5 Ways I've Made Meditation Realistic and Accessible (for my ADHD)

A ton of people have been saying a ton of great things about meditation, for thousands of years, recently, and with reference to mental health. It all sounded great to me, in theory, but I shrugged it off because I have ADHD and I felt my energy was better spent on things that were a more logical fit for my brain type.

As I began to get solid handles on many of my more crippling issues, I decided to give it the good old college try, mostly so I could prove that it was not a good fit for me. This stubborn “you can't tell me how to be happy” streak is one I've seen over and over again in my fellow ADHD brains.

I've never been on a mood-stabilizer, so I don't know what it feels like, but “stabilized mood” literally are the main effects I noticed from my first experiments with regular meditation. It genuinely feels like my mood has fewer sharp spikes, if it were represented by a graph. Although I have heard people talk about medications like mood stabilizers and antidepressants reducing their positive emotions as well, meditation did not do this to me. On the contrary, it has enabled me to engage deeply in the scattered fragments of joy hidden by the dark clouds of irritability, anxiety, and depression.

Here are 5 ways I made meditation accessible and realistic for me.

1. It was for me

Although the strategy I used to begin the experiment was accountability, I decided to meditate for myself, not because someone else told me to. The first time I heard about meditation being helpful for mental health wasn't the right time to start, nor was the second. The time I started was the right time. I wish I'd started a long time ago, but that doesn't matter. I started when I started.

2. Fully accept my thoughts

Instead of fighting my thoughts and being angry at them for interrupting my meditating, I've learned to notice when I'm engaging with them, accept that this is part of meditation, and move on. Two things have particularly helped me to do this:

1. The first is the description of meditation I heard at my ADHD support group. “Think of meditating like a workout for your brain. Each time you bring your focus back to wherever you intend it to be, that's a ‘rep’.” This makes me feel like the thoughts are actually helpful, because they are what allow me to perform that mental ‘rep’.

2. The second thing is keeping the note page of my phone open in my lap. There are some thoughts I don't want to float away forever, so I open my eyes, write the idea down, and go back to meditating. This has been incredibly helpful because I'm not trying to simultaneously focus on my breath and hold on to the ideas I want to remember until I can record them.

Some of my best ideas come to me when I'm meditating and I think this is because I'm open and unfocused, allowing things I'd never think of when I was carrying around my beliefs to emerge.

3. I did it myyyyyyy waaaaaaaaaay...!

I've heard that the “best” form of meditation is silent, with no movement. The study I read (and now cannot locate) show this builds the most grey matter in the brain. Part of me wants to do this, because if I'm going to do it I'd better be getting the maximum benefit possible for my efforts. I know myself well enough to veto this however, because if I don't meditate in the “easiest” and most comfortable way for me, I will stop doing it. Science agrees with me here and says while there are different “degrees” of effectiveness for various methods of meditation, any amount is more beneficial than none. So I recline, feet on my desk, with a specific track of music on, and my focus on my breathing. My way might be "imperfect" but it allows me to be consistent.

4. Fidget

Lately I've been getting super into the fidget to focus method of ADHD management. I've found that a fidget toy is an excellent focus for meditation. It can give something physically tangible to pull my attention back to.

5. Limit interruptions

Once I'm in “the zone”, one of the biggest irritants are interruptions. It took me all this effort to get here and now something else dares to ask for my attention?! I turn my phone to “do not disturb” and my smartwatch on “quiet time” before settling down to meditate. Luckily my only housemate knows I'm meditating and has never interrupted me, but if I were in circumstances where this were not so, I would inform anyone who might need my attention and/or remove myself to a private room.

For more information from an ADHD perspective on meditation, this video.

What would make it easy for you to meditate regularly?

My Google Drive

A lot of us with ADHD have a love of stationery. We accumulate piles of notebooks and planners, drawers of gel pens and scented pencil crayons, and fistfuls of post-its and stickers. That blank, smooth, unblemished first page seems alive with possibilities. Maybe this time, we think to ourselves, this time is the one where I'll finally get it together.  It doesn’t help that some others are telling us to “just make a list”. All we need to do is get another organizer.

Far too often these shiny pages are filled with empty, whispered promises. We end up with a stack of books, the first handful of pages filled and the rest as blank as our hopeless stares at our chaotic lives. This happens because ADHD needs two things that so very often clash. We need structure (something we are singularly poor at providing for ourselves, but extremely adept at resisting from the world) and a system completely customized by us.

