Caitlin ADHD Mentor
The cover of Wind Down, with the Dusk palette in five bands across the top, the counts 27 activities, 25 to colour and 2 to follow, and three example pages: a sleeping character in a nightcap, a window onto a night sky, and a dot to dot moon

Wind Down

A cute ADHD colouring and activity book for the end of the day

Cover palette, one of 10 in the book

  • Dusk
  • Peach
  • Indigo
  • Blush
  • Lamplight

Every design faces a guide page carrying five colours already chosen for it, and the book works through 10 different palettes, so no two pages hand you the same decision. They are suggestions. Ignoring them completely is a perfectly good way to use the book.

27
Pages
25
To colour
2
To solve
A5
Size
Choose your format

A PDF, by email, to the address you give at checkout.

Delivery and how long it takesReturns and refunds

The evening is the bit that gets away from you. You know roughly what you are supposed to do and roughly when, and then it is midnight and you have reorganised a drawer. Not because you decided to. Because your brain finally got interested in something, at the worst possible hour.

This is a book for that hour. Twenty five pages to colour and two to follow, at A5, coil bound so it lies flat on your knee or on the duvet. Nothing in it needs more than a pencil, and nothing in it needs you to finish.

It runs in order, and the order is the point. It opens on a character who cannot stop finding one more thing to do and closes with them asleep, so the book winds down at the pace you are trying to. You can still start anywhere, and page two says so.

Every left hand page is a guide to the design facing it: five colours already chosen with their names, one practical thing I actually say to people in mentoring sessions about sleep and evenings, and a line giving you permission to stop.

It goes in order, and ends asleep

Most colouring books are twenty seven unrelated pictures in a stack. This one is an evening: it opens on somebody who cannot stop finding one more thing to do, moves through the kettle, the bath and the pile of clothes on the chair, and finishes with the lights out. You can still open it anywhere.

The reverse of every page is the useful bit

Colouring books are printed single sided so ink does not bleed through, and every other one on the shelf leaves that reverse blank. This one uses it. Facing each design is its colour guide, an ADHD tip about sleep and evenings that belongs to that page, and a permission line.

You know what a page costs before you start it

Each design carries an effort level from one to five and a time in minutes. The levels count DECISIONS, not detail, so the late pages are deliberately the cheap ones. Almost and Asleep are level one, because by then you should not be deciding anything.

There are no finished examples, on purpose

Most colouring books print a perfectly coloured version near the front, and the moment you see it your page becomes a comparison. There isn't one here, and the front matter explains why.

Look inside

7 real pages out of 60, exactly as they print. Swipe, or use the arrows.

Drag across the shapes to colour them, or tap one to fill it and tap again to clear it. On the maze, drag to draw and the walls will stop you. Every page has its own five colours, so the same button is a different colour on a different page.

BEFORE YOU START There are no finished examples Most colouring books print a perfectly coloured version somewhere near the front. The moment you see it, your page becomes a comparison. There isn’t one here, and that is deliberate. The five colours on each left hand page are a suggestion that removes the first decision, which is usually the one that stops people starting. They are not a rule. The small moon working through this book is called Pip. Pip starts the book wide awake with one more thing to do, and is asleep by the end of it. That is the only thing I will tell you about Pip, because the evening in this book is meant to be yours rather than a story about somebody else’s. Whatever you make of a page is what that page was for. Pencils and gel pens suit this paper best. Alcohol markers will show through to the other side, and the other side is a guide page rather than a design, so nothing is ruined. Every printed copy comes with the PDF, so you can reprint any page you want to do again.
Page 3A guide page, which faces every design
Seaglass Sand Deep Shell Coral PAGE 11 Bath 20 minutes Five colours that work together. There is no right place for any of them. Heat helps, and not for mysterious reasons. Getting warm and then cooling down is a real physiological cue for sleep. A bath is the easiest way to do it on purpose. Leave the water white. It is the easiest colour to be warm in.
Page 24A guide page, which faces every design
Page 25A page to colour
Blush Apricot Plum Chalk Mint PAGE 20 Blanket Fort 25 minutes Five colours that work together. There is no right place for any of them. Weight helps some people and does nothing for others. Try a heavier duvet before spending real money on a weighted blanket, and pay attention to whether it actually helps you rather than whether it should. Patterns on the blanket only if you fancy it. Plain is warmer to colour.
Page 42A guide page, which faces every design
Page 43A page to colour
Dusk Peach Indigo Blush Lamplight PAGE 26 Asleep 10 minutes Five colours that work together. There is no right place for any of them. You do not have to earn rest. There is no threshold of productivity you have to cross before you are allowed to stop, though almost everybody I work with believes there is. If you fall asleep partway through this one, it has worked.
Page 54A guide page, which faces every design
Page 55A page to colour

7 pages previewed, from 60 in the book

What the levels mean

Every design carries one of these before you start it, so you can pick a page that matches today rather than starting at the front. The dots count decisions, not detail.

  • 5 min. Almost no choices. Big shapes, lots of air.
  • 10 min. A clear rhythm. You can stop mid row.
  • 15 min. Enough going on to hold your attention.
  • 25 min. A proper sit down page.
  • 40 min. For an evening when you have the capacity.

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Questions about Wind Down

Does colouring help you sleep?

Not as a treatment, and I would not sell it to you as one. What it does is give your hands something to do that has a defined end, does not need charging and does not open an app, at the hour when the alternative is usually a screen. That is worth something on its own, and it is a smaller claim than the one most things sold for sleep make.

What is actually in it?

Twenty seven pages. Twenty five to colour, all of them drawn scenes from an ordinary evening, and two dot to dots to follow with a pen. Plus front and back matter, so sixty printed pages in total.

Do I have to do it in order?

No. The book is built as an evening, opening restless and ending asleep, and reading it front to back is the nicest way to meet it once. After that, open it at whichever page matches the night you are actually having. Page two tells you to.

How is this different from Waiting Mode?

Same format, same guide pages, different hour of the day. Waiting Mode is for time you cannot use, in a room you did not choose, and it carries mazes and puzzles for a brain that needs occupying. Wind Down is for the end of the evening, so it is gentler, it runs in order, and it has almost nothing to solve.

Do I need special pens?

No. Coloured pencils and gel pens suit the paper best. Alcohol markers will show through to the reverse, and the reverse is a guide page rather than another design, so nothing is spoiled if they do.

Is this suitable for children?

It is written for adults and teenagers. The artwork would suit a younger person and the tips are about medication timing, revenge bedtime procrastination and the things adults lie awake over, so the writing is not aimed at them.

The tips in this book come out of real sessions

Every guide page carries one thing I actually say to people I mentor. If they land, the sessions themselves go a great deal further, because a book cannot ask you a follow up question. The first call is free.

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