Mindful Meditation

4 Comments & Reviews: Mindful Meditation

1. I am 41 years old and was recently diagnosed with ADD. I practice meditation for 10-15 mins in the morning and at bed tune, also in short 2 min bursts throughout the day as required. My 11 year old daughter has anxious ADD and I guide her in meditation too. Learning to bring myself to a centred and calm place has made a huge difference when it comes to focus and attention and it had sincerely changed my life in so many positive ways, for my daughter it has worked absolute wonders in reducing anxiety symptoms and improving her self esteem. Neither of us take any medication, so meditation and mindfulness is our only ADD ‘treatment’. The most challenging part was creating a habit of practising it, since my primary symptom is forgetfulness and lack of drive it took me a couple of months to really integrate it into my routine, doing it with my daughter helped with this. As I was diagnosed late I have already carved out a life that compensates for my ADD short comings, as a disorganised, forgetful and distracted person I outsource most of my mundane responsibilities, if I didn’t have that support I’m not sure I could function so well, so meditation might not work as a stand alone solution for everyone. Meditation has certainly improved symptoms for myself and my daughter but not entirely ‘cured’ them. For us it’s a happy inbetween solution that doesn’t have any unpleasant side effects like medication AND it has the added benefit of helping us to maintain good emotional and mental health, we are both much happier since we started meditating and rarely feel overwhelmed as we used to.

2. I believe I have been self medicating with yoga and meditation for over 20 years with some success. Cutting out sugar and foods I am allergic to (wheat and dairy) helps too. Try any yoga class that suits your fitness level and includes deep relaxation and breathing practices along with some meditation. I find chant helps a lot too. After taking an early retirement to teach yoga more, I found the lack of structure made my focus worse, which is why I am on this site exploring ways to stay on track with a new schedule. I think the ideas I have been reading to buddy up with people to get things done will be helpful. Don’t know where I would be without the yoga though.

3. I utilize yoga, meditation and a little bit of qi-gong and it helps remarkably well with my ADD symptoms. I maintain a rigorous discipline plan though, waking up before 5 AM and getting a good half-hour of yoga and meditation in before I leave the house for work. When I slip and don’t do my stuff though, I start feeling very out of whack. But it really helps me understand the elements at play in my body and work to keep things aligned. The meditation REALLY helps with the ADHD focus.Don’t underestimate how much it can help.

4. Exercise treats ADHD and meditation and mindfulness both treat ADHD. Yoga is both, plus the yoga lifestyle is full of ways to be more healthy and centered. We need to work on our monkey minds more than others, and this is part of yoga training.
   That being said, don’t feel bad if meditation is hard for you/impossible or if you fall asleep in savassana. Keep working on your nutrition and other tweaks. It’s a way of life.