about that like with the cortisol, the stress hormone being sort of increased more for autistic people and like lasting longer and I know that like cortisol is sort of a root of a lot of medical related things too.
00:25:43
Speaker
Absolutely. That's part of like, so we know that there's that link with all extra medical conditions for us and stress and cortisol is a big, it's not the only reason, but that's a big piece of the link for sure. Absolutely. Um, and then the other two sleep stimulus, maybe, okay, how do I bird-eye view this? Maybe we can talk about this one more in depth in a minute, but this has to do with, um,
00:26:11
Speaker
neuroplasticity and neural binding. Yeah, let's talk about that in a minute. Let's just put a note on that. But at that, we want our brain to associate the bed with sleep. So there's some ways we can do that. And then CBTI, this one's interesting. I don't normally recommend CBT for autistic people. This is the one exception. So this is where you identify the stress thoughts with sleep.
00:26:38
Speaker
Um, and you, you work to make them more gentle. Again, we're thinking about that nervous system. If I'm lying in bed and I'm like, I'm going to be so miserable tomorrow. I'm never falling asleep. Think about what that's doing to your nervous system, right? It's making it more stressed. So being about like your, Oh my God, I really need to get to sleep right now. And like, I've got, I've got so much weight to do tomorrow. It's like you just hyping yourself up for the next day before you actually fall asleep.
00:27:05
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. And then you're not going to fall asleep because your body's in stress mode. So it's and it's not about like, we don't want to be deceptive with ourselves. We don't want to lie to ourselves. Actually, maybe I can find some examples I have. What we want to do is have we just want to make the thoughts more gentle.
00:27:27
Speaker
But, but we have to believe them, right? Like we can't replace it with like, I'm going to feel great tomorrow. So like, I will never fall asleep to, I will eventually fall asleep or like, I'm going to feel miserable tomorrow. I have survived hard days before. Um, but the, the part that's really important when doing CBT anything is that the kind of reframed more gentle thought is something that is believable. Yeah.
00:27:52
Speaker
Um, and if that doesn't work for people, then I think distraction techniques work really well. And my favorite is something called cognitive shuffling. Okay. That was like the bird eye view. And then I'll, I'll, you can feel free to ask about any of those. Yeah. I think, um, when you were talking about, I know you said you were going to talk about, shall I, um, sort of get, get rid of the graphic or are you wanting to, um, yeah, I,
00:28:20
Speaker
I mean, yeah, I think we could probably get rid of it.
00:28:24
Speaker
I can bring it back at any point. I know you said you were going to touch on sleep stimulus before, but I know that one of the issues, particularly for me, working from home, is I don't really have many environmental shifts. And for me, my sensory haven, the place that relaxes me the most, if I'm stressed, is my bedroom.
00:28:53
Speaker
So I know I know that that's not a good thing, but I have like a color changing lights in my room. And if I if I do spend time in my room when I'm not trying to go to sleep, I usually have it on like the white setting. Whereas when I'm going to go to sleep, I've said it said it on a timer to like turn orange to like give myself some
00:29:23
Speaker
So they've stimulated, like, tell my brain, okay, all right, I need to wind down kind of thing.
00:29:30
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so you're building in cues for your brain, and that's really important. Actually, I literally, I love that you said that, because in the chapter on sleep, I have, so these graphics are coming from working on a workbook with Simon & Schuster on autistic burnout, and these are from the sleep chapter. But I have a box in there on autistic considerations for sleep stimulus, because so many of us retreat to our bedrooms as a sensory
00:29:58
Speaker
like our sensory Haven. Um, and so that absolutely complicates the sleep bed association. It's also not realistic for many of us not to do that. So we have to figure out ways to work with that. I love how for you, it's like, okay, I'm, I'm finding other ways to cue to my brain.
00:30:16
Speaker
that this is different now. I think another way of doing that. That would be great. If I just had like a, or like a swing or something that I could just like go in and just like listen to music and just sit in my swing and just like, I wish I had that though. That sounds incredible. I wish I had that too. Yeah. Yeah. I think one thing I do try to recommend for folks is if space allows,
00:30:46
Speaker
As much as possible, don't make the bed the sensory place, but like have a really comfortable chair or like I love, I have a moon pod I love. It's like a beanbag chair, but it's zero gravity or just like having a, even if it's just a chair next to the bed, but you obviously want it to be comfortable, but at bare minimum, if we can protect bed for sleep, that is going to help a lot with insomnia and sleep and restlessness. Wow. Moon pod.
00:31:16
Speaker
Oh, that does look very comfortable.
