The lighter side of ADHD
The effect:
"... ... ... ... ... ... I'm bored... ... ... ... ... ... I'm really bored... ... ... ... ... ... I'm really really bored... ... ... ... ... ... I'm really really really bored... ... ... ... ... ... OMG I'm so bored please just kill me now 😭 😭 😭 "
I do basic mindfulness meditation, sort of a secular version of Buddhist meditation. I'll give a quick rundown:
That's the basics, and it's all you need to start with. Next you learn things like how to deal with persistent mental distractions, and some additional types of meditations that have different or additional goals and techniques.
One of the goals here is to build up a technique for helping your mind stay present and focused, "mindful", in whatever shape that takes for you. When my mind is completely restless and I can remember to do it, it helps a lot. It's certainly not a cure for ADHD, but it helps with daily functioning, and with the associated anxiety and self-worth issues that come along with mine.
Most of this is cribbed from Dan Harris, who used to be with ABC News, and wrote a book called "10% Happier", which talks a bit about his story and also has a decent surface-level overview of beginner meditation techniques. I caught him when he was on The Daily Show and he took 5 minutes to talk through the basics, and I tried it and was hooked.
I will say that up until recently I've gone around telling people that I've been a big meditator since I was a kid, but in my own mental health journey I've realized that the thing I've done since I was a kid is dissociating. And it's fine, retreating into my own little mental isolation like that is something that got me out of a lot of traumas, but even if it has bits in common it's not quite the same as meditation. And now I'm like a bodybuilder who realizes years into it that his form is all wrong, and has to back all the weight off and start over.
Nice. Thanks. I do Shikantaza mself.
I started with the most basic guided meditations almost 30 years ago. Next step, learn to focus on a candle or a dot on the wall without thinking about anything else. Increase the time to hold this focus. It should be a "relaxed focus"; when your head turns read or wrinkly, it's wrong.
From there, it can go to really emptying your head. Thoughts will come up, but think of them like something external that you can observe, you see the thought, you aren't the thought. Same with feelings, in my case, especially that I have to stop and get up. I see the urge to jump up, but I am not the urge.
Imagination can help at an early stage, like: I'm this scaffold full of gaps where thoughts and emotions just pass through like a smoke cloud without affecting it. But it's supposed to go to a point where even that is considered a thought that should pass.
Effects are great in many areas of life: Dreaming, sleep, notice needs like sleep or hunger or thirst before they become overwhelming. Studying and retaining the information.
Yet still, I surprisingly manage to drop the habit for a day, weeks, even years at times.
My most stupid reason is: There is a lot to do / I need to get to bed right now, so there is no time for even 5 minutes of meditation. (But there was time to browse Reddit for let's-not-say-how-many-minutes, "research" the making of for a movie I don't even like etc.) Yet that argument seems quite compelling in the moment.
I read every single "meditate" as "medicate" and was confused why people are talking about yoga and not their Adderall. Haven't been storing mine at the right temperature, it seems
Was about to post the same until I saw this!
Meditation bores me. It actually feels more like stress and work while nothing is happening and I don't benefit from it.
Similar applies to yoga, but at least it has some effects on me: I fall asleep during the relaxation part. Also afterwards, I feel calm like being stoned. Actually feeling stoned.
I tried doing yoga for some months, but It wasn't my thing.
The concept of mindful meditation, where you focus on how you are feeling and what is going on around you works for me as a short burst to reset myself when I notice my brain is all over the place. I can't sit still and do it for any length of time, but if I'm fidgety or uncomfortable and don't know why it is a way to kind of reset myself and address the things that I'm distracted from noticing.
The attempts to try and do structured meditation for anything longer than a minute or two was absolutely painful!
I practice Autogenic Training, which is a close relative of classic meditation techniques. It is proven to help with anxiety and attention deficit. I don't know the latter, but I certainly feel the former and I find it easier to not spiral into anxious thoughts.
I've done Mindfulness meditation, and I find it very helpful. It gets easier with practice too. But I haven't developed a habit of meditating regularly so I don't actually do it often. It's hard to keep up with things that feel optional.
Something that helps me to meditate more often than never is to think of it as something I can do anywhere, without preparation. Then when I find myself waiting for something I can take that time to meditate. Like waiting for a train, in a waiting room, etc. I sit normally; I often don't close my eyes.
I do mindfulness meditation too. It's a big thing in my life.
I do, though not nearly as often as I'd like. I think people often get too hung up on how to meditate and try to force the 'empty head', but that's like starting out on challenge mode. The most effective method for me is to sit somewhere outside (preferably a peaceful place) and focus my mind on listening. Nothing else, just listening for whatever sounds are around, and naming them. Wind, birds, water, construction noise, whatever it is, just touch each sound, then listen for another.
I guess it's more of a mindfulness exercise technically, but it's all the same concept. It's grounding yourself in the physical world, quieting the constant chatter and focusing on something external and tangible.
I never had training or did anything structured, but I daydream a lot, staring out into space, while walking or jogging. It calms me and makes my health better
So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head. . . but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz. . . not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all-night diner down around Rockaway Beach.
There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip.
Then into first gear, forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out. . . thirty-five, forty-five. . . then into second and wailing through the light at Lincoln Way, not worried about green or red signals, but only some other werewolf loony who might be pulling out, too slowly, to start his own run. Not many of these. . . and with three lanes on a wide curve, a bike coming hard has plenty of room to get around almost anything. . . then into third, the boomer gear, pushing seventy-five and the beginning of a windscream in the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into water off a high board.
Bent forward, far back on the seat, and a rigid grip on the handlebars as the bike starts jumping and wavering in the wind. Taillights far up ahead coming closer, faster, and suddenly -- zaaapppp -- going past and leaning down for a curve near the zoo, where the road swings out to sea.
The dunes are flatter here, and on windy days sand blows across the highway, piling up in thick drifts as deadly as any oil-slick. . . instant loss of control, a crashing, cartwheeling slide and maybe one of those two-inch notices in the paper the next day: “An unidentified motorcyclist was killed last night when he failed to negotiate a turn on Highway I.”
Indeed. . . but no sand this time, so the lever goes up into fourth, and now there's no sound except wind. Screw it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans down on a hundred, and wind-burned eyeballs strain to see down the centerline, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes.
But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right. . . and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it. . . howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica. . . letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and Janother few seconds on the edge. . . The Edge. . . There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others -- the living -- are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.
But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.”
This is how I meditate, except I am not an asshole so I chase this zone of calmness in competitive multiplayer and racing video games but is the same dawning of complete calmness, I could never describe it better, I am just not a thrillseeker/competitive multiplayer games are a far better and more consistent place of meditation for me.
A final note on the first line from this quoted passage from Hunter S Thompson.
So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast
Me and Keith Jarett would like to remind the reader/Hunter S Thompson of a Thelonious Monk quote found in Against The Day (as a key to the books symbolic concerns with light).
“It’s always night or we wouldn’t need light.”
I find guided meditation the easiest to follow. The "empty your head" thing I don't think is possible for me. So let's say it's guided audio on deep breathing and a countdown from 20. Breathing in, I imagine the number taking shape. Could be a sports jersey, someone's upcoming birthday or anniversary, anything associated with the number. Hold the breath, let the number solidify. Exhale, the number fades or gets blown away. Repeat, letting the audio keep me on track. My mind will wander. It's inconsequential. The audio will either bring me back, or not. I can try again later.
The most important thing is that any form of mediation takes practice. It's a skill like any other. It's often suggested in therapeutic settings, usually for grounding etc. But it should be practiced while not in distress for it to be reliably there to lean on for the time you really need it.