One of the ways I've created a custom system for myself is by using Google Drive, Documents, and Sheets. These provide that notebook-like space.

(Note: I've developed a habit of referencing Google Documents on a daily basis. This is not a system that would work for everyone because something based online without a reminder or alarm function would all too easily become out of sight, out of mind.)

Goal and Habit Tracking

Once the task of identifying what goals and habits a person wants to achieve is done, the next step for ADHD is to be able to maintain awareness and progress toward them. I use Google Documents to outline each step toward my goals so I can easily begin work on them as soon as I sit down at my desk. I track my habits by recording when I accomplish the habit and when I don't so I have an accurate idea of what it is I am doing, and how long it's been since I began trying to make something a habit.

Tandem Editing and Collaboration

As an avid writer I have collaborated on a number of projects in the past several years. The comment, sharing, and suggestions features of a Google Documents have enabled me to do this with complete ease. My husband has even used these functions to collaborate internationally.

Manual of Me

While training at the ADD Coach Academy to become a coach, I was taught a truly amazing strategy. Essentially it boils down to recording how you function so you don't have to reinvent the wheel each time a challenge occurs. I use Gdocs for this as well.

Wardrobe Suggestions

When I come up with an outfit I'm really proud of I always fear I will forget about it. So I've started recording either a description or a picture of the outfit in a Google Document database of my clothes. This allows me to skip the time it takes to assemble an outfit each time (which could be anywhere up to 45 minutes if I'm feeling particularly uncertain about my fashion sense).

Search

By using the “Find and Replace” feature any document turns into a searchable database of anything at all. I can instantly find out what to do if I'm feeling anxious, what outfits I've created in the past for a spring day, and what's my next step for my goal of launching my coaching business.

When something is blank, it becomes the perfect template for the ADHD brain to create what it really needs. For that other part, the structure, sometimes we need a few outside ideas. All of the above was inspired by ideas of others, then tweaked to fit me. Always search out what you need and never give up, because there are as many ideas out there as there are people to think them, times the infinity of the Internet. All we need to do is find the right one for each of us.

What do you need in your system?

Harnessing the Shiny

When I was first diagnosed with ADHD one of the things that struck me most forcefully was the concept of choosing new and “shiny” projects. I'd always felt this was something of a character flaw of mine, that if I has real persistence, I'd be able to work on anything, happily. The truth, that the neurochemical dopamine is necessary for anyone to maintain concentration, and it is a challenge to produce or maintain in the ADHD brain, has been something of a comfort and an explanation for me.

The downside being that I was now aware that jumping into a new “shiny” project at the expense of an old, boring one, was sometimes detrimental to me. So, naturally, because I have a very hard time with the cognitive distortion “Black and White thinking”, I decided that this was completely a bad thing. Whenever I decide to go to extremes, the results are never very favourable.

I was talking to a friend a few months ago and we realized we both do this. We decide that because something is fun, we must avoid it in favour of “real work”. Unfortunately the topic at hand was cleaning, which is a very necessary thing!

The trick, as with so many, many things, is to create balance. It doesn't help to continually jump at new things, perpetually abandoning the older, important work. Neither does it do to ignore the treasure-trove of dopamine that comes with jumping at the new project. When something catches our interest, the ADHD brain is able to produce a lot of dopamine, which allows us not only to work at a task, but allows us to work remarkably fast and long. So if we pause, figure out if it is currently appropriate to dive into this new thing, and go ahead if the answer is ‘yes’, time might be saved because of how quickly the work goes.

Another thing I like to do is if that isn't currently possible, just do a small amount of prep or research. This allows me to use the resulting dopamine on my other, more boring project. It also allows me to eliminate projects that just seemed good at the time but those I never go back to after the first initial rush of excitement.

Balance. It is difficult for anyone to attain. With ADHD it is even harder. The longer I strive for it, the more strategies I create and discover. Each time I discover a new strategy, I realize anew that ADHD is truly one of the most treatable of disorders. Everything seems so obvious once explained.

What projects excite you?

The Double Agent of ADHD

The very first thing a lot of people learn about ADHD, even if they remain fixed on fiction of “just boys with ants in their pants”, is the short attention span. This is of course more complex than even the name Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder suggests, but the simple fact that there are very few and specific things someone with ADHD can easily focus their long-term attention on is very real and very impactful. It can be our saving grace or, much more often, our downfall.

