Someone I love very much has ADHD and she's one of my favorite people in the world. She's smart and creative and so funny, especially when she's being kind of a goofball. But she also has a high stress job with a lot of responsibilities and I suspect that her ADHD sometimes makes that harder than it needs to be.I wish I could fix things for her but she doesn't need fixing. She's actually really good at managing her life. Still, I know sleep can be a challenge, so I thought I'd create an episode specifically for people with ADHD.And honestly, I think this episode will help anyone who's having trouble falling asleep tonight. So here's the thing about ADHD and sleep. Your brain doesn't always have that natural dimmer switch that most people have.You know how most people start winding down as evening approaches? Their thoughts naturally slow and their bodies get the message that it's time to rest. For ADHD brains, that transition doesn't always happen automatically. Instead, you might finally get into bed and suddenly your mind is wide awake.And not necessarily with anxiety, but just awake. Because ADHD brains are interest-driven. You need something engaging to focus on.And lying still in a dark room? Well, that's the opposite of engaging, which can result in your brain creating its own entertainment by jumping from thought to thought to thought. So tonight, I'm going to give your brain what it actually needs. Something genuinely interesting to focus on.Something with enough sensory detail and movement to hold your attention but calm enough to allow sleep to approach. But first, a reminder to be somewhere safe. When listening to any of these episodes, they use hypnotherapy and relaxation techniques. So you want to be in your comfortable bed. There is a full disclaimer in the show notes. And now let's help your body begin to relax.Find the most comfortable position you can. Adjust your pillows. Pull your covers up to just the right spot.Take a slow breath in through your nose and then let it out with a gentle sigh. Let's do that again. Breathe in slowly and exhale even more slowly, letting that breath carry away some of the tension you've been holding.One last time. Breathe in, feeling your lungs expand and then breathe out, feeling your shoulders drop. Now, just let your breathing return to its natural rhythm.In a moment, I'm going to guide you on a journey through a museum at night and all you need to do is listen to my voice and let your imagination follow. Think of my voice as a path through a forest. Even if you step off the path for a moment, it's still there waiting for you.Let my voice become the most interesting thing in your awareness right now. More interesting than whatever thought just popped up. You are excellent at focusing intensely when something captures your attention and I'm asking you to let my voice be that thing.If your attention wanders, simply notice where it went and then gently bring it back to my words. Imagine now that you're standing in the grand entrance hall of a natural history museum but this isn't during regular hours. This is after the doors have closed to the public.The museum is hosting an overnight event and you've been given permission to wander freely as long as you like. The entrance hall rises above you, vast and quiet. Marble floors stretch out in every direction. The museum at night is different from the daytime chaos of school groups and crowds. Everything is peaceful. You can hear the quiet hum of the climate control system, a low steady sound.There are other people here tonight. You hear distant footsteps and the murmur of voices from far away. But right now, in this moment, you have this hall to yourself. In the center of the hall, suspended from the enormous glass dome high above, hangs a massive brass pendulum. The cable stretches upward into the shadows and in the bottom hangs a heavy brass sphere. The pendulum swings back and forth.You watch the brass sphere travel the full length of its arc. See it slow as it reaches the peak and pause for just a heartbeat before it falls back the other way. Back and forth.The pendulum is marking time, its path slowly shifting as the hours pass. It's been swinging like this all day, all night, measuring the turning of the earth itself. The rhythm is hypnotic.Your breathing begins to match its pace. Time moves strangely for you sometimes. Hours can feel like minutes, minutes like hours.But this pendulum doesn't care. It just swings, patient, constant. You don't have to understand time.You just have to breathe. You notice a wide staircase leading downward, marked by a brass plaque. Lower level, ocean life.The stairs are made of the same marble as the floor, but worn slightly in the center from decades of footsteps. A polished wooden handrail runs along the wall, smooth and cool under your hand. Each step downward feels good.Your legs carry you easily. And with each step down, you feel your body settling, becoming more relaxed. The temperature grows slightly cooler as you descend.The sounds from the upper level fade behind you as you reach the bottom of the stairs. You hear the sound of the ocean. It's soft, played through hidden speakers.The gentle wash of waves rolling onto shore. The rhythmic pulse of water moving in and out. The lighting here is blue, like being underwater.The walls seem to shimmer with reflected light, as if you're actually beneath the surface of the sea. And then you see the holograms. Throughout the gallery, life-sized holographic projections of ocean creatures move through the space as if