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Meditation helped me to deal with ADHD immensely. My ability to focus and concentrate is now on par if not better than most of my peers, though it requires me t

Meditation helped me to deal with ADHD immensely. My ability to focus and concentrate is now on par if not better than most of my peers, though it requires me to spend about an hour every day in the morning to meditate. I find that it’s very much worth the time investment, and would recommend anyone struggling with focus/anxiety to try it themselves.

ZitchDog 7y ago
How long did it take you to see results? I've battled (manageable) ADHD all my life and have been meditating for around a year. I've seen many positive impacts on my life, but the ADHD is still very much a thing I still battle.
- lawrenceyan 7y ago
  Interestingly enough, it took until I stopped trying to think of meditation as something to game or try and get something out of, for it to finally start working. My personal hypothesis is that the inherent expectation of wanting/needing to feel some kind of effect every time I tried meditating ended up being the very blockade that prevented me from doing so. I kept falling into a negative recursive thought loop of, “I haven’t noticed anything yet. This isn’t working. There’s no point in trying to continue meditating” that cycled into a cascading growth of anxiety that prevented me from reaching a state of balance. It took me many months to realize that I was trapping myself inside this loop, but once I became aware of it, I was able to almost immediately start seeing results. The biggest thing that helped me was coming to a realization that the thoughts in my head are, at the end of the day, just thoughts. They have no ability to harm or control me other than what I choose to allow them to. The thought loop I was putting myself into could only continue because I chose to let it. When I meditate in the present day, you might think that I no longer deal with any of these issues. That’s actually completely not the case. In fact, I constantly still get it, especially at the beginning of my sessions, but now instead of stressing out, I just choose to let it go. By actively choosing to accept and let things go, the loop breaks right from the beginning.
  - ZitchDog 7y ago
    Very cool. I've been doing "the mind illuminated" technique for the past 4 months and it's slow going - I'm assuming because of my ADD. I am, however, far more patient with my children and content with my life in general when I meditate. I haven't seen much improvement in my ADD however, but I'm going to give it a few more months of 1hr / day practice before I try medication.
  - grawprog 7y ago
    >The biggest thing that helped me was coming to a realization that the thoughts in my head are, at the end of the day, just thoughts. They have no ability to harm or control me other than what I choose to allow them to. This is probably one of the most important lessons i've learned in my life. Realizing this made a hugely drastic improvement to my emotions, my ability to control them and my ability to focus on things and pay attention. Learning to quiet that voice or just ignore it when I need to is a skill I think everyone should learn and would benefit from.
  - TOGoS 7y ago
    This reminds me of troubles I used to have falling asleep if anyone was making any noises nearby (I would get very annoyed at the fact that I was startled, which would make it even harder to fall asleep, in a terrible feedback loop). I think I managed to improve eventually, using the 'Paradoxical intention' technique that Viktor Frankl talks about in Man's Search for Meaning.
    - pgt 7y ago
      What is the ‘paradoxical intention’?
      - TOGoS 7y ago
        In my case it was to try to stay awake listening to all the sounds. Maybe combined with just getting up and doing something else if after a long time I still wasn't sleeping.
- proverbialbunny 7y ago
  I'm probably unusual, but I noticed clear benefits within a week. Though, I was meditating while waking up first thing every morning, and the initial benefits was not immediately obvious except that I could lower my ADHD med dosage by a couple of mg and get the same effect. Instead of trying to magically concentrate perfectly, I focused on identifying when my focus would move to something else. I noticed meditation is a practice of becoming quicker at identifying when I would lose focus, giving me the choice to come back to focus. After a couple of months of meditating I was able to go off of adhd medication. Then maybe a half a year later I noticed my concentration was above average and had been for a while. Meditation does work well on ADHD, but you have to be willing to take a break from your day to day worries, giving a mini vacation away from mental work. It's quite enjoyable.
