Boundary Setting & Sleep – Notes from a Coach
In today’s blog we’re going to do a dive into boundary settingand sleepbecause, for me, they are highly linked. On reflection, I notice that they are both examples of how to deal with challenges not of our own making*, and what we can do about them.
*ok, possibly not entirelyof our own making
I also have an interview about my lived experience of ADHDand a biiig coaching update!
Boundary Setting: Tools
There are all sorts of personal boundaries – physical, emotional and value-based for instance – but for this mini piece I want to focus on time.Because I struggle with it. For what it’s worth, it frequently comes up as a coaching topic, both with my clients, but with ADHDers generally too.
But let’s set the scene. I’m a people-pleaser, and suffer from time-blindness, both common ADHD symptoms. If someone asks me to do something, there’s a huge risk I’ll say yes. I’ll literally put their self-worth and priorities before mine.
Only, over time, I’ve learned this is not always a good thing as time is our most precious resource. It’s impossible to replenish. Other aspects affect my mental health too, so I now try and reflect on where other people’s requests (and sometimes demands!) sit, and only thenmake a decision. Unless I don’t fully process my emotions and concerns, agree, and have to backtrack on a promise. Awkward, but sometimes much better than pursuing an incorrect pathway; and if the other person is compassionate, they will understand that we are all human and have the right to change our minds.
Time is not infinite, so we have to use it wisely. And this includes time for chilling out, or for being silly and talking absolutely twaddle with friends, as well as time for working. The time I have in the day for mental projects is strictly limited, so I might still have physical energy left (and thankfully a local swimming pool), even though my ability to process a thought has completely left the system; or vice versa.
So I use tools to help protect me from myself.
My most important one is my diary, in the form of two Google Calendars. To get work I need an open diary, that people can book themselves into for their coaching sessions (and free intro calls!), otherwise the to-ing and fro-ing of discussing appointment slots would drive me doolally, and lose me potential customers.
Therefore I set up my calendar booking system to only allow a maximum of four appointments in the day – I’ve discovered that’s my hard limit before my brain starts to melt. It also adds in padding time after a call, just in case they overrun, and also to allow me refreshment breaks.
Finally, the pièce de résistance!No calls get booked in before 11am. No one needs to know, but it’s quite likely I will still be in bed at 10.30am. Not because I am lazy, but because I have a shifted circadian rhythm– really common with ADHD – and getting up earlier in the day is literally painful for me. Weirdly, and genuinely, exceptions apply for community conferences, but boy do I pay for it later!
The other advantage of an automated system is that I don’t need to think about it. Of course there are exceptions. Sometimes I block book certain dates out when I want thinking time, or need to reserve time for Very Important Meetings which haven’t been fully pinned down yet. Generally it works extremely well. Days out with my friends are also there, my swimming sessions, and occasionally blank days, so I can catch up with myself. I’ve learned that it’s better to have too many blank days which I can make available later, than to have too few.
For the office workers amongst you, I highly recommend booking out lunchtime. You can make it private or put a coded entry there. You need downtime; the brain needs to recharge.
No system is perfect, and sometimes I am still too busy, but it gives me a certain baseline to work from.
There are a wealth of tools out there though. Some people have prepared mental and verbal scripts such as “let me check and come back to you” or tools to switch off their computer and time-limit other devices. I’ve discovered the calendar booking method and heavily rely on it, but there are plenty of other options, and combinations of options. Feel free to pop into the comments, what actually works for you.
Boundary Setting: Checks
Sleep is important to sanity, health and wellbeing. Googling “brain fog” from my poor quality sleep eventually led me to get my ADHD diagnosis in fact.
I find tracking my sleep is crucial to understand what’s going on and give me a report of how useful I am likely to be as a human being on any given day.
Even now, with much better sleep – hints below – despite the best will in the world, things don’t always go according to plan in terms of bedtime and a sound night’s sleep.
