concerta & coffee & sleep? | ADHD Information

maybe this has already been asked and answered.. sorry if it has..

i looked but i didnt really see anything and i gotta get back to work..err..start work!

ANYWAY.

I just started back on concerta (36mg).  Of course I cannot sleep.  But I love my coffee.  Will drinking it make my sleeping worse?  Or will it help with my medication as I read somewhere from other users that it has helped them.

And is it okay to take sleeping pills so I can fall asleep?  Cuz I don't fall asleep til about 5am and I have to wake up at 8am!

Thanks.
Concerta only works for somewhat 8 hours. The rest is probably the coffee and stress.

Based on my experiences, using coffee used to be my self medication. I used to drink about 10 double espressos a day which made me focus and work better. Since I got diagnosed with ADHD and got medicated with Concerta I no longer need to self medicate myself. I, however, did not understand this so I continued to drink coffee as before and started to feel some what like "normal" people feel when drinking too much coffee. I limited myself slowly to 2 cups a day and now I don't drink coffee at all anymore. (Even though i really love coffee) Coffee makes me a bit allert for a while, then tired, i.e. time for refill. Then it all starts over again. I just stopped and realized that I don't need coffee anymore. Suddenly I need about one hour less sleep a night!?

Another thing is timing when to go to bed. If I don't go to bed at about 10-11 pm, when I start getting tired, I start doing stuff with my computers etc for hours. Timing that tireness is important to me, even though I want to do more things before going to bed. It is frustrating but in the end, you get more things done that way because you work better the next day, which gives you more time for other things.

Clearing your head is also important. Mindfulness is good for that. Its a kind of meditation where you try to clear your head of thoughts which helps you to focus on where you are right now. Thoughts come to you but what you do is to accept the thoughts/feelings/anxiety and let  them go. Anxiety for a paper due or a meeting can be disturbing. But I've dealt with it before and suceeded so therefore I know I will do OK and I try to let go of the anxiety. It works in a lot of situations s.a. going to sleep or meeting  people without getting over-talkative.

Sleeping pills are bad. They get you sleeping so so but you don't deal with why you can't fall asleep.

I hope this gives you something to work with.