ADHD and Sleep

How experts and brands are seeing neurodivergent people as a lucrative market for sleep advice

A growing gap between need and narrative

There are some topics in sleep where the gap between what people need and what the market wants to sell becomes very clear. ADHD and sleep is one of them.

That is partly because the need is real. Sleep problems are common in ADHD, with research typically suggesting that around 50 to 70 percent of people with ADHD experience sleep difficulties at some point.

But where there is unmet need, there is usually a market waiting. And when the market arrives before the standards do, you start to see patterns emerge. A person gets diagnosed, or goes on a waiting list, or has a child with ADHD, or works somewhere adjacent to sleep, and suddenly they are not simply someone with lived experience. They are an expert. Or a coach. Or a guide. Or, more specifically, an ADHD sleep expert.

That leap happens far too easily.

Having ADHD is not a qualification.
Working in sleep is not a qualification.
Running a mattress company is not a qualification.

Being a retailer, a founder, someone working in the charity sector, a former HR professional, or someone who once ran a bakery does not become specialist neurodivergent sleep expertise merely because the internet rewards confidence and identity based authority.

The problem is not that lived experience has no value. It clearly does. The problem is when a dataset of one gets dressed up as universal truth.

But before we get too deep into this week’s topic, lets find put what has happened in Sleep This Week……

🛌 Sleep This Week

🧪 Weekend Catch Up Sleep Might Backfire

New analysis suggests irregular sleep patterns, especially trying to catch up on weekends, may worsen insulin resistance.
Seven hours still looks like the sweet spot, but it is the inconsistency that seems to cause the problem.

😴 Napping Patterns Could Signal Deeper Health Issues

A large longitudinal study links frequent, long or morning naps with higher mortality risk in older adults.
Less about naps being bad, more about what they might be pointing to underneath.

❤️ Irregular Bedtimes Linked to Heart Disease

Another study linking inconsistent sleep timing to heart disease risk.
Plenty of correlation, not much causation, but still presented in a way that will scare people into thinking their bedtime is the problem.

📡 Contactless Sleep Tracking Claims Keep Growing

New research shows non contact devices claiming they can detect sleep stages without wearables.
Passive sleep tracking is interesting, but we are not there yet in terms of accuracy or usefulness.

🎙️Sleep Architecture and Dementia in Focus

A new Sleep Research Society podcast episode looks at how sleep architecture may relate to dementia risk and progression.
Give Jesse Cook a follow on LinkedIn, he shares some useful sleep research content.

Now back to more on ADHD and Sleep…..

When low barriers meet high demand

This is where the coaching marketplace becomes relevant. There are self appointed governing bodies, credential pathways and training routes for ADHD coaches, but the number of people publicly presenting themselves as ADHD coaches far exceeds those who have gone through structured, assessed pathways.

None of this proves that uncredentialed coaches are ineffective, but it does highlight how quickly the supply of experts can grow when demand is high and barriers to entry are low.

And those barriers are often very, very, VERY low.

There are training companies who will train anyone, who class a CPD style course as a practitioner qualification. At that point, it comes down to an individual’s own morals and ethics, and that inevitably allows unscrupulous practitioners to enter the market and take advantage of vulnerable neurodivergent people.

Sleep is especially open to this kind of expansion because it already has weak borders. It sits awkwardly between medicine, psychology, wellbeing, self help, retail and content. That means people drift into it from all directions. Some bring real expertise. Some bring useful practical insight. Some bring a personal story and a product range. I have been navigating this environment for twenty years as someone from a product environment who has moved into coaching and education, and being credible and authentic, whilst the competition isn’t, can be difficult.

And when ADHD enters the picture, the proposition becomes even stronger.

A large group of people, often underserved, often frustrated, often looking for answers. That is a compelling audience. It is also an audience that deserves better than being treated as a category to monetise.

Products, promises and overreach

You can see the commercial pull in the product layer as much as in the coaching layer. Mattresses, weighted blankets, supplements, routines, courses, all positioned as solutions for ADHD sleep.

Some of these may help some people. But the way they are marketed often suggests a level of certainty that simply does not exist.

No product works for everyone.
No routine works for everyone.
No ADHD sleep system works for everyone.

When you have met one person with neurodivergence, you have met one person with neurodivergence, but marketing doesn’t;t often like nuance, so brands and expertise need to convince this audience, which can be vulnerable, that there experience is generic so they can be prescribed a one size fits all solution.

Medication, sleep, and the advice gap

There is another part of the ADHD and sleep conversation that is often absent from the more confident corners of the internet. It is less marketable, less straightforward, and harder to turn into a simple piece of advice. But it matters.

Stimulant medications, including amphetamine based treatments and methylphenidate, are widely used in ADHD and, for many people, can be life changing in terms of focus, regulation and day to day functioning.

But they also interact with sleep in ways that are not always straightforward.

Timing matters.
Dosage matters.
The type of medication matters.
And the person’s own patterns and context matter.

Taken earlier in the day and appropriately titrated, these medications can sometimes improve sleep indirectly by reducing daytime chaos, emotional volatility and cognitive overload.

But taken too late, taken inconsistently, or taken at the wrong dose, they can push sleep later, reduce sleep pressure, increase alertness into the evening, and make it harder to wind down.

For someone with ADHD, where time management and routine consistency can already be a challenge, taking medication on time is not always as simple as it sounds.

This is something that comes up regularly in the work I do with organisations.

Not just prescribed use, but a more complex and concerning pattern. People sourcing medication online, using a partner’s or friend’s prescription, experimenting with different doses, or switching between types without proper clinical oversight.