00:31:18
Speaker
It's yeah, I so I'll like sit on that and then I'll put my weighted blanket on it and then my headphones with my stem song and that's that's my like sensory happy place. Well, um, I suppose not now that we've got some well, I think I think that my last question was looking looking at the workbook. So maybe baby, do we pull up your weapon again? Sorry, I'm a little bit. Did you want to so I have I guess it's complex the thing I was just showing you this is from my upcoming
00:31:49
Speaker
This is from my upcoming book with Simon and Schuster on Autistic Burnout. This is just a chapter of it. I think for the workbook, maybe what you're referring to is the workbook I have up on my website, which I think you actually have the screen for. So yeah, that's the workbook where I go into all of these different sleep buckets and how, and I'm actually, I'm in middle of redesigning it. These are my, this was one of the first workbooks I ever made. And so I'm in middle of,
00:32:19
Speaker
and improving the design. But yes, I go into all of these sleep buckets there. And is the stuff that we watched on your screen, is that from the sleep guide? A lot of it is drawn from that, but I've redesigned it and consolidated it. It's much shorter in what I was showing on my screen. Very cool.
00:32:47
Speaker
Well definitely go check out Megan's website Neurodivergent Insights and also the Instagram account. I know that you do also have a podcast and stuff but I think I quite often talk about you when it comes to autism related things because I think that one of the things that
00:33:11
Speaker
is on my list of goals in terms of making life easier for autistic people is to have more neurodivergent
00:33:22
Speaker
Like people who understand both the scientific and the sort of lived experience angles to autism, I think considering the statistics around life quality and all of the co-occurring things that we can experience, I think it's...
00:33:42
Speaker
very important. So I think I think you're an exemplar exemplary. Is that the right word? I think you're a great word. That's, that's very kind of you. I will I will I will work to take in your compliment. Well, I suppose is there anything else that you'd like to cover when it comes to sleep? Or is that
00:34:08
Speaker
I'll just mention I also have a lot of free resources. So I know you just showed that workbook. But I also have free blog posts. And if you scroll way back on my Instagram, I have several series on sleep. So I just want to highlight that there's also some free resources out there as well, where I do more of this deep dive. Very cool. Very cool. I do have some time for some questions, if there's any questions you want me to answer from. You see, that's a good idea.
00:34:38
Speaker
That is a very good idea. I think we did have some some people. So if you guys have got any questions that you want to ask around sleep. Oh, yeah, there's someone who said the coffee makes them sleepy. I have heard that like a few times from my ADHD years. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard that from ADHD years. It's so interesting how like our brains and our bodies just respond so differently to some of these things.
00:35:05
Speaker
Someone said that microdosing helps them sleep quality. Someone said that Brie asks, I'd like to know more about the Vega system, nervous system theories like polyvagal and somatic experiencing therapy. I have
00:35:26
Speaker
Yeah, I have a lot of articles I could link to, but yeah, I talk about the neurodivergent nervous system a lot. Okay, synthesize. Synthesizing is hard for our brains, which I'm sure you can relate to. Okay, so yes, we have what I call is a more sensitive nervous system, meaning like that window of tolerance, that window when we're in a regulated zone.
00:35:53
Speaker
is more narrow, so we're more easily flip into a stress state. Now that could look like that fight-flight kind of act like hyperactivation, but it could also look like fogging out mild dissociation. And there's some research that suggests autistic people are more prone than non-autistic people to respond to stress by going into that hypo arousal state.
00:36:18
Speaker
which in polyvagal theories, that's that kind of ventral shut down or dorsal shut down. So yeah, I think polyvagal theory and I think there's some really helpful concepts from it. I think it can at times oversimplify things, but I draw from it a lot. I also add to it because I've seen some like
00:36:43
Speaker
So various devices that people have created to stimulate the vagus nerve and stuff like that. What do you think about those types of things? So I've started experimenting with that this year. I bought the... Oh my gosh, I'm blanking on words.
00:37:06
Speaker
Sensate and I really like it The other one that I see a lot that kind of and this one's a lot more economical So I love tens units tens units give you Like a repetitive electrical pulse and you can actually buy ear clips and connect it to the tens unit and that's also a vagal nerve stimulator I used to be a safe and sound Protocol provider and that's also that stimulates the vagal nerve. So yeah, I think
00:37:34
Speaker
there's some on the market that are kind of gimmicky. Um, so I think that's just always good to, to know whenever something becomes popular, people are going to come sell stuff because we can also, yeah, exactly. We can also stimulate it. Like every time we laugh, every time we chant or hum or sing, we're stimulating our vagus nerve or that that's why deep breathing, like you, that's such a common, like take a deep breath. Um, when we fill our, our, um, when we,
00:38:05
Speaker
What am I words words are not like when you when you breathe in, you'd simply breathe in and not just at your chest, then it activates like that slow deep breath, especially that slow exhale is what activates the the vagus nerve.
00:38:21
Speaker
I tried the Wim Hof breathing method because I think one of the issues that I had when psychotherapists were encouraging me to try out sleep, not sleep, breathing related things is that I think due to the elixir fimer, I couldn't really tell if it was making an impact on me.
00:38:44
Speaker
But I tried the Wim Hof one, which is like pretty much borderline hyperventilating for about 30 breaths and then like. So that's to activate. Were you were you doing that to activate, like to get energy?
00:38:59
Speaker
And then you hold, you hold your breath and then you let out the breath very, very, very, very slowly to like bring up the sympathetic and then bring it down. I think it's something to do with like coping with like stress and also like, cause I did feel very relaxed after and also experienced a lot of tinnitus, but. Huh. I wonder, I mean, I don't, I don't know the science of that.
