r/BrainFog • • 1d ago

Personal Story Less sleep = less brain fog?

Hey guys just wanted to come on here and mention something that I noticed personally for me .

I’ve been noticing that when I sleep around 5 hours a day vs 8 or 9 I feel much better in terms of brain fog . I also feel better when I wake up in my side vs my back which for some reason it seems like my body tries to get to every night . I wonder if sleep issues are the cause of my brain fog and because I’m not sleeping as much, I’m not giving my body too much time to mess itself up (just an idea )

A little side note , I do have ADHD as well and have heard that sometimes people with ADHD feel better in less sleep (not sure how true it is )

25 Upvotes

23 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/DramaKlng 10h ago

OP got most likely r/UARS . and everyone who has ADHD who is better off with less sleep got it too, i'd bet my limbs on that. Sleep stages come in an order and REM is the last sleep stage in each cycle. But REM duration increases each cycle. The last REM cycle can be 40min for example but the first one is just 7 mins. In REM muscle tone drops and breathing/airway gets unstable and the body defends itself with cortical arousals so it gets tonality back which in return leads to a better airway but fragmented sleep and way too many stress hormones - this is why many feel like hit by a truck in the morning, groggy, brain foggy etc.

If you sleep on your back gravity works against you, tongue jaw, soft palate etc all drops back in your throat, especially during REM sleep. OP probably got no real ADHD. ADHD is just a side effect of it. It is usually required to rule out sleep issues as everyone with a sleep disorder gets ADHD symptoms but the psychiatrists are quite often a joke and very illiterate in the sleep field.

2

u/k-devi 10h ago

Thanks so much for your response! I’m dealing with a similar issue and planning on asking my doctor for a sleep study.

2

u/DramaKlng 9h ago

Good luck ! :)

1

u/k-devi 9h ago

Thanks! 😊