- yonaguska 7y ago
  I had a brief stint of about two months where meditation, combined with dietary changes, exercise, and most importantly a daily routine item that kind of motivated my day made me feel like I was actually productive. Plus meds of course. I get obsessive about things, so I tried to use those obsessions to shape a regular routine that helped everything else fall into place. I focused my obsession on exercise, specifically jiu-jitsu, because once I got to class, I didn't have to think or motivate myself, I was just there and focused on learning and fighting. Then it turned into a positive feedback loop, I'd get external validation from my teammates, I was improving, I was doing it in the morning, so I absolutely had to get out of bed, and of course after class, I had nowhere else to go but work. So that fixed my habitually late problem as well. Being 10 minutes late to class was fine as long as I was on time for work. Then I could ride that dopamine rush to have a productive morning. Then life happened, my routines where interrupted, and I haven't been able to get it back.
WBrad 7y ago
Do you have any resources for getting started? I struggle with ADHD every day.
- cartoonfoxes 7y ago
  Mindfulness is the simplest, and there's not much to getting started. Try it now. Take five to fifteen minutes. Focus your attention on, and notice your breathing. You will immediately become distracted. Notice thoughts as they arise, and attempt to return your attention to your breathing. Repeat as necessary or desired. The subjective experience of this loop changes the more practice you get. You haven't failed if you can't reach a steady-state. You're already in steady-state of yourselfness.
- theatraine 7y ago
  I've found that meditation has also helped me. I read several books on the subject of meditation but found "The Mind Illuminated" to be the best.
esch89 7y ago
What type of meditation / do you use any apps?
falcolas 7y ago
Funny. ADHD for me means no meditation. The focus needed to meditate is impossible to gather, even medicated. Attempts at meditation immediately becomes rumination, where I play through all the conversations I could possibly have in the coming day (and exploring the worst case scenarios), which leads to elevated stress, which makes the ADHD tendencies worse.
- gknapp 7y ago
  This might not be applicable to you, but I will say that meditating is like reading speed. Everyone says they can do it better than they can. I've done multiple meditation retreats and have meditated for years. For me, a "focused" meditation when I'm a bit out of practice means I'm actually focused maybe 3% of the time, and I consider myself a relatively focused individual. For example, try this: Sit down in a mildly uncomfortable position and close your eyes. Take slow deep breaths, focusing entirely on your breath. Count each breath. If your focus wanes at all from that task, stop counting and see how high you got. When I first start this exercise, it's pretty common for me to not even be able to hit 5. But after 6-7 days of this I can usually get up to the 45-60 range.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    Funny, that sounds a whole lot like a long, polite version of the "you're just lazy" argument folks with ADHD hear all the bloody time. Or the "you've got so much potential, if <insert pronoun here> can do it you can do it." Polite or not, it really gets old.
- lawrenceyan 7y ago
  I would say that the majority of my meditation I do everyday consists of becoming distracted, noticing I’m distracted, going back to focusing on my breath, becoming distracted, repeating ad infinitum. It’s about training yourself to become better at 1) noticing you’re distracted and 2) bringing yourself back into focus. It’s pretty much muscle training except for your brain, specifically on improving executive functioning. Very little of meditation actually follows the “pure zen enlightenment” that’s commonly associated with it. Of course sometimes I do get a few minutes of that close to the end of my meditating sessions, but it’s not my main priority when I meditate and the majority of the benefits really come from the portions where I’m getting distracted and working on improving my ability to get back to focus.

