Yes, people with dyslexia often need more quality sleep because their brains work harder, leading to faster fatigue, and they also experience more sleep disturbances like trouble falling asleep, which creates a vicious cycle where poor sleep worsens dyslexia symptoms and tiredness. The extra mental effort from decoding words and managing daily tasks significantly drains energy, making sufficient rest crucial for focus, learning, and emotional regulation, notes the British Dyslexia Association.
Cognitive Overload: For us dyslexics, even simple tasks can require extra effort. Reading and writing, which might be second nature to others, can be draining. In fact, research suggests that it can take up to five times more energy for a dyslexic person to read compared to a non-dyslexic individual.
As Smith and colleagues (2018) suggest, even if sleep problems may not be the direct cause of the disorder, sleep might worsen the difficulties experienced by some children with dyslexia.
Children with dyslexia have a higher risk for sleep disorders like not being able to fall asleep or stay asleep at night. Kids with dyslexia might also be at higher risk for breathing problems while they sleep.
Understanding and supporting individuals with Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, and Dyspraxia is essential for fostering an inclusive and effective learning environment. These disorders can also coincide with other conditions such as ADHD and Autism, requiring a comprehensive approach.
Famous actors like Johnny Depp, Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom all have dyslexia. Pablo Picasso's teachers described him as “having difficulty differentiating the orientation of letters”.
Three dimensional thinking and making connections
Many people with dyslexia demonstrate better skills at manipulating 3D objects in their mind. Many of the world's top architects and fashion designers have dyslexia.
Challenges and strengths of dyslexia
The 3-2-1 sleep rule is a simple wind-down routine: stop eating and drinking alcohol 3 hours before bed, stop working/mentally stimulating activities 2 hours before, and turn off screens (phones, TVs) 1 hour before sleep, helping you transition to rest by reducing stimulants and preparing your mind and body. It's often part of a larger 10-3-2-1-0 rule, which also adds no caffeine 10 hours prior and no hitting snooze (0) in the morning.
And many neurodivergent people experience heightened sensory processing, emotional regulation challenges, or executive function demands throughout the day, all of which can increase the brain's need for restorative sleep.
Burnout within the neurodiverse community is something that is often spoken about quietly, yet it is incredibly real. Whether we are adults or children, burnout can take hold when our ability to cope becomes stretched beyond what feels manageable.
Dyslexia does not worsen over time. However, the demands of adult life—more complex reading, multitasking, or workplace expectations—can make its effects more noticeable. With continued support, individuals often learn to manage their challenges and build on their strengths.
5 things not to say to your child about dyslexia
In reality, the two – dyslexia and intelligence – are not related.
Establish a routine
Dyslexic learners may find it difficult to maintain concentration for long periods of time and may get tired quickly, so it's a good idea to create a routine which emphasises 'a little and often' rather than trying to squeeze too much work into a longer session.
Strong Memory Skills:
Many people with dyslexia have excellent long-term memory, particularly when it comes to experiences and visual information.
Depending on one's age and individual needs, the National Sleep Foundation (USA) states that adults need seven to nine hours of good quality sleep per night to remain healthy and alert. School-age children require between nine and eleven hours, while older adults may need only seven to eight.
The koala is the animal that sleeps approximately 90% of the day (20-22 hours), a necessity due to its low-energy eucalyptus diet requiring intensive digestion, making it the ultimate champion of sleep in the animal kingdom, followed closely by sloths and bats.
In his piece, he revealed that through his years of research, he's found that rumination is the biggest thing that causes poor sleep. He says that being worried about something at night has affected his own ability to fall asleep.
The Many Strengths of Dyslexics
Research by the University of Strathclyde has found that people with dyslexia are much better at being curious and exploring new ideas and more likely to be found in careers where this is an advantage, such as art, media, architecture, creativity, engineering and inventing things!
To spot dyslexia, look for persistent struggles with reading, writing, and spelling despite normal intelligence, including difficulty with phonics (blending sounds), slow/laborious reading, trouble memorizing sight words, poor spelling, and challenges with sequencing (like days of the week) or following multi-step directions, appearing as early as preschool with speech/rhyming issues and persisting into adulthood with word-finding difficulties and reading avoidance.
Kids with dyslexia have many gifts, including:
The majority of people think mainly with their brain's left hemisphere, whereas dyslexics think predominantly with their right hemisphere. This leads to a different kind of thinking and learning style that we call conceptual thinking.
Inventiveness and big-picture, long-term thinking are among the skills and strengths linked to these explorative behaviours. The researchers link dyslexia to human evolution over hundreds of thousands of years, where humans – and our brains – have had to adapt to constant change, rather than one fixed environment.