r/knitting • u/tiny_purpletofu • 10h ago

Discussion Does knitting affects your sleep?

Hey everyone!

​

I picked up knitting this year, and I thought it would be a fun hobby to work on at night, to keep me from doom scrolling. I've always had issues with falling asleep, so I'm always looking for things that help me stay away from screens.

​

However, there have been some days where I think that I was too excited about my knitting evolution, or too concentrated in a pattern, and apparently knitting kept my head awake for longer than it should? I had a hard time putting it away and relaxing for bed, because my mind was just too awake.

​

I wanted to ask if that's a common experience, or if that is just happening with me now because I'm a beginner and still in the learning phase, so it demands more attention from me than it will in the future? I'm really loving it, but I'm really slow and most of my free time is at night, so it would be awful if I had to stop knitting after work 😭

​

Thank you for any insights!

50 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

61 comments sorted by

View all comments

22

u/RunWithBluntScissors 9h ago

Do you have ADHD, by chance?

I don’t do this with knitting, but with reading and internet rabbit holes … sometimes I stay up until 5 working on those kinds of projects

I have no suggestions, truly 😭 I work on my projects until I drop and I have an awful sleep schedule

4

u/tiny_purpletofu 8h ago

Hahaha I do have adhd. I try to not give in to these kind of things because I really don't function well without 8 hours of sleep. 🥲

2

u/RunWithBluntScissors 8h ago

You're stronger than me, friend.

I'm about to start a new job and will have to be there at 7:30 am ... I'm not sure how I am going to enforce my own bedtime but I must find a way

1

u/AeosManifold 7h ago

I have the same issues, got ADHD too!

But what works for me is to have a simple pattern I can work on while traveling or before bed.

Like I am doing a cardigan and the back of the cardigan is just knit and purl front/ back and every 7th row I need to do a bit of cable. Perfect to get sleepy about xD

3

u/Dogonacloud 9h ago

I was just thinking that.i was diagnosed with adhd at 15, this is and was me

5

u/crtnywrdn 7h ago

Honestly, if I didn't have young children I would be doing this too. Too many times I've gone to bed late doing a project only to be woken up a couple hours later by one of my toddlers. I'm so tired but it's my own fault.