A Maricopa County, AZ, Sheriff's deputy has written a series of lullabies specifically to help children with ADHD fall asleep.
Deputy Bryan Wisda first created the music for his 11-year-old son, Cale, who has ADHD. Cale's medication made it difficult for the boy to sleep.
Deputy Wisda says on his website that creating the album was something of a happy accident.
He had been on the job just two years when a man who had been given a DUI citation returned to the checkpoint and opened fire, striking Wisda in the leg.
"My wife suggested I learn to play the guitar while I was recovering rather than play video games all day for several months," he says. "I started playing the guitar and took some lessons and was hooked."
He explained that his son—who has ADHD—has difficulty falling asleep due to the medication he takes to enable him to focus and be successful in school. He said that he or his wife would spend as many as three hours in his room helping him get to sleep.
"During some of the nights I would stay in Cale's room waiting for him to fall asleep I took in my guitar and played the guitar for him," he wrote. "I would play basic songs like Brahm’s Lullaby as well as practice scale patterns. In time I noticed a unique phenomenon—Cale would fall asleep faster when I played random notes in those scale patterns (not straight up and down the scale but jumping around if you will) versus when I played a song. This was the start of ADHD Lullaby."
By early summer 2018 Wisda had perfected a method of recording music using principles from neuroscience. He shared these initial recordings with some friends who also had children with ADHD who reported back to him similar results with their children.
"By the end of the summer of 2018 I was committed to publishing an album parents of ADHD children could use to help their children fall asleep," he wrote.
The album—released in February 2019—is available for purchase in CD form as well as digital editions on just about every imaginable platform including Apple Music, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, Spotify, and others.
