Meditation for ADHD That Actually Works! (with guided mindfulness meditation practice)
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful video, Jude, a meditation teacher with ADHD, explores meditation practices that effectively address ADHD symptoms. He explains why traditional concentration-based meditations often fail for those with ADHD and instead recommends mindfulness and insight practices like Vipassana. Jude emphasizes the importance of understanding ADHD's physical restlessness and dopamine deficiency, advocating for a holistic approach to managing symptoms through diet, exercise, and stability, in addition to meditation.
Takeaways
- đ§ââïž Vipassana or mindfulness practices are more effective for people with ADHD than focus-based meditations.
- đ§ ADHD is characterized by restlessness in the body, leading to an overactive mind as a response to bodily discomfort.
- đ ADHD often involves a dopamine deficiency, which leads to seeking stimulation through thoughts and actions.
- đ Meditation for ADHD should focus on observing sensations in the body and mind without trying to change them.
- đ The practice involves being curious about bodily sensations, especially restlessness, and observing them without judgment.
- đ Mindfulness meditation helps change the relationship with discomfort, reducing the suffering and reactivity associated with ADHD.
- đââïž Regular practice can shift experiences and make symptoms more manageable by fostering acceptance and equanimity.
- đ ADHD symptoms can be exacerbated by life stressors such as financial instability, suggesting a holistic approach including lifestyle adjustments.
- đ„ Diet, exercise, and overall life stability play crucial roles in managing ADHD symptoms effectively.
- đ A holistic approach to ADHD management includes mindfulness, diet, exercise, and creating a secure, stable living environment.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the video by Jude from the Being Integrated channel?
-The video focuses on meditation practices for ADHD that actually work, explaining why traditional meditation techniques may not be effective for individuals with ADHD and introducing alternative mindfulness practices.
Why do traditional meditation practices not work well for people with ADHD according to Jude?
-Traditional meditation practices, which often involve focusing on the breath, do not work well for people with ADHD because they tend to be restless and uncomfortable, making it difficult to maintain focus and attention.
What alternative meditation practice does Jude suggest for people with ADHD?
-Jude suggests Vipassana, or mindfulness, practice as an alternative for people with ADHD, as it involves observing one's experience without trying to change it and can be more effective in dealing with the restlessness and discomfort often associated with ADHD.
How does Jude describe the experience of ADHD in terms of the body?
-Jude describes ADHD as a restlessness in the body, which leads to an active mind trying to escape the discomfort. This discomfort is often a result of a perceived dopamine deficiency in the brain.
What is the role of dopamine in ADHD as explained by Jude?
-Dopamine is a motivating chemical in the brain that gives a sense of excitement. In ADHD, there is a deficiency of base-level dopamine, causing the mind to constantly seek stimulation and dopamine hits, often through thought loops.
Why are stimulant medications used to treat ADHD, and how do they work?
-Stimulant medications are used to treat ADHD because they boost the base level of dopamine in the brain, reducing restlessness and the constant seeking of dopamine, leading to a calmer and more laid-back state.
What is the purpose of mindfulness and meditation in treating ADHD according to the video?
-The purpose of mindfulness and meditation in treating ADHD is to help individualsć»éąćŻč and observe discomfort without trying to escape it, which can lead to a change in behavior, feelings in the body, and the way the mind engages with the world.
What does Jude suggest as the first step in the mindfulness practice for dealing with ADHD?
-The first step is to come into the body, notice where restlessness is felt, and be curious about the sensation of restlessness without trying to change it or judge it.
How does Jude recommend dealing with the mind during the mindfulness practice?
-Jude recommends observing the mind, noticing its tendencies to distract or create thought loops, and gently bringing the focus back to the sensations in the body without trying to change them.
What is the concept of equanimity in the context of this video, and why is it important?
-Equanimity refers to the practice of accepting feelings without resisting or trying to escape them. It is important because it changes the relationship with discomfort and can reduce suffering and angst associated with ADHD symptoms.