swimming through water.They're so realistic that for a moment you forget that they're not real. A pod of dolphins glides past you, their bodies arcing gracefully. You can see every detail, the sleek gray skin, intelligent eyes, the way their bodies move.They're so close, you feel like you could reach out and touch them. A massive manta ray soars overhead, its wings rippling with slow, hypnotic movement. The blue light catches on its white underside, and it looks like it's made of moonlight.Schools of tropical fish shimmer past in organized chaos. Yellow and blue and orange and silver. They move together, turning as one, creating shifting patterns of color.Your mind, which has been jumping from thought to thought all night, finds something it can finally settle on. You notice a bench against one wall and move toward it. The holographic fish swim around you as you walk, parting gently to let you through, and then reforming.You sit down and a holographic jellyfish drifts past your shoulder, translucent, delicate, its tentacles trailing behind it, like ribbons. The sound of the ocean continues, and beneath it you hear the distant song of whales, deep calls that echo through the space, the sound of something vast and peaceful and older than memory. Notice how easily your mind has been following these holograms.Now naturally, your attention has settled. Your mind is actually very good at this, at being captivated, at hyper-focusing when something is genuinely interesting. Across the gallery you see another staircase descending, and you make your way to the stairs.This descent is slower. Your legs feel so much heavier now, so relaxed. Each step requires a little more intention.It's not difficult. Just slow. Your breathing is deep and natural.The dinosaur hall is massive. The lighting is warm here, golden, like late afternoon sunlight. And there they are, the giants of history.A tyrannosaurus stands in the center, his head raised, mouth open, to show teeth as long as your forearm. Its tiny arms are tucked against its chest. Beyond it, a triceratops, its enormous skull with three horns, facing the T-Rex, an eternal standoff.A stegosaurus, plates running down its back, the long graceful neck of a brachiosaurus, reaching up into the shadows near the ceiling. You walk among them, these ancient creatures, feeling the weight of time in this place. Millions of years compressed into this moment.These creatures existed in their own time, moved at their own pace. Your mind has its own relationship with time, its own rhythms. It's okay that sleep doesn't come on a neat schedule.Be patient with yourself. You notice the last staircase. This one marked level three, planetarium.The final descent is the longest. The planetarium doors are open and you step inside. The space is circular, with a domed ceiling that rises above you.The room is in darkness except for the night sky, projected overhead, thousands of stars, galaxies, swirling in great spiral arms. The Milky Way stretches across the dome like a river of light. There are a few other people here. Scattered throughout the space, all of them lying back in the comfortable planetarium seats. All of them quiet, some already asleep. Their presence is comforting.You're not alone. The seats recline completely, deep padded seats covered in soft fabric. You choose one near the center and also you notice something folded on the seat, waiting for you.It's an oversized sweater, incredibly soft. You pick it up and the fabric is like touching a cloud. It's exactly the right amount of warmth.Slipping the sweater on, you feel wrapped in oversized comfort. You lower yourself into the planetarium seat and recline it all the way back. The sweater wraps around you like a gentle hug.Above you, the stars shine. The dome of the planetarium rotates almost imperceptibly. So slowly you can barely detect the movement, but it's there.A gentle, constant rotation that mimics the turning of the earth. You pull the sleeves of your sweater over your hands, cocooning yourself even further. You hear the soft, steady breathing of the other people in the room. All of them peaceful. All of them safe. all of them resting. Your breathing matches the slow rotation of the stars. The museum holds you. The earth holds you. The universe holds you. Your body is so heavy now. So relaxed. Every muscle has released its tension. The thoughts that were racing through your mind earlier, those thoughts have found a place to rest, leaving you in this beautiful, empty, peaceful space. The stars above you continue their gentle rotation. Or maybe you've closed your eyes now and you're seeing your own stars, the ones that appear behind your eyelids in that space between waking and sleeping. It doesn't matter which. Both are beautiful. You're aware, dimly, that you're actually in your own bed. That the sweater is actually your own blanket, pulled up around you, soft and warm. That the stars above you are actually the darkness of your own room, safe and familiar. Your mind, that mind that can be so active, so alive, so brilliantly creative - has finally found something it can do in this moment: it can rest. It can stop searching for the next interesting thing, because it has found the most interesting thing of all - peace. Quiet. Sleep. Sleep is here now. It’s something that's been here all along, waiting patiently for you to simply... let go. The museum holds its treasures, and you are one of them. Precious. Valuable. Worthy of being cared for. I’m Suzanne. This is your ticket to snoozeville. Sleep now. Sleep deeply. Sleep well.