People with autism have a “flatter” circadian rhythm. This essentially means that the peak in melatonin production is less in people with autism.

3. Image by Stephanie Ghesquier from Pixabay
PSYCHOLOGY
This Is Why People With Autism Have
Worse Sleep: Science and Treatment
It might be due to their genetics
Lorenz Duremdes, Polymath
Dec 26 · 3 min read
“Even a soul submerged in sleep
is hard at work and helps
make something of the world.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments
ccording to the book:
Why We Sleep
No, it's not really a how-to guide. There is a two-page
appendix which gives tips for getting consistently good…
www.goodreads.com
A

4. People with autism have a “flatter” circadian rhythm. This essentially means
that the peak in melatonin production is less in people with autism.
Again, this makes it harder to fall asleep.
Lastly, people with autism seems to have shorter REM sleep as well further
contributing to worse sleep quality:
REM Sleep Percentage in Children with Autism
Compared to Children with Developmental Delay…
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by
abnormalities in social interaction and communication an…
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Treatment: Pills or Not?
he book further advises not to use sleeping pills. Why not? Because
sleeping pills reduce the quality of sleep in terms of slow brain waves
(i.e. sleep spindles) and time spent in deep sleep (i.e. stage 4 NREM sleep).
T

6. By gif: en.user svg: Krzysztof Szymański (Krzysiu Jarzyna ☎) — From en.wikipedia (permission granted by
the creator, in the English Wikipedia), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?
curid=1708491
This is characterized by sleeping “sufficient” hours (approx. 8) yet waking
up with a feeling of grogginess as if you haven’t slept at all.

7. The book, instead, advises Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia
(CBT-I).
One paradoxical stage in CBT-I is that patients aren’t allowed to sleep for
more than 6 hours in the first nights.
Why? Because it allows the concentration of adenosine to remain high
making you fall asleep much more quickly. This, in turn, builds “sleep
confidence” in the patients.
For a quick recap, the formula for sleep is essentially:
Sleep = Process-S - Process-C
Where process-S = adenosine
And process-C = circadian-rhythm.

8. CC0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33842718
In the image above, you can see how sleep is at “max” at 11 p.m.
Another “pill” that has been shown to be effective and not reducing sleep
quality is melatonin:

9. By Walgreens_Melatonin.jpg: Ged Carroll from London mostly, UKderivative work: Zoohouse (talk) —
Walgreens_Melatonin.jpg, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10957554

10. According to Wikipedia:
Melatonin might improve sleep in people with autism. Children with autism
have abnormal melatonin pathways and below-average physiological levels
of melatonin. Melatonin supplementation has been shown to improve sleep
duration, sleep onset latency, and night-time awakenings. However, many
studies on melatonin and autism rely on self-reported levels of
improvement and more rigorous research is needed.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin#Psychiatry
What do you do to improve your sleep quality?
. . .
If you liked this article, you may also like this one:
10/21/2019 — Chapter One: Cognitive Load Theory
and Autism
How high extraneous cognitive load a ects people with
autism
medium.com
And remember to subscribe for more articles like this:

11. Subscribe
See this to see why I write:
https://lorenzduremdes.wordpress.com/2019/10/08/introd…
mailchi.mp
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12. Productivity Science Health Mental Health Psychology
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