I use an inexpensive Fitbit, just at night, to help me track. Back in the day, I knew I wasn’t getting a good night’s sleep as I wasn’t waking up feeling refreshed so I wanted something to help me understand what was going on – and, no, I didn’t get it and then get worried about my sleep quality, despite any number of people asking me this🤬
Good quality data: Reliable, consistent logsmatterwhen fault finding, as I suspect my readers will largely agree!
This is a typical night’s reading from early 2020 – just prior to COVID and my ADHD diagnosis. A whooping 21 mins deep sleep. Deep sleep should be more like 15%, rather than 5.4%. And 4-6 cycles worth, rather than one(!). My REM wasn’t much better.
These days it’s far more like this, with a solid hour’s deep sleep, and more REM sleep too, so I’m not complaining. It’s still not a standard healthy pattern (the sleep phases aren’t great), but it’s a lot better than it was.
So when it goes wrong, I now have data and can pay attention. Working too late? There’s no use kidding myself. I know that screen has to go off, for me, three hours before bedtime. I don’t think it’s the light, but more the thinking activities my brain has engaged in. It needs its winding down time.
But here’s a recent entry, where I was trying to complete a presentation and had decided it was better to work late and get it done, than down tools and try and pick it up later. Spot the 2am “lights out” time. And the impact? Reduced sleep quality and waking earlier. I think it was worth it in that I actually completed the presentation, but the data doesn’t lie and the following day was quite the write-off, being painful and me being groggy throughout.
For what it’s worth, my personal system is delicate. Send it out of balance and it will take days to recover. As well as receiving coaching on stress, with a lot of followup work on my part, other things that have noticeably helped me are: ear plugs to block out household sounds even though I didn’t consciously hear anything; a sleep mask to block out light pollution, magnesium foot spray – apparently I have restless legs, though I didn’t know it but thought it worth an experiment with a cheap spray; and a “grey label” use of clonidine, which is both an ADHD medication and something more commonly used for hot flushes!
I give this list to show that sometimes the issues are complex and more than one solution is needed, including a lot of trial and error. Undoubtedly some of the techniques above, or at least the combination thereof, are unique to me alone. Sometimes, when I’ve tried things, they’ve kept me up at night for instance – although the problems that I had on the day that I confused my daytime ADHD meds for my evening ADHD meds, were all of my own making – it was like being a student and wired on caffeine all over again!
The link here with setting boundaries, is that these things are all interlinked. Failure to set boundaries can impact my sleep. And actually, if I don’t have enough sleep, that can impact my ability to set boundaries. It’s not the entire reason for my poor sleep quality, but it is a contributing factor.
A mini interview
Towards the tail end of last year I was interviewed about my lived experience of ADHD. Due to space issues, I didn’t include it on my previous blogs, but I’ve reviewed it and if you want 15 minutes talking about the the liberation of having an ADHD diagnosis, as well as hearing my challenges and how I work around them, then it’s not too bad even if I do say so myself. I also speak about my volunteering for the Scottish ADHD Coalition and give tips on how to deal with things such as self-worth. With thanks to ADHD Europe.
Coaching News!
Last time I wrote I had two coaching slots available. They got filled. With boundary setting in mind, and now I’ve experimented with being full, I’ve worked out that there is still a little bit of spare capacity in both my brain and diary, so I’ve got one extra slot. Is this marketing? A little bit, but emotionally I feel I have met my goal – I do feel full. So let’s regard this as my “stretch goal”. But after this one, I’m definitely full. Way too many other projects tugging on the rest of my time.
As an aside, yes, there’s been a huge emotional journeywith all this – highs, lows and shock – I’m aiming to write about about it in my next newsletter.
Even if you don’t want coaching today, perhaps in the future instead, it’s still a necessary step before I take on any coaching client. It’s important for me that you understand what’s required to get the most out of your coaching sessions, and what can and can’t be done with coaching. I also always recommend that people speak to three coaches, so I’m happy to be part of your process of experimentation, learning and navigation.
With that in mind, now is a good time to book in that intro call if you’ve been thinking about it.
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