What additional advice does Jude give for managing ADHD symptoms outside of meditation practices?
-Jude suggests a holistic approach, including a healthy diet low in sugar and complex carbs, regular exercise, and finding stability and security in life to reduce the feeling of being unsafe, which can exacerbate ADHD symptoms.
Outlines
đ§ââïž Meditation for ADHD: Challenges and Vipassana Practices
The speaker, Jude, introduces the video on meditation practices for ADHD, highlighting the ineffectiveness of traditional meditation techniques for individuals with ADHD. Jude, who has ADHD and teaches meditation, explains that simple focus-based practices do not resonate well with him or others with ADHD due to their nature of restlessness and discomfort. Instead, he finds Vipassana or mindfulness practices more effective. The speaker suggests that ADHD manifests as a physical restlessness, which is mistakenly attributed to mental hyperactivity. The video aims to explore why certain meditation practices work for ADHD and introduces the concept of dopamine deficiency in ADHD, which leads to a constant mental search for stimulation and satisfaction.
đ Exploring Mindfulness and Vipassana for Sensory Experience
This paragraph delves into the specifics of mindfulness and Vipassana meditation practices, emphasizing the importance of observing and accepting one's sensory experiences without judgment or the desire to change them. Jude outlines two main areas of focus for these practices: the mind and the body. The goal is to watch thoughts and feelings unfold without interference, which can lead to a change in the relationship with discomfort and potentially alter behavior and mental engagement. The speaker invites viewers to explore restlessness as a physical sensation, suggesting curiosity and observation without trying to alter the experience, and discusses the importance of being an observer to one's own mental and physical state.
đ€ Embracing Discomfort: A Deeper Look into Mindfulness
The speaker continues the discussion on mindfulness by encouraging the audience to embrace discomfort fully. Jude suggests that by inviting and accepting discomfort, one can change their relationship with it, reducing suffering and angst. The paragraph explores the idea of being present with physical sensations and observing the mind's tendency to distract from bodily discomfort. The practice involves gently returning focus to the body and sensations, aiming to meet them with acceptance. The speaker acknowledges that the practice might be overwhelming at first but emphasizes the importance of persistence and finding personal comfort levels in the process.
đ± Holistic Approach to ADHD: Beyond Meditation
In the final paragraph, Jude wraps up the video by advocating for a holistic approach to managing ADHD, which includes mindfulness and meditation but also encompasses diet, exercise, and overall life stability. The speaker highlights the importance of equanimityâthe practice of non-resistance to feelingsâand suggests that this principle can significantly impact daily life and the experience of ADHD symptoms. Jude also recommends additional resources, including another video on equanimity and a channel called 'how to ADHD' for practical advice, concluding the video with an invitation for viewers to subscribe and engage with the content.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄADHD
đĄMeditation
đĄMindfulness
đĄDopamine
đĄVipassana
đĄRestlessness
đĄEquanimity
đĄSensory Experience
đĄConcentration-Based Practices
đĄHolistic Approach
Highlights
Jude, who has ADHD and teaches meditation, finds traditional meditation practices ineffective for ADHD.
Vipassana or mindfulness practices are recommended for ADHD due to their effectiveness.
ADHD is characterized by restlessness and discomfort in the body, not just a mind issue.
ADHD can be viewed as a dopamine deficiency, causing a constant search for stimulation.
Stimulant medications for ADHD work by increasing the base level of dopamine in the brain.
Mindfulness meditation helps by allowing discomfort to be observed without trying to escape it.
ADHD treatment through meditation involves changing the relationship with discomfort.
Meditation for ADHD should not focus on forcing focus but on observing the present experience.
The practice involves watching thoughts and feelings without judgment or trying to change them.
ADHD individuals often get caught in thought loops, seeking dopamine hits.
When focusing on uninteresting tasks, the brain's focus center shuts down further in ADHD individuals.
Meditation can help with restlessness and discomfort even for those without ADHD.
The practice encourages curiosity about the feeling of restlessness and where it is centered in the body.
