Meditation: An ADHD-Friendly Approach to Help Quiet Your Mind
Meditation is a helpful tool you can use to quiet an overactive mind — something that those with ADHD often desperately need. However, many of us (myself included!) have struggled with the practice. This article will cover what meditation is, what it isn’t, how meditation can help your ADHD, and how to meditate when you have ADHD.
What is meditation?
Traditionally, meditation is the practice of focusing or clearing your mind. However, this traditional meditation approach is quite challenging when you have ADHD. Instead, I like to view meditation in a way that’s much more ADHD-friendly.
To me, meditation is the practice of giving your thoughts a designated place to go.
Instead of trying to force them away, you allow your brain to run free for a little while. As you do this, notice where your thoughts go. By paying attention to your thoughts, you can begin to sort through them. You can begin to let them go. With time and practice, you can increase your focus and quiet your mind.
What if I feel doubtful about meditation?
You’re not alone - lots of people with ADHD feel this way and I did, too. A lot of meditation practices are built for neurotypical people, which leaves neurodivergent people feeling like they’re the problem. You and your ADHD can’t sit still for five minutes, let alone the half-hour length of a meditation video. And you definitely can’t start by clearing your mind.
However, I promise that you can meditate. You just need to try a different method. When you practice meditation the ADHD way, it becomes much easier. This is because:
Your thoughts and thinking are the point of the meditation.
There’s no need to clear your mind. It’ll settle down on its own.
An ADHD-friendly meditation is like going through the tabs in your brain to review the information. Once you don’t need them anymore, you can close them out.
How does meditation help?
There are lots of good reasons to meditate. If you do a quick Google search, you’ll see that meditation can help with symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), fibromyalgia, and other forms of chronic pain. However, let’s take a look through an ADHD lens:
Meditation can lead to general mental health improvements
Meditation can help lower stress. It works by regulating your nervous system back to a state of rest. This is especially helpful if you’ve been feeling anxious, fatigued, or irritable due to stress.
If you have other mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), meditation can lower your symptoms. Managing your other mental health conditions can make it easier to manage your ADHD.
Not sleeping well also makes it hard to manage your ADHD. Meditation can shorten the amount of time it takes for you to fall asleep.
Meditation quiets ruminating and distracting thoughts
Have you ever been kept up at night because your brain won’t shut off? Or, have you found yourself thinking about something off-topic during a work meeting? Maybe you’re weighing your to-do list for tomorrow. Maybe it’s something that stressed you out today. Or, maybe it’s the Thomas the Tank Engine theme song. In any case, your brain is working overtime while you’re trying to rest, work, or pay attention to literally anything else.
Meditation helps by those recurring thoughts a place to go.
It gives them a designated time so you’re not left to ruminate on them all day (or night) long.
Here’s an analogy:
What happens if you keep an energetic toddler cooped up all day?
Most likely, they’ll throw a tantrum.
Your ADHD brain is the same way. If you don’t give it the freedom to go where it wants, your brain acts out. It makes its own time – usually an inconvenient one. Meditation is your brain’s “run around” time. Once it’s exhausted all the thoughts, it generally quiets down.
Your ADHD brain is like a pent-up toddler. It just needs a little room to run around! Once you give it what it wants, it tends to quiet down.
Meditation helps you be more creative
Do you have your best ideas right before you fall asleep? Me too, until I started meditating. When you go all day without giving your brain a designated time to run free, you cage your potential to form good ideas.
So, now that we’ve discussed how it helps, let’s move on to how to practice an ADHD-friendly meditation.
How to do an ADHD-friendly meditation
As a disclaimer: there are many ways to meditate! This is a beginner-friendly method that has worked for me and my clients who have ADHD. In a future blog post, I’ll share some additional meditation strategies.
1. Grab a pen and some paper
As you meditate, you may want to write down anything that you’d like to remember for later. Do not use your phone! There are too many distractors on there.
2. Find a quiet, private place to meditate
You can meditate seated or lying down. Just be sure you’re in a comfortable position and won’t be interrupted. You may want to place your phone and other distractors in another room.
3. Close your eyes and allow your thoughts to flow
When I first start my meditation, it often feels like releasing that cooped-up toddler. The inside of my head feels like a playroom about to be ransacked. The thoughts fly out at a mile a minute. There’s no sense or reason. But, I don’t interfere or try to correct my stream of thoughts. I just let it happen. I do my best not to ruminate on any one thing, but when it happens, I write it down.
4. Write down any lingering thoughts or ideas
Record any creative moments if they come up for you. If there’s something your brain keeps coming back to, such as a stressor or task, write it down too. Sometimes the simple practice of recording a thought on paper resolves it, but you may need to dig deeper. However, that’s not our goal right now! We’ll cover it later.
5. Wrap up your meditation after a designated time, or after your brain has quieted
Your meditation can be 3 minutes, 30 minutes, or however long you want. Remember that you won’t master meditation after one session! It takes practice and effort to learn. You may need to meditate for several sessions before you notice an improvement in your noisy mind. However, don’t rush yourself. Give your brain enough time to run free, and you might notice an improvement right away.
Record any creative, meaningful, recurring, or lingering thoughts that happen as you meditate. You can figure out what to do with them later.
What to do after your meditation session
Journal about any recorded thoughts
If you recorded any thoughts, now is a good time to dig deeper. You can unpack any stressors or emotional thoughts. You can figure out what to do with a creative idea. You can break down a task you were thinking about to make it simpler and easier to tackle.
Get additional support, if needed
If you notice that meditation makes you feel anxious, or if you have a lot of negative thoughts, it may be a sign that you need an extra hand. Working with a licensed mental health professional can help you process what you’re feeling. You can find a licensed therapist here.
Reward yourself
Meditation is a habit that requires intentional practice. Reward yourself for making the time to improve your mental health! There are many ways to reward yourself, but simply giving yourself a pat on the back works, too.
Reward yourself for making the time to meditate! Taking the time to improve this skill is a big deal.
How often should I meditate?
Truthfully, it depends on how active your mind is. If your brain is feeling foggy, hectic, or disorganized, it’s a sign that you need to meditate. So, it might be a couple of times a week, or a couple of times a day. Either way, I recommend you:
Start with a realistic goal
If every day feels like too much, simplify your goal. Start with a frequency you know you can stick to. Even though I needed to meditate daily, I started with twice a week. I paired the habit with an existing one – drinking my morning coffee – and reminded myself with a sticky note on a mug so I wouldn’t forget to do it.
Thanks for making it to the end of this blog post. Let me know if you have any ADHD-friendly meditation methods that work for you!
