I was wondering if anyone takes ritalin at night and what your experience with that is. Can you sleep? Does it help you sleep? What are the effects of having a steady-state level? I should mention that I'm taking it more for depression and I'm looking more at the long-term, chronic effects of taking the drug in the hopes I can reboot my brain and clear the remaining fog.

I take 40mg in the morning and 40mg at lunchtime, or thereabouts. I teach 5th grade, so unfortunately I'm not always consistent. However, if I realize at around 5pm that I forgot my lunch dosage, I will take one pill (20mg) instead of both pills. It will be a little more difficult to turn my brain off, but I'm usually ok.

I used to take 50mg of tradodone to sleep each night, otherwise I would toss and turn all night. However, after 5-6 years of taking it consistently, and the overwhelming stress of this last two years, the medication seemed to make me feel really dopey in the mornings. This was making it difficult enough on my morning routines that I began cutting them in half. This was working fine, and now I'm off it altogether. Longer story short, now I only need to take it once in a while to kick start falling asleep.

It's late, and I feel like I'm ranting. If I am, at least you will understand why. :)

Marnie

I work in a pharmacy and I've seen a few prescriptions written for Ritalin in which the prescriber will include a few extra pills which allows the patient to take ritalin at nighttime a few nights every month. I've also seen prescriptions written that instruct the patients to take 1 pill four times daily. So if I were you I would take to your prescriber to see if you can take it at night.

Ritalin makes it impossible for me to sleep, but dexedrine and adderall are the best sleep aids I've ever had. We used to have my XR set up so it wouldn't wear off until a few hours after I went to bed. I was able to shut my brain off and make myself go to bed while it was active. But when it left my system, I was back to staying up until 4AM.

I know a lot of people get insomnia, but that's never been my experience with stimulants. It's true I can't sleep on ritalin, but the second it's out of my system I can sleep just fine. And again, with the dexedrine-like drugs I seem to sleep really well.

Definitely a bit of a paradox with regards to the idea of using stimulant ADHD meds to help w/ sleep, but you're right, they do have an effect on helping calm unwanted brain activity down to allow sleep if the timing is right. Coffee (and caffeine in general) often has more of a sedative effect on me personally.

I tried Concerta briefly (a few days of samples, 72 mg a day I believe) and it had minimal effect on my overall sleep at night; I seem to recall though, methylphenidate seemed to make me a tad sleepier at night even while it was still working.

I do find that Adderall often makes me very sleepy after a long day with Vyvanse in my system. Vyvanse, however, makes it very difficult for me to sleep sometimes.

I don't take it at night (never needed to). But I take my last dose at 4pm and by 7pm I can end up napping on the couch if I'm not careful.

Studies have actually shown that adults with ADHD who take methylphenidate sleep better at night after the meds have left their system than adults with ADHD who are untreated. So something about evening out brain activity during the day seems to lend itself well to sleep at night.

I've taken Ritalin (no rx) and my mate was up all night and I felt sedated and had a great sleep, haven't had a sleep like that in a while.