‘It is high time that society, general practitioners, professors, employers, teachers and care providers recognize and understand ADHD earlier. So that prejudices about ADHD disappear and clients dare to ask for help without hesitation if they need it’, says Sandra Kooij.
ADHD and sleep problems
ADHD is a serious, lifelong problem with many concomitant conditions, including on the level of physical health. This clustering of damage in the lives of people with ADHD in both mental and physical areas can only be prevented by making Time for ADHD.
The research theme ADHD & Time is close to Kooij’s heart. The disorder is associated with various types of sleep problems in 80% of the people, but especially with the delayed sleep phase disorder, a disorder within the biological in the brain. In ADHD, that internal clock is adjusted an average of 1.5 hours later than normal from childhood onwards. This is related to the late sleep pattern, but also to difficulties with getting up, winter depression, skipping breakfast, obesity and diabetes, and all the consequences thereof.
This raises the question of what the meaning of Time is for our functioning and health. What does it mean when the clock time of the world around us is out of sync with our biological clock? That probably results in something we know as jet lag, for all the organs in our body, but then chronically. Could it be partly because of this that ADHD is associated with so many physical illnesses?
Read more about the relating symposium that takes place before the inauguration on September 30 on the Psyq website. (in Dutch)