Observing the sensations in the body can change the experience and reduce suffering.
The practice aims to meet discomfort with an open heart, similar to meeting a loved one.
Jude suggests that diet, exercise, and life stability are also crucial for managing ADHD symptoms.
A holistic approach to ADHD management is recommended, combining mindfulness with lifestyle changes.
The video concludes with an invitation to subscribe for more ADHD and meditation content.
Transcripts
okay welcome to my channel Being Integrated I'm Jude
and this video is about meditation practices for adhd that actually
work so I have ADHD and I also teach meditation
and I quickly learned that a lot of meditation practices
do not work for me and specifically the types of practices that you most
encounter as a beginner are the ones that most don't work for me so
if you're just beginning a meditation the practices are typically about
bringing your attention back to your breath over and over
these very simple practices and those don't work that well for me and i have
been able to do those practices well at times in my life
but other times i have not been able to do them well at all
most times i can't do them that well actually but there is a whole other
category of practices called vipassana practice
or mindfulness practice or insight practice
that really does work for me and might work for you i know other adhd people
who have very much taken to these practices and
found them a lot more helpful than more focused or concentration based
practices now the question is why why do some practices work and others don't
and to understand this we have to understand what adhd is
so while adhd presents differently in different people there are some pretty
common symptoms and for me the simplest way to express
it is it's a restlessness in my body it actually took me a long time to
realize this because i thought adhd was in the mind i thought oh my mind's
just crazy and going after things but then i realized
my mind was so active because my body was restless and uncomfortable
it was actually the discomfort in my body that my mind was working
really hard to escape another way of looking at adhd is as a dopamine
deficiency so dopamine is this motivating chemical
in our brain it gives us this sense of kind of
excitement around things it's like when we see something we want and we're
really close to getting it there's a big dopamine rush the thing is
with adhd is there's a deficiency of a natural kind of base level of dopamine
in the brain and as a result our mind is constantly
seeking dopamine we're looking for things that are
stimulating adhd people are often really good at thinking and finding
thoughts that are somewhat pleasurable or interesting and we can get caught in
these thought loops for a long time and kind
of spend most of our lives in these thought loops jumping from one
thought loop to the next thought loop getting these little hits of dopamine
this is why most adhd or maybe all adhd meds
are stimulants which can sound weird because we think of adhd as
hyperactivity or overactivity in our mind but it's
actually an underactivity in the dopamine levels so when we give someone
a stimulant that boosts their base level of dopamine
they're actually more okay we're not as restless we're not seeking
the dopamine because we already have the dopamine in our brain and we're able to
be more calm and laid back instead of looking at adhd
as an overactive mind we want to look at it as a discomfort in the body a
restlessness which could be looked at as a lack of
dopamine but it's really this dissatisfactory feeling in the body
and this constant need to either think or act out to try
to get more satisfaction to try to feel better
so a big part of adhd treatment when it comes to the way of
mindfulness and meditation is going into the discomfort and looking
at it being really clear with it and it's through the
opening to the sensations of discomfort and not
trying to escape them that we actually shift our relationship with it and
things can really change for us our behavior can change the feelings in our
body can change the way our mind engages with the world
and with itself can change so i know that for an adhd person the
idea of meditating may seem like torture and in some ways it is
torture what we know from studying uh adhd in the brain is that when we try
to focus on something that we're not interested
in that part of the brain responsible for
focus shuts down even more so it's actually the more
effort we put into trying to gather our attention and really focus
the harder it becomes and then this just creates this really awful feedback loop
and suffering it creates this frustration this restlessness
and we could just want to like like i'm sure if you have adhd you know exactly
what i'm talking about and even if you don't have adhd i feel like
pretty much all of us are on the spectrum to some degree we all
have the same challenges an adhd person has even if they're not on the same
extreme so if you ever suffer from restlessness
or discomfort in the body which i'm sure everyone does then you can also benefit
from these practices you can use these practices when you're
feeling overwhelmed or when your mind's going crazy to
find more of a sense of okayness and well-being so the type of meditation