Sometimes this is driven by long waiting lists. Sometimes by frustration. Sometimes by a desire to function better in demanding environments.

But the effect is often instability, peaks and troughs in alertness, increased anxiety, and significant disruption to sleep.

It is striking how rarely this shows up in the more prescriptive advice circulating online.

Scroll through TikTok or LinkedIn and you will find confident instructions about routines, chronotypes and mattresses claiming to improve your sleep if you have neurodivergent sensory needs..

What you are less likely to find is a serious discussion of medication timing, adherence, misuse, or the very real complexity of managing stimulant treatment alongside sleep.

But if we are serious about supporting people with ADHD to sleep better, we cannot ignore one of the most powerful levers affecting their sleep wake system.

Medication is not the whole story, but it is often a significant part of it.

A familiar pattern, menopause and autism

There is a parallel here with menopause.

Another area where genuine need has increasingly been met with productisation. Mattresses, skincare, supplements, entire retail categories positioned around menopause support.

Again, some of these may be useful. But menopause, like ADHD, is not a single experience. It is varied, contextual and deeply individual.

Turning it into a consumer segment risks oversimplifying what people actually need.

Autism offers an interesting contrast.

Sleep issues are also common in autistic people, but the marketplace seems more cautious. Possibly because autism presents with a broader range of needs and differences. Possibly because it is harder to reduce to a single narrative.

It is much more difficult to sell a one size fits all solution when variability is so obvious.

That should make us stop and think when looking at ADHD.

Where advice starts to break down

The advice itself often reflects this oversimplification.

Rigid bedtimes.
Blanket bans on screens.
Claims about everyone being a night owl.

You will even find professionals confidently stating that people with ADHD should go to bed at the same time every night, regardless of whether they feel sleepy.

Or repeating the familiar line that blue light from phones is the primary reason people cannot sleep.

But this is where translation of science into advice often goes wrong.

Consistency can matter, but it is usually the wake time that anchors the system, not a forced bedtime.

Screens can affect sleep, but for many neurodivergent people they also serve a regulatory function, helping reduce agitation and create the right conditions for sleep.

Chronotype trends exist, but they are not destiny.

And then there is the complete drift into nonsense.

T Rex arms as a sign of ADHD.
One size sensory solutions.
Universal rules for a highly individual experience.

This is what happens when confidence outpaces understanding.

Learning, not labelling

I say all of this as someone who sits within this space.

I am on the ADHD pathway myself. I understand why people seek private diagnosis, even if it was not the route I chose. I have worked with people with ADHD and other neurodivergences.

But I do not see myself as an ADHD sleep coach.

The same applies to my blindness.

I am a visually impaired sleep expert. This does not make me an expert in visual impairment and sleep. I am learning. I am talking to experts.

But I am not rushing to the market with a sleep offering for visually impaired people as if a medical diagnosis is some sort of marketing opportunity for my services.

Because the moment you label it that way, you risk narrowing something that should remain broad.

What I have learned, particularly through working alongside people like Nickie Sutton, one of the leading neurodivergence and sleep experts in the UK, and one of our experts at Sleepunity, and this is me saying she is the best, Nickie is probably cringing reading this and cringing,) is that neurodivergent people do not need a completely separate system for sleep to the rest of the population.

It is that we need a system that works for everyone, including neurodivergent people.

And if large numbers of people are struggling to function within the system we already have, that is not a failure of the individual. It is a failure of the system.

A no nonsense approach

That is why the No Nonsense Approach to Sleep exists.

Not as an ADHD system.
Not as a menopause system.
Not as a product driven framework.

But as an approach that is evidence informed and individual led.

Everyone benefits from understanding sleep pressure and emotional pressure.
Everyone benefits from a consistent wake time where possible.
Everyone benefits from a wind down that actually works for them.
And everyone benefits from understanding their sleep environment set up.

For some people that might mean a weighted blanket.
For others, it absolutely will not.

For some, silence is essential.
For others, sound is.

For some, a device is a distraction.
For others, it is the thing that allows sleep to happen.

And some will need something one night and find it so annoying the next. There is no right or wrong. Just what we need.

The job is not to impose a rule.
The job is to help people understand themselves.

The question worth asking

So when people present themselves as ADHD sleep experts because they have ADHD and work in sleep, because they have a product or service to sell, it is worth asking a simple question:

Are they helping people understand their own sleep?

Or are they asking people to fit into a system they have created?

Because if it is the latter, then we are not solving the problem.

We are simply repackaging it.

And the people who pay the price are the ones who were looking for help in the first place.

James Wilson (AKA The Sleep Geek) is a Sleep Educator, Coach & Product Expert. He is genetically pre disposed to poor sleepers, and is severely sight impaired, and although sleeps a lot better now, is honest about his own struggles with sleep.

He is the founder of Sleepunity, a social enterprise committed to Better Sleep For All. He appears regularly on ITV’s This Morning and BBC Breakfast and has worked with the likes of Zurich, Budweiser, Under Armour and West Ham United helping their people sleep better.

He coaches individuals and has worked with shift workers, women living with the menopause international footballers, Olympic athletes and the odd famous person or two.

He offers training and certification for retailers, and a certification scheme for sleep products.

He and his team also help sbrands develop sleep products and services, and he has worked extensively in traditional sleep products like mattresses and pillows, in sleep tech, sleep tracking, supplements and on product development using insight from the 100,000’s of poor sleepers he has worked with