“I can’t sit still and my mind keeps wondering”. I have heard about this sentiment from my ADHD coaching clients many times. If you feel the same way and have not found your entry point to meditation, this post is for you: 4 tips on how to meditate with your ADHD brain.
Explore your options
I chose the word meditation (not mindfulness) consciously. Meditation is a bigger umbrella term that can include many different techniques and practices. The stereotypical image of a meditator is someone sitting still cross-legged with their eyes closed in silence, focusing on their breath. If sitting, being still, having your eyes closed, and focusing on your breath don’t work for you, tweak them. You can try
- Standing meditation, walking meditation, dance meditation, expressive meditation
- Explore with your eyes open have a soft gaze, or do a mindfulness of sight meditation
- Try doing the same meditation in different postures and see which one works the best for you: standing up, lying down, or in a comfortable position you choose
- Choose other meditation anchors: notice the whole body breathing, notice the touch points of your body and the surface that is supporting your body, hand, sound, etc.
Increase sensory input
One issue I ran into consistently at the beginning of my meditation journey was sleepiness. I have since realized increasing sensory input helps my ADHD brain to stay awake and more engaged during the meditation. How I increase sensory input:
- Sit outside in nature or on a deck when I can instead of sitting indoors. Nature naturally provides lots of sensory input: sensation and sound of wind blowing, the sound of birds and insects, change of light, etc.
- Explore tools like mala beads that can help you increase sensory input through touch.
- Try guided and unguided meditation, with and without music to see which combination works the best for you. For me, I tend to do unguided meditation in nature and I gravitate towards guided meditation with music with lots of pauses in between the guided instructions when I sit indoors.
Know that hindrances are normal
News flash, your brain is not too distracted and frazzled to meditate. Having hindrances show up during your meditation is normal. In fact, the Buddha taught about the 5 common hindrances of meditation over 2000 years ago, namely sleepiness, restlessness, aversion, wanting, and doubt. Human brains were restless even before all the internet and technologies.
Know that if you feel sleepy, restless, doubting if you are doing the meditation right, wanting a different experience, or wanting more of what you are experiencing, ALL of that is normal.
What we are training in meditation is to notice our attention has drifted, begin again, and redirect our attention back to the anchor we choose. Meditation does not require us to have a calm mind or a perfectly smooth meditation experience.
Start small and go with your energy flow
You do not need to sit for long to start noticing the benefit. Try to aim for 5 minutes each day, and set an inspiration goal of meditation for 15 minutes each day.
Meditate when it is the easiest to meditate for you. For example, I am not a morning person so if I meditate in the morning, I will most likely encounter sleepiness, so I meditate in the afternoon. Find the time that makes sense to you, it might be the first thing in the morning, as a transition in between events, or right before bed.
There you have it my 4 tips on how to meditate with your ADHD brain. I can honestly talk about this topic all day long so do expect more blog posts on this topic. For now, if you want to learn more about how to meditate with your ADHD brain, here is a podcast episode where I was featured as a guest on the Moved to Meditate podcast on this very topic.
You can also explore the meditations I recommended on the Resources page.