we're going to be exploring i mentioned is kind of like a
mindfulness style which instead of trying to focus on one thing it's
actually more trying to observe what's happening
in our experience so we're not trying to calm our mind
actually we're just letting our mind be as it is and we're trying to watch it so
there are a lot of different uh vipassana or mind from the style
meditation practices we're only going to explore a little bit
in this particular video but i have more on my channel
but if we're talking about mindfulness practice in general
it's really watching observing and opening to our sensory experience
without trying to change it or without judgment as they say
so the two main areas we can focus on we can explore with this practice
the one is the mind what's happening in our mind
and then the other is the body what's happening in our body these are the
sensory experiences that make up our sense of self and our feeling of me
it's our thoughts and feelings we're gonna be practicing
watching our feelings and being open to what we're feeling and
watching our thoughts allowing them to be allowing them to unfold
and we're gonna notice one how watching these sensations without trying to
change them actually changes them so what we're
going to realize is that we're often actually trying to change our experience
we're trying to escape the discomfort or we get
really into our thoughts and we feed into them we give them more energy
instead of trying to avoid the discomfort in our body
or really feed into the thoughts we're just going to try to
watch be in this observer role and a big part of this is noticing the
relationship between the two noticing how the reactivity in the body
or the discomfort in the body how that springs thoughts certain types of
thoughts or thoughts in general and how we use
our thinking to escape uncomfortable feelings okay so with that
being said let's just jump into the practice
so we're just going to start by coming into the body
you can close our eyes if that's comfortable and notice where do you feel
restlessness let's be curious about the feeling of restlessness
and if you feel it right now even in the subtle way so be curious
can you find that sensation of restlessness in the body
and where do you feel it
maybe it's strong right now maybe it's subtle
but just notice the sensations notice the vibrational quality to this feeling
where does it feel like it's centered where's the core of it
for me it's usually in my abdomen sometimes in my chest a bit
could even be in my face as well
just notice how these sensations move how the feelings kind of dance in the
body and be really curious see how much you
can zoom in and just pay attention to the moving of this energy the moving
of the feeling of restlessness in the body
and if you're feeling it in your kind of chest or abdomen area
try putting a hand there or both hands and just see what that does just notice
does this aggravate it more does it change the sensation at all
does it soothe it
so we're not trying to do anything we're not trying to
make it any bigger or smaller we're just being curious
about what we're feeling and we're noticing if it's changing if bringing
awareness attention clarity to the experience
changes it at all
are we resisting the experience are we tightening up around it at all
and if you go into thoughts if you're imagining these things like
sometimes i visualize these things in my body or i'll just
be thinking about something totally unrelated that's okay but try to come
back to the actual sensations in the body coming back to the feelings
moment by moment just checking in get distracted check in again and just
gently with that okayness whenever we get distracted it's not a
problem it's totally fine there's no judgment here we're just
noticing how our mind runs away and gently coming back to the body
and being with the sensations of putting your hand
on your body is helpful if it's lowering the reactivity or the
restlessness that's okay just go with it if the hands
are aggravating it you can take them off just do what's comfortable for you right
now and we're kind of asking what does your
body need to be more comfortable
can you let go of any tension you're holding on to maybe in your
jaw in your neck and your hips
and if you can't that's fine so the first thing is we're
noticing what's there we're trying to relax as best as possible
knowing that we there's no way we're going to fully relax
and then we're just accepting whatever tension or restlessness is left
whatever feeling is left whatever tension or restlessness
can we just allow it to be there can we almost invite it not try to resist it
can we feel the sensations fully and open our heart to the experience
so just as we meet someone we love with an open heart
can we open our heart to our own discomfort to our own feeling of
restlessness
and sometimes when we do this it gets worse it gets
more uncomfortable and just notice if that happens and that's okay
try to find what works for you what doesn't the thing is sometimes when we
do this the symptoms become amplified and that's okay
so long as we can handle it so long as we can be present with it if it's
getting to be where we're dissociating where we're
zoning out where we can't be present and you can find a way to to find it more
