Welcome to the Attention Deficit Disorder Expert Podcast Series by Attitude magazine.

Good afternoon everyone, it's Susan Cloffin and I'm here today for Attitude magazine's ADHD experts.

If I had to pick one area that makes life really difficult for so many people with

attention deficit disorder it would be sleep waking up to early

problem falling asleep inability to wake up in the morning and so many other

personal twists on sleep disorders.

So today we're really pleased to have Roberto Olivardia,

PhD, who will talk about, his topic is,

why ADHD or can't sleep and what can we do about it.

Welcome Dr. Alvaria, thank you so much for joining us today.

Oh, thank you for having me, Susan.

I'm a big fan of Attitude magazine and very happy to do this webinar. And in my work with people with ADHD and

particularly with children, the issue I hear a lot from parents and people who struggle with ADHD is the issue with sleep.

And in fact, I mean, I don't know anyone with ADHD that doesn't have some issue or problem

with sleep. Myself included. I have ADHD and I have a lot of the sleep issues that I'm going to be talking about today.

For starters, when we think about sleep, is as you mentioned essential I mean proper sleep hygiene is really essential for our good health

That when we think about what are the things that really help ground us and regulate us. We have to eat well,

we need to sleep well, we need to keep our lives in a way that's manageablely, that our stress

level isn't getting too high. and if we're not sleeping well that puts everything out of whack it affects our appetite it affects our stress level it affects our frustration tolerance our ability to regulate emotions, our focus, our

concentrations. And there's no question that if you have ADHD, having problems with sleep is only

going to exacerbate all of your ADHD symptoms.

Certainly, even for people who don't have ADHD not getting a good night sleep,

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