The word “routine”, noun, means ‘a sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program’. In other words a bunch of things, sometimes that you have to do, repeated over and over again. When applied to ADHD, this can trigger multiple symptoms, such as difficulty with transition, resistance to repetition, simple boredom, memory problems, time blindness, difficulty with decision making, difficulty creating and maintaining structure for oneself, and the idea that creative people must live in chaos or betray their artistic soul. The idea of embracing something so downright painful is incredibly hard for the ADHD brain to comprehend.

To me, as a person with lifelong ADHD, routine seemed to be something that happened to other people. I didn’t even have school to give my life structure until I started training as an ADHD coach. After my diagnosis, I began slowly scooping my life into a more comfortable and workable shape. Many things began to emerge that stood the test of time as being very helpful to me. But when I tried to get every one of them done in a day, I would get distracted between each item, and a list I assumed would take others less than an hour took me half or three quarters of the day.

Over years I tried to tweak, alter, and change things until I now have what I proudly call a morning and evening “routine”. It is a list of things that all, in one way or another, form the foundation of my life. They allow me to accomplish everything from maintaining friendships, to housework, to the two businesses I run, to assisting family in times of crisis and celebrating with them in times of joy. I cannot overstate how essential they are to me.

An excellent example is something that happened just this week. Even though I’ve been working on myself and my life since my diagnosis almost 8 years ago, a real, solid, regularly followed routine is a relatively new thing, at least in its current, and historically most useful, iteration. I woke up feeling very low and because, for ADHD, emotion is reality, it was very hard for me to imagine that anything could help lift me. I knew, however, that my morning routine was very beneficial to me, so I started it.

Throughout the process, which takes me between an hour and 90 minutes, I realized my mood turned completely around. I felt content, happy, even energetic. I attribute this to the comforting nature of the familiar flow of tasks, the knowledge that I was accomplishing something important, and the soothing transition ritual and dopamine creation strategy I have in place.

In order to circumvent the list of symptoms of ADHD I’ve listed above that interfere with my ability to accomplish daily routines, I have four major ‘fierce systems’ in place:

The first is headphones playing something I really like (Netflix, YouTube, music, or podcast) to keep my interest focused, allow for easier transition between tasks, and production of low-level dopamine. The second is an agreement I’ve come to with my family that if they see me with both headphones in my ears, they are to refrain from talking to me so I don’t become distracted from my routine. The third is a stopwatch I use for recording how long the routine takes me every morning. This is like a game, or a race against myself, seeing how efficient I can be, and helps produce more dopamine. The final system is, of course, that each routine (every day of the week has slightly different tasks) is recorded as a list in a phone reminder.

This is what I have to do in order to keep my life running smoothly, with the double agent that is routine, in an ADHD brain. When I imagine how other people, who have brains untroubled by these things, glide smoothly through their lives, without a second or even first thought to structure, routine, or dopamine, I have to admit to feeling jealous. That being said, I have proven to myself that I can overcome challenges of neurobiology and work with the very nature of who I am. All, I might add, without the benefit of medication or coffee. That is something of which I am very proud.

What role does routine play in your life?

Relatable ADHD

First of a two-part series.

There are many people who claim that the mental condition known as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder does not exist. I do not argue with these people because it is seldom useful to do so. Instead I try and find some common ground with them.

A phenomenon I find fascinating that was brought about (I’m assuming) by the internet, is known as “TFW” which is an acronym standing for “that feeling when”. It is followed by some event or experience that the person hopes others share. Another title is “so relatable”. I say it is likely the advent of the internet that brought this into existence because I don’t know if people shared things like this before Facebook and Twitter. At least not as widely.

I’ve seen many posts along these lines and empathized with a lot of them. None so much as the ones I share below which I associate with my ADHD brain. It doesn’t really matter, in the end, if it is ADHD or not. If one were to view it in that light, however, one might gain insight into the prevalence of individuals currently struggling with symptoms ADHD treatment is designed to ease.

A lot of people with ADHD have this stubborn streak about them. Combined with a need to have everything they do be their own idea, and never, ever follow The Instructions, you end up with this post. As far as I know, it is not properly understood why this happens, but just try and tell someone with ADHD what to do and let me know how it goes.

Being proactive is a good way to combat this. Asking what they need to do before it is asked of them. When the ADHD brain feels in control, like it was their idea, they can avoid this feeling.