easy for yourself you can find a way to accommodate yourself
but over time as we practice we want to be present and open to the sensations as
much as possible and the more we can do that the more
it's going to shift our experience the less of a problem it's going to be
the power of this practice is it might not get rid of the feelings but it
changes your relationship to it it makes it
not such a problem anymore it takes a lot of the the suffering
and the angst out of the experience we're just practicing moment to moment
can we be with the discomfort can we be with whatever is happening in
our body
and everyone's in a different place so if this isn't working for you
i have another video on managing the stress which might be helpful
but if you're able to do this practice it's very good like it's
this is the way through it this is the way to shift the experience
so just continuing to be present with the sensations in the body just as they
are without trying to change them really welcoming them
the next piece is noticing the mind noticing what the mind wants to do
if it wants to run around if it wants to create imagery if it wants to think
about the future or worry about the past
we start to see a relationship between the mind and the body that
the mind is often trying to distract us from what's happening in the body
because it's uncomfortable and that's okay that's just what it does
and so can we observe the mind and come back to the body gently
with ease there's a whole world of the mind
there's a lot we can do with practicing working with thoughts but for
now we're going to stay focused on the
sensations in the body and just trying to meet them with acceptance
warmth
you can slowly open your eyes if they're closed
and i'm really curious how that was for you you can uh leave some comments uh it
might have gone well it might have been
illuminating for you or it might not have been and that's okay some people
when they first do this practice it is overwhelming it's too much
and that's totally okay if that's where you are so i have two
practices on my channel that are really relevant to this one is
working with feelings kind of what we're doing and then the other is working with
thoughts which is just being in the thoughts
allowing the thoughts to kind of run free but to observe them as they're
moving and we're using this technique called
noting or labeling which will be explained in that video it's
kind of a lot to get into now but these are the practices that
i've personally found extremely helpful for my adhd and adhd symptoms
and also bringing these practices into everyday life the big piece here is
equanimity which is not fighting our feelings further not
resisting them or tightening up around them
or trying to escape them but to actually open to them this is really
the core of the practice and this is what's really going to change things
over time so i have another video on equanimity
and the practice of equanimity and how we become more and less equanimous
through life how our experience kind of shapes us and creates more
resistance and avoidance in our being so i would highly recommend
the video and equanimity for everyone i think it's one of the
most life-changing principles to understand it can really shift our
day-to-day experience and relationship to our
experience a relationship to our feelings and discomfort
okay so that's it for this video if you appreciate this video if you want more i
can do more videos on adhd and uh other tips to
work with it there's actually another great channel
called how to adhd that has more practical kind of general life
advice around adhd that i'd recommend checking out if you aren't
already familiar i also want to mention that there are actually so many
ways to work with adhd outside of this so this is
really focused on how we can use mindfulness and meditation to work with
adhd which for me has been without the most impactful important
skills to learn but also diet is really important adhd
exercise just having an elevated heart rate for 20 minutes a day is really
important with adhd i've also noticed that my adhd is a lot
worse when i'm in a less secure position in
life so if i'm struggling financially when i was in school and i was like kind
of struggling to you know make rent in all this my adhd
was much worse than when i had a stable income so to
think about the larger picture adhd is often this feeling of feeling
like something's wrong or we're unsafe so the safer and more grounded we could
feel in our life the lower the adhd symptoms are going to be so i'm really a
fan of a holistic approach which is eating better
not a lot of sugar or complex carbs like you want
just a lot of vegetables and proteins a little bit of
exercise every day and generally finding more stability
in life if possible whatever that means to you whatever will make you feel more
safe in life and this will absolutely have a big impact on your adhd symptoms
but this mindfulness stuff is also hugely important too so
i hope you get a lot out of it so thanks so much for tuning in if you're not
already subscribed that would be great if you're
do so and please like the video it helps i appreciate all that thank you so much
and i'll see you again soon
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