ZitchDog 7y ago

How long did it take you to see results? I've battled (manageable) ADHD all my life and have been meditating for around a year. I've seen many positive impacts on my life, but the ADHD is still very much a thing I still battle.

lawrenceyan 7y ago
Interestingly enough, it took until I stopped trying to think of meditation as something to game or try and get something out of, for it to finally start working. My personal hypothesis is that the inherent expectation of wanting/needing to feel some kind of effect every time I tried meditating ended up being the very blockade that prevented me from doing so. I kept falling into a negative recursive thought loop of, “I haven’t noticed anything yet. This isn’t working. There’s no point in trying to continue meditating” that cycled into a cascading growth of anxiety that prevented me from reaching a state of balance. It took me many months to realize that I was trapping myself inside this loop, but once I became aware of it, I was able to almost immediately start seeing results. The biggest thing that helped me was coming to a realization that the thoughts in my head are, at the end of the day, just thoughts. They have no ability to harm or control me other than what I choose to allow them to. The thought loop I was putting myself into could only continue because I chose to let it. When I meditate in the present day, you might think that I no longer deal with any of these issues. That’s actually completely not the case. In fact, I constantly still get it, especially at the beginning of my sessions, but now instead of stressing out, I just choose to let it go. By actively choosing to accept and let things go, the loop breaks right from the beginning.
- ZitchDog 7y ago
  Very cool. I've been doing "the mind illuminated" technique for the past 4 months and it's slow going - I'm assuming because of my ADD. I am, however, far more patient with my children and content with my life in general when I meditate. I haven't seen much improvement in my ADD however, but I'm going to give it a few more months of 1hr / day practice before I try medication.
- grawprog 7y ago
  >The biggest thing that helped me was coming to a realization that the thoughts in my head are, at the end of the day, just thoughts. They have no ability to harm or control me other than what I choose to allow them to. This is probably one of the most important lessons i've learned in my life. Realizing this made a hugely drastic improvement to my emotions, my ability to control them and my ability to focus on things and pay attention. Learning to quiet that voice or just ignore it when I need to is a skill I think everyone should learn and would benefit from.
- TOGoS 7y ago
  This reminds me of troubles I used to have falling asleep if anyone was making any noises nearby (I would get very annoyed at the fact that I was startled, which would make it even harder to fall asleep, in a terrible feedback loop). I think I managed to improve eventually, using the 'Paradoxical intention' technique that Viktor Frankl talks about in Man's Search for Meaning.
  - pgt 7y ago
    What is the ‘paradoxical intention’?
    - TOGoS 7y ago
      In my case it was to try to stay awake listening to all the sounds. Maybe combined with just getting up and doing something else if after a long time I still wasn't sleeping.
proverbialbunny 7y ago
I'm probably unusual, but I noticed clear benefits within a week. Though, I was meditating while waking up first thing every morning, and the initial benefits was not immediately obvious except that I could lower my ADHD med dosage by a couple of mg and get the same effect. Instead of trying to magically concentrate perfectly, I focused on identifying when my focus would move to something else. I noticed meditation is a practice of becoming quicker at identifying when I would lose focus, giving me the choice to come back to focus. After a couple of months of meditating I was able to go off of adhd medication. Then maybe a half a year later I noticed my concentration was above average and had been for a while. Meditation does work well on ADHD, but you have to be willing to take a break from your day to day worries, giving a mini vacation away from mental work. It's quite enjoyable.
yonaguska 7y ago
I had a brief stint of about two months where meditation, combined with dietary changes, exercise, and most importantly a daily routine item that kind of motivated my day made me feel like I was actually productive. Plus meds of course. I get obsessive about things, so I tried to use those obsessions to shape a regular routine that helped everything else fall into place. I focused my obsession on exercise, specifically jiu-jitsu, because once I got to class, I didn't have to think or motivate myself, I was just there and focused on learning and fighting. Then it turned into a positive feedback loop, I'd get external validation from my teammates, I was improving, I was doing it in the morning, so I absolutely had to get out of bed, and of course after class, I had nowhere else to go but work. So that fixed my habitually late problem as well. Being 10 minutes late to class was fine as long as I was on time for work. Then I could ride that dopamine rush to have a productive morning. Then life happened, my routines where interrupted, and I haven't been able to get it back.

WBrad 7y ago

Do you have any resources for getting started? I struggle with ADHD every day.

cartoonfoxes 7y ago
Mindfulness is the simplest, and there's not much to getting started. Try it now. Take five to fifteen minutes. Focus your attention on, and notice your breathing. You will immediately become distracted. Notice thoughts as they arise, and attempt to return your attention to your breathing. Repeat as necessary or desired. The subjective experience of this loop changes the more practice you get. You haven't failed if you can't reach a steady-state. You're already in steady-state of yourselfness.
theatraine 7y ago
I've found that meditation has also helped me. I read several books on the subject of meditation but found "The Mind Illuminated" to be the best.

esch89 7y ago

What type of meditation / do you use any apps?

falcolas 7y ago

Funny. ADHD for me means no meditation. The focus needed to meditate is impossible to gather, even medicated. Attempts at meditation immediately becomes rumination, where I play through all the conversations I could possibly have in the coming day (and exploring the worst case scenarios), which leads to elevated stress, which makes the ADHD tendencies worse.

gknapp 7y ago
This might not be applicable to you, but I will say that meditating is like reading speed. Everyone says they can do it better than they can. I've done multiple meditation retreats and have meditated for years. For me, a "focused" meditation when I'm a bit out of practice means I'm actually focused maybe 3% of the time, and I consider myself a relatively focused individual. For example, try this: Sit down in a mildly uncomfortable position and close your eyes. Take slow deep breaths, focusing entirely on your breath. Count each breath. If your focus wanes at all from that task, stop counting and see how high you got. When I first start this exercise, it's pretty common for me to not even be able to hit 5. But after 6-7 days of this I can usually get up to the 45-60 range.
- falcolas 7y ago
  Funny, that sounds a whole lot like a long, polite version of the "you're just lazy" argument folks with ADHD hear all the bloody time. Or the "you've got so much potential, if <insert pronoun here> can do it you can do it." Polite or not, it really gets old.
lawrenceyan 7y ago
I would say that the majority of my meditation I do everyday consists of becoming distracted, noticing I’m distracted, going back to focusing on my breath, becoming distracted, repeating ad infinitum. It’s about training yourself to become better at 1) noticing you’re distracted and 2) bringing yourself back into focus. It’s pretty much muscle training except for your brain, specifically on improving executive functioning. Very little of meditation actually follows the “pure zen enlightenment” that’s commonly associated with it. Of course sometimes I do get a few minutes of that close to the end of my meditating sessions, but it’s not my main priority when I meditate and the majority of the benefits really come from the portions where I’m getting distracted and working on improving my ability to get back to focus.