00:39:23
Speaker
specific breathing technique, but just hearing you describe it, I wonder if it's partly aimed to increase our heart rate variability, the way you're like kind of manipulating breath, which that's heart rate variability, which is different than heart rate, tends to be low for autistic and ADHD people. And that's one of the measurements that measures like basically how flexible and how strong that that vagal tone is.
00:39:50
Speaker
And that breathing kind of sounds like it would maybe be an exercise that would help increase heart rate variability. But I'm kind of riffing here because I don't know the science of that specific breath work. I think it's definitely good for me, both for relaxation. I mean, not while I'm doing it, it's quite like, I mean, it stimulates your anxiety. So it's like,
00:40:09
Speaker
But it also, I think, because you are taking on that stress in a controlled fashion, I think as Sarah's talking about in the chat, you're taking on that stress in a controlled fashion, and so you're sort of learning how to cope and sort of breathe through stress and stress, which is... So it's also exposure. It's also safe exposure around, because it's in your control, and it's like, okay, I can survive,
00:40:37
Speaker
this experience. I like that. Someone was asking about pain and sleep. Oh, yeah, that would be another of the like buckets. A lot of us have chronic pain. And so absolutely, that is going to impact sleep as well. And that's where
00:41:03
Speaker
Ideally, if you have chronic pain, you're working with your medical team on managing that and there are specific strategies around that as well. The relaxation and the CBTI also becomes really helpful there because anything that quiets down the nervous system is going to help with pain. But when we do that, we have to do it in a way where we're not invalidating the pain. A lot of times when we start talking about behavioral interventions,
00:41:32
Speaker
to help us manage life with pain. If it's not done with a lot of nuance, it can feel really invalidating of our pain. Same with like positive positivity and stuff like that. So holding the balance of like, there are things that help our nervous system relax, which helps the pain experience. And the pain is not all in our head, like to hold the both of those.
00:41:59
Speaker
um yeah and also chance units i think could be helpful with depending on the pain i suppose like one one last thing i'd like to to mention would be like things related to like supplements because i know there's a lot of like
00:42:16
Speaker
I have a big interest in supplements that I have for a long time and like medical, not medical, like herbal things like Relator, but I do find that and I have seen it in some other places that
00:42:33
Speaker
like what do you see people can struggle sort of developing like glycine or something and so I do find that um like protein shakes particularly on a night helped me a lot and I think that's maybe because of like the tryptophan that's that's in the protein like helping with like serotonin development and um I also heard some stuff and and use um like CBD
00:43:01
Speaker
That's been quite helpful for me on the evening, just to quieten my brain. Not necessarily just for feeling sleepy, but it quietens my default mode network. I've seen some other stuff, like obviously magnesium and things like that. Is there anything else that props you into your mind?
00:43:22
Speaker
I mean, there's things that pop into my mind, but I also have to be careful about medical advice. I think generally I recommend people work with their provider, but yeah, we do tend to have more kind of deficiencies in our minerals and vitamins. So if we can identify what those are.
00:43:45
Speaker
like you mentioned magnesium is a common one. The one thing melatonin I have a mixed relationship to because technically melatonin supplementation can decrease dopamine, which like what autistic person needs less dopamine, but also not getting sleep impacts neurotransmitters. So that's one personally in my life, I'm constantly
00:44:06
Speaker
going back on the pros and cons, because melatonin does help me sleep. So I just think it's wise to remember just because it's a supplement doesn't mean we don't have to be thoughtful about it, because all these things impact each other. So I recommend people work with their medical team when possible. Which is maybe just my idea. I'm not saying go out and try the things that I'm saying, guys. I'm not a professional. I think it's a really great point. There are
00:44:35
Speaker
supports that are that are out there especially given our bodies do tend to have more imbalances. I've tried like the typical ones like lemon balm or passion flower I've tried was the it was the other one valerian root
00:45:00
Speaker
blaring rose kind of it did work but also gave me restless legs so i tend to stay away from them but i mean so so much to talk about as as always and um
00:45:12
Speaker
But I know that you've got to go to sort stuff out, so very much appreciate you coming on to talk. And for anybody who is on here, please make sure, go check out Megan's stuff, Neurodivergent Insights, the website, and the books and such, and also the Instagram page and the podcast.
00:45:34
Speaker
I'm giving you your social media spiel for you. No, I appreciate it. I'm really bad at giving my own spiel, so thank you for doing the labor for me. Well, it's been a pleasure, Megan. It's been really good to see you again, Thomas.
00:45:51
Speaker
Alrighty, take care. Well, guys, I hope you have enjoyed this episode of the 40 or two podcasts. And if you have, please make sure to subscribe. If you're on YouTube, please make sure to follow over on Spotify, Apple podcasts. What is the other one? Google podcasts. If you're on any of those, please give the podcast a rating. And if you want to see some more stuff from Megan's.
00:46:15
Speaker
Let me know because I'm always very, very keen to have her on to speak about everything autism. I hope you have a very good day and then we'll see you next week for another episode of the faulty podcast. See you later.