This post also mentions the phenomenon of the post above, but goes a bit further. Pressure is a highly delicate and sensitive thing for ADHD. If there isn’t enough we find it difficult to engage our brains (such as a deadline of “whenever you get around to it”) and if there is too much we simply shut down entirely (such as an imminent deadline of dire consequences). The feeling of an empty house is a welcome release from the pressure of other people’s expectations and allows ADHD to thrive on the novelty of self-direction. Being left to their own devices too long results in the vacuum of pressure that also precludes productivity.

The real trick is to come to a balance of input and/or accountability from trusted loved ones and the freedom of self-direction. On a day when I knew I wanted to clean I posted on Facebook about that intention and asked my friends to text me around supper time asking about it. The idea to clean was mine and the fact that I knew others would be asking helped to motivate without overloading me with pressure.

Stubbornness once more rears its head. This might even be viewed as Oppositional Defiance Disorder which has a 50% comorbidity diagnosed with ADHD in children. People with ADHD can defy instructions, even to the detriment of others and themselves. When emotions overwhelm the human brain we can lose the ability to access our centers of reason and logic. Known as an “Amygdala hijack” this can happen to almost everyone, ADHD or otherwise, but can be more common with ADHD because our emotions are so much more intense and harder to control. This can make it difficult or impossible to rationally decide what action on our part will result in the best outcome. A qualified professional can, in many cases, assist with processing strong emotions such as anger.

The effort involved in even the simplest tasks of day-to-day living is enormous for ADHD (especially before diagnosis and treatment). Accomplishing 1 item on a to do list can take a lot of energy, especially if, as is very common, the individual has made a list that cannot possibly be finished in the allotted time. Being unable to accurately predict how long any given task will take is another facet of time blindness that is also associated with ADHD.

Breaking down a to do list into smaller chunks is one strategy. Instead of “clean my room” instead consider “make bed”, then “pick up only clothes”, then “clear desk”. This can also help to more accurately predict the length of time needed for the work.

They say “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.” This doesn’t always hold true with ADHD. A lot of us are very anxious to please and make the people around us happy. We have a hard time saying “no” even when we know we cannot take on anymore work. This means we over-promise and under-deliver, causing us to feel badly about ourselves and tarnishing our reputations at work, with family, and in social groups.

I perpetually try to reverse that harmful tendency. I under-promise in order to over-deliver. Whatever deadline I think I can meet I usually double, just to be safe. If the task or project has no deadline I make it clear to the other person that I will do my best to get at it but that it may take some time. Nine times out of ten the other person will be happier to have the project delivered before the longer deadline than after the shorter one. If someone appears unhappy about the time, an explanation of the reasoning can show the goodwill and ease any concerns. “I have ADHD, so to make sure I don’t blow past a 1 week deadline, I’ve told you 2 weeks, and you’ll probably get it in ten days, but I don’t want to promise something and then fail to deliver.”

ADHD can remain disguised for many years by circumstance and coping mechanisms created to hide abnormality. There has been a spike in middle-aged individuals being diagnosed alongside their children because they looked at the list of symptoms and said “Wait... Everyone isn’t like this?” A lot of people with ADHD manage more or less effectively until a sudden increase in responsibility or a crisis throws them into chaos. Common events are entering grade 9, beginning college or university, moving out of parents’ house, or starting a family.

ADHD is one of the most treatable mental disorders. There are many resources and professionals available to help anyone curious about everything from diagnosis criteria to medication to nutritional treatments. When someone is living with undiagnosed, untreated ADHD they may feel as though they are lazy, stupid, and crazy. This is not the case and there is always, always hope.

What Works (With No Apology)

Judgement is a huge problem. Receiving it, having it poison your life, harboring it, expressing it, and still having it poison your life. It’s never a useful thing, except in those rare occasions when it is objective and requested/needed/welcomed.

It can also come up in very unexpected places and ways. Such as strategies for functioning in one’s life.

A lot of strategies and techniques folks with ADHD use appear very strange and confusing to neurotypicals viewing it from outside our brains. To be fair, though, their ability to decide to do something and then actually do it is equally strange and confusing to us. But those outside voices may judge us, or we may judge ourselves for what is actually the only way we get things done.

A great example is tech shaming. I rely on my phone and its reminder app for running 99% of my life. A lot of people have commented on the amount of time I spend on my phone and the frequency that I consult it. It is sometimes hard for me to ignore those voices and remember that, without this technology, I simply do not function. My executive function, chief among them memory, cannot cope with my life without this aid.

