How Does It Work?

Mindfulness helps put you in the driver’s seat of your attention. It trains your mind to take control of where you want your thoughts to go. This book posits that adults with ADHD can retrain their runaway mind to improve executive function, plus reground to empower their ability to manage mood and emotion.

There are many theories about ADHD possibly stemming from trauma or situations in childhood in which the child wanted to run away, whereby the brain “learns” the behavior of escaping, of seeking drama for distraction. Mindfulness helps you slow down, to be okay with your current situation—boring, un/stimulating, stressful, exhausting, frustrating. It helps you be okay with unpleasant emotion, okay with being in low-drama situations, and living in the moment versus being trapped in guilt of the past and anxiety over future tasks and events.

It also helps hyperactive (without other ADD/ ADHD symptoms) adults calm down and slow down.

After reading the above segment, Rikki inserted another thought: “Shame is a huge emotion that comes with having ADHD: ‘I’ll never be good enough,’ ‘I’m such a failure,’ and ‘I mess things up all the time,’ are regular tracks playing in my head. An ADHD adult is typically on an emotional roller coaster most of the time, and it can make you feel lost and depressed. Mindfulness helps you slow down and deal with emotions instead of getting sucked along with them.”

I tried practicing mindful meditation using these recordings myself. Although I don’t have ADHD, I found the meditations tremendously relaxing. According to Dr. Zylowska, a wandering mind is a universal experience that is not exclusive to individuals with ADHD.

Most of the time, I listened to the recordings when I went to bed at night, and on many evenings, it put me to sleep (which is cheating the system, by the way). If you have trouble falling asleep at night, please try this. You’re so very welcome.