The Mindfulness Prescription For Adhd
Mindfulness does for the brain what exercise does for the body. It can be thought of as cognitive fitness training and like other fitness activities, it takes time and practice to be good at it. For someone with ADHD, mindfulness is a natural way of training the brain to recognise when thoughts are wandering and bringing the focus back to the present moment.
Mindful meditation can be used to alleviate certain symptoms of ADHD. Actually, it can be beneficial to anyone, including people who have not had an ADHD assessment but suspect they have signs of ADHD.
Exploration : Mind Like A Sky
- Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Become grounded in the present moment by noticing your breathing
- When you feel settled, imagine a spacious blue sky with white clouds floating across it.
- Sense your awareness as being like the blue sky, vast and spacious, larger than the passing clouds. With such awareness, you can watch your thoughts and feelings asif they were clouds coming and going.
- As you watch them, label your thoughts and feelings without personalizing themfor example, oh, there is worry,sadness,remembering.
- Notice that, just like clouds, your thoughts may go by quickly or slowly. They may be linked with each other or floating separately. They may appear light and fluffy or dark and heavy.
- As you watch your thoughts flow, see if you can sense the space between them. This spacethe space of open awarenessis a place where you can observe your mind without being pulled by it. It is the space from which you can note thoughts and feelings but choose to not act on them.
- As you do this exercise, it is easy to get lost in thinkingto go into the clouds and become enveloped by the content of your thoughts and feelings. Whenever that happens, become aware of your breath and reground yourself in the present moment. Then return to watching your mind.
For more ADHD-related information here on Mindful.org, read The Family ADHD Solution.
A Mindfulness Prescription For Adult Adhd
Psychiatrist Lidia Zylowska shares how people with ADHD can manage their restless minds.
My mind is always busy, exclaimed Carolyn. If you ask me about one thing, that makes me think of a million other things.
I noticed, I thought to myself. Carolyn was in my office for an evaluation of possible ADHD, and it was a struggle to keep her focused. Many of my questions were met with long descriptions and too many details. Other times, she veered to another topic. She seemed to be insightful, and her answers were often interesting or humorousbut they didnt always address the question.
Along with a restless body, a busy or restless mind is common with ADHD. This can be a curse and a blessing. Having a restless mind can make it difficult to focus and follow through on ones tasks without getting sidetracked or lost in thought. On the other hand, having lots of thoughts and ideas can lead to making unusual and intriguing connections between things. Many adults with ADHD exhibit out-of-the box thinking and creativity due to their incessantly curious mind.
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The Mindfulness Prescription For Adult Adhd
Foreword by Daniel J. Siegel, MD
The Benefits Of Mindfulness
Here are some of the benefits of mindfulness:
Lower stress levels
Mindfulness can help to reduce stress by improving emotional regulation, leading to a better mood and being able to handle stress more effectively. As mindfulness focuses on the present, it allows the mind to remove itself from past or future situations which cause stress.
Less severe depression
Mindfulness provides the tools needed to step back from intense negative emotions, identify them, and accept them instead of fighting them. Mindful thinkers are better able to regulate their emotions, leading to better coping and management of depression.
Improved general health
Mindfulness has been positively linked with lower blood pressure, cardiovascular health, weight loss, recovery from chronic illness and making symptoms of illness more manageable.
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Mindfulness Resources By The Adhd Centre
The ADHD Centre offers a six-part Essential Mindfulness Course. It can be taken at any time and the first lesson is FREE!
Essential Mindfulness Lesson 1
During this training, you will learn to strengthen your Executive Functions. These are cognitive processes that include working memory, flexible thinking, time management, self-control and organisation.Here is Alexandra Loewe, ADHD coach and Mindfulness coach from The ADHD Centre, talking about her personal experience of the benefits of mindfulness:
Getting ADHD treatment how mindfulness practice helped me
Mindfulness is especially relevant at the moment, due to heightened stress levels caused by the global pandemic. The ability to remain calm and focused is always useful, but particularly so at times when anxiety and emotions are elevated.
While practising mindful meditation has many benefits, it does not offer a complete solution to challenges faced by people with ADHD and its success rate varies considerably between individuals.
However, its worth bearing in mind that it wouldnt have been used for so many years if it didnt provide people with considerable benefits.
To find out more about all of our different ADHD treatments and coaching plans, including The Essential Mindfulness Course, please contact us at The ADHD Centre on or via .
What Is Mindfulness
Mindful.org defines Mindfulness as:
the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what were doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by whats going on around us.
Mindfulness is about taking note of our thoughts, feelings and environment. It can help people to gain a different perspective and move through life at a pace that suits them.
Its possible, using mindfulness to train your brain to focus better on whats happening now. ADHD adults or even kids with ADHD can use this to refocus or to maintain focus on what they should be doing.
The best way to really understand mindfulness is to try it. Its something that everybody already has, but by practising it, you can learn how to access it in a way that is useful for you.
Mindful meditation is not new and is part of many religious traditions, such as vipassanain Buddhism. Although mindfulness does not have to be religious or spiritual, it is a great way to connect the mind and body internally.
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