Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit

ADHD as a circadian rhythm disorder: evidence and implications for chronotherapy (2025)

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1697900/full
> walk in

> see this title

> oh man that would explain a lot

Ok after reading a chunk of this the correlation is pretty wild. Having the data it’s quite striking. Sleep intervention as a form of ADHD treatment has always seemed reasonable to me but this gives a lot more clarity to the approach and mechanisms.

For me, the seasonal aspect of it aligns with their blue light findings (both driving symptoms and aligning with improvement under the intervention of having a grow-LED garden setup on my desk), and in a second maybe related matter we’ve found using blue light blocking glasses an hour before bed to be the most impactful single intervention around sleep quality and onset (the ones that are like orange laser safety glasses, not the mildly reflective desk-work glasses)

loading story #50013109
loading story #50012870
loading story #50013004
adhd is a socially constructed disorder with significant heterogeneity and is only becoming moreso with the advent of scrollable video media and patient communities/advocacy. i am highly skeptical of results pointing to an easily identified physiological cause. the studies cited in this paper are generally low quality and fall apart under scrutiny.
loading story #50013183
Dr. Sandra Kooij is a good person to look up if you are interested in adult ADHD and sleep. She has a book about it. From what I remember, there are a few things that are known:

1. a large majority of ADHD sufferers are phase-delayed and struggle with insomnia

2. you can induce ADHD-like symptoms in normal people by restricting sleep

3. Some of the interventions that improve sleep timing and quality affect ADHD (but it isn't a total cure)

loading story #50013197
There seems to be almost nothing new here. I see that the main studies the they cite are actually from the 2010s:

https://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h68.abstract

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13899...

I'd be curious to see if there's been any larger scale follow up on this since.

loading story #50012993
I've been using a smart switch to fade in a light (one of the "sun-like" full-spectrum ones) over my head in the morning and it's been really effective for regulating my circadian rhythm. Even with little sleep, I will naturally wake up in the morning at a much more regular time.
loading story #50012937
loading story #50013286
Disruptions to sleep aggravates underlying issues, mentally or physically.
loading story #50013108
loading story #50012862
loading story #50013178
How do the authors disintangle cause and effect here? It doesn't follow that sleep issues are an underlying cause, and not just one of the MANY symptoms of ADHD.
Oh cool so now people will be told to go to sleep earlier and get more sun before you can prove that you deserve actual treatment. Fun...
loading story #50012789
loading story #50013323
lists Melatonin, first, then behavioral pseudo-interventions.

stay tuned for more monthly product placements on frontiers in, best digested post prime time.

Welcome to your readjustment. Willkommen beim Nachrichten.

hey, is anyone wondering if kleine & grosse Lauschangriffe are shared with private people or the guys working for these institutions are trustworthy enough and whether they actually deserved their Bachelor degrees or someone somehow decided they are worth it anyway? wait ... it's just a fucking Bachelors degree

Be me. Too AHDH to even open the article, let alone read the article before moving to the next HN post.