I sometimes hit exhaustion points where it feels like my brain had the plug pulled on it and I just shut down, forced nap. Those usually happening in the evening in the 8-9 PM range if at all. Short naps though don't do anything for me, in fact sleeping at all during the day makes everything much worse. My supplement stack is essentially D3 + K2, 2 grams vitamin C in the morning, some herbals that help for some reason, and serrapeptase + red light therapy.

I'm willing to bet you just found a specific exploit in the extreme dysregulation of something that only applies to what is messed up in your nervous system. I have a few partial windows too now and then but I can't get anything solid to repeat good days with any reliability even if sometimes I think I can spot patterns. When I have the slurred speech flaring a bit I'll always have the word forming problems too as if the problem is my brains control over the tongue/jaw/throat.vocal chords get messed up all at once. When that's going the social response timing problems will also get ridiculous. That cluster is the most humiliating of them all with this besides the anxiety + spatial perception thing that can also flare badly with it.

I used to feel better after naps too when I would take 1-2 hour naps in the afternoon. I would also dream more vividly/memorably during these than when I sleep at night where I don’t dream as much or don’t recall them as well. Unfortunately with my work schedule now I’m unable to take naps and haven’t actually had a nice nap in a few years.

Side note - ferritin can effect dopamine production as its an cofactor in ( tyrosine hydroxylase ).

Erm I came across something in relation to adhd which inferred that individuals with it experience " Sleep-like Slow Waves During Wakefulness " and when it occurs during attentional tasks or effortful tasks its like basically the brain waves resemble those that occur during slow wave sleep.

Disclaimer - Sometimes we can use other similar conditions to explain things in other conditions.

One of theories for ADHD is that basically their is inadequate recruitment of lactate (to use as fuel for neurons). So basically the bursty [stop - start - stop - start] activity is because of periodic unavailability of lactate causes neurons to sharply reduce activity until supply of lactate can meet demands. So their is sluggishness because supply to meet demand lags.

An theory I have is that it's possible those with SCT and/or just adhd have slow wave sleep deficits or the waste removal at night ( glymphatic clearance ) is inefficient or cognitive activity creates metabolic waste products that essentially forces neurons into low energy states to attempt to glymphatically clear metabolites or reactive waste products which don't clear through non glymphatic processes. - Although this is speculation and I haven't had time to fully scope the literature and map all the pieces of information yet.

"Participants with ADHD primarily experienced more “entirely unintentional” MW whereas neurotypical participants reported more “somewhat intentional” episodes, suggesting that there is indeed a difference in neural mechanisms governing attentional control (Seli et al., 2015). " [MW is mind wandering ]

" In line with this, a significant interaction was found between group and block for “Don’t remember” reports, with individuals with ADHD showing a gradual accumulation of these responses across time, indicative of declining meta-awareness or monitoring capacity as the task unfolds."

"Our EEG analyses revealed distinct slow wave activity patterns in individuals with ADHD, characterised by higher amplitude and density in parieto-temporal electrodes (Fig. 5). Emerging research suggests that sleep-like slow waves can intrude into specific brain regions during wakefulness (Andrillon et al., 2021; Pinggal et al., 2022; Vyazovskiy et al., 2011), and our findings support the hypothesis of “sleepier brains” in ADHD (Andrillon et al., 2019). This indicates that slow wave activity during wake occurs more frequently in ADHD, offering a potential neurophysiological explanation for attentional challenges."

"  Yet, the stronger presence of this neurophysiological marker in individuals with ADHD provides evidence that it may underlie some of their characteristic attentional difficulties. Furthermore, the global increase in slow wave density was associated with elevated subjective sleepiness ratings, supporting the notion that slow waves reflect accumulating sleep pressure, affecting both objective performance and subjective experience. Lastly, a negative correlation between local sleep and subjective attentional focus was observed: elevated local sleep corresponded with fewer “on-task” reports. This inverse relationship highlights that increased slow wave density not only impacts objective performance, but also subjectively diminishes task engagement."

" These findings indicate that slow wave activity mediates the link between ADHD and behaviour, with ADHD influencing performance through specific alterations in slow waves. While mediation effects for subjective “on-task” reports were weaker, the consistency of results across multiple objective measures – from RT variability, omission errors to overall RT and sleepiness ratings – suggests slow wave activity may serve as a neurophysiological bridge between ADHD and its behavioural manifestations. "

( https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.27.666103v1.full#sec-23 )

Sadly sleeping more does not help me. But what I have noticed is that my symptoms are much better when I am horizontal. I can communicate better when lying down and am not as tempted to drift off.