Mindful Awareness: ADHD Treatment with Meditation
April 11th, 2010 at 2:03 am (Adult ADD/ADHD)
ADHD treatment information about how meditation can focus the attention of children and adults with attention deficit.
What’s the core issue of attention deficit disorder (ADD ADHD)? For many adults and children with ADHD, it’s paying attention. So it stands to reason that some kind of attention training would be just what the doctor ordered.
Well, there is such a thing. It’s been around for thousands of years, and it’s now a hot research topic at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center. Recently, ADDitude’s Carl Sherman, Ph.D., spoke with psychiatrist Lidia Zylowska, M.D., who heads the center’s AD/HD program.
“Mindful awareness” sounds spiritual. Is it?
Mindful awareness, or mindfulness, is part of many religious traditions. For example, Buddhism features a form of mindfulness meditation known as vipassana.
But mindfulness is not necessarily religious or spiritual. It involves paying close attention to your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations; in other words, developing a greater awareness of what’s going on with you from moment to moment.
It can be used as a tool to foster wellness, especially psychological well-being. Similar techniques have been used to lower blood pressure and to manage chronic pain, anxiety, and depression.
How can mindfulness help people with AD/HD?
It improves your ability to control your attention. In other words, it teaches you to pay attention to paying attention. Mindful awareness can also make people more aware of their emotional state, so they won’t react impulsively. That’s often a real problem for people with ADHD.
Researchers have talked about using mindfulness for ADHD for some time, but the question was always whether people with ADHD could really do it, especially if they’re hyperactive.