The flip-side of this concept, as I’ve been observing it, is the idea of “because this: that”. The idea that because strategy ABC has this attribute, say endorsement from a celebrity, prescribed by a doctor, prescribed by an alternate professional, written in a book, talked about on the internet, that it automatically is either 100% guaranteed or completely useless. When we lock ourselves into certain mind-frames, or assume, we invariably miss things.

My coach training served to solidify an idea that I’d been working on for some years: something works only if it works. Until you try something, you cannot know, for certain, if something is a help or a harm. That is the bottom line. Coaching is all about finding that unusual solution that just works for whatever miraculous and inexplicable reason.

This judgement thing though... Even when we know it’s in play, we can still allow it to affect us. I still feel shame every time I hear someone say “These kids nowadays with their iThings...” And I am fairly good at not caring what others think of me. It can keep us from embracing our true selves because we aren’t what common knowledge says is correct.

So I say: do everything you can to break free of judgement, from yourself or the world, and embrace what truly works for you, no matter how strange it may seem!

What’s standing in your way?

Cooking Videos Demystifying Life

Lately I’ve been seeing quite a few cooking videos on my social media feeds. They are mesmerizing and make me itch to get into the kitchen even more often than I do - I love cooking. I’ve been wondering what it is about them that makes me so happy, other than the obvious satisfying imagery and potential for delicious meals in my future.

I came to the conclusion recently that they serve a dire need that’s been irritating my subconscious for years: the demystification of cooking for more people. In the videos, the chefs are implied to be ordinary people, they often spill ingredients, and the preparation is never “perfect”. It simply works and produces tantalizing results.

Food was never a mystery for me. At a young age my persistent and impatient hunger demanded I dive into its preparation and construction. I did see, however, that this is not how many others view cooking. Somewhat because it was made to be unattainable, something that only professionals and mothers could do.

The same can be said for many other aspects of life. When something is mysterious, it can be viewed as more difficult than it really is. I feel strongly that stripping away the mystery is one way to make life easier. This is part of what I do as a coach. I assist people to demystify their own workings so life can be made easier.

People have complimented me on my punctuality and I have been quick to demystify that, as well. My family were chronically late. It was a running joke among our friends and family, some of whom had similar habits. So when I got a job that required me to ride a bus, I either learned to be punctual, even 10-20 minutes early, or was 30-45 minutes late to my shift.

My current system includes the calendar on my smartphone, connected to my smartwatch, a daily routine of checking the calendar each morning, then setting alarms for each item on my schedule. This is what is required to make me on time. Nothing mysterious about it, except years of trial and error, a lot of education on ADHD, and iron-clad rules holding it all in place.

What mysteries remain to be dashed?

ADHD and the Smartwatch

This past week I purchased a Pebble Time smartwatch for use in my business. It allows me to be notified of emails quickly so I can respond in a timely manner and have instant access to my schedule. These are the features that drew me to my first experience of wearable technology. However the more I've used it the more it is showing itself to be one of the most useful things for my ADHD I've encountered in quite a while.

There are people who look askance at anyone who uses and relies on technology heavily. Especially a young person, fearing, I assume, that it is harmful to them. Certainly modern technology has had negative impacts on people, most notably to me the disconnection instant access has caused first world societies, socially.

However, it doesn't behoove anyone to dismiss or judge how others live their lives.

While in my ADDCA coach training, the co-founder, David Giwerc, extolled the uses dictation software had and the freedom it allowed him in writing his book Permission to Proceed. He finds typing very difficult and tedious and were it not for this software, he told me and my classmates, the book would not have been written.

Similarly the reminder app Alarmed allows me to run my life and business smoothly where otherwise I would need a full-time personal assistant and/or maid. That being said, should the zombie horde rise up, my life will instantly fall to pieces. But then again, not many people need to check their email during the apocalypse so perhaps everything will even out in the end.

Another feature of the Pebble Time is the sleep and step tracking. For the first time in my life I know how far I walk in a day (and have extra encouragement to increase that distance) and how much sleep and deep sleep I get each night. Exercise and sleep are two cornerstones of ADHD management and studies have even shown that, in some cases, exercise can replace ADHD medication, without the side effects.

I've also tried the Pomodoro technique for the first time as a result of a Pebble Time app.

The absolute best ADHD management benefit though, in my opinion, is the streamlined nature of my focus. When a notification goes off on my phone, I'm tempted to open it, play a game, check Facebook, and so on. Even if I simply check email, I waste time. When a notification comes in on the watch, I can screen the importance, and avoid the temptation and distractions.

As with so many things, the key to making technology work for you is balance.