Meditation for ADHD: How to Calm Your Mind and Strengthen Focus

If you’ve ever sat down to meditate only to find your thoughts bouncing around like a pinball machine, you’re not alone, especially if you have ADHD!

Meditation can feel like the most impossible thing for an ADHD brain.

Sitting still?

Doing nothing?

Noticing your thoughts without chasing them?

It almost sounds like a joke.

But here’s a really good re-frame for you: Make meditation about resistance breathing and NOT about the thoughts. Forget about the thoughts, when you focus on them you'll just have more of them.

Honestly, if you can breathe in an intentional way, you can meditate...

Over time, with your practice of intentional breathing, slowing and following the breath. You will stop noticing so many thoughts and in the meantime if you are noticing you are having 'thoughts a plenty'.

Just know that you are still gaining the benefits from this practice, don't let having thoughts stop you because... and I hate to break it to you... you will always have thoughts, even experienced meditators have thoughts.

The intention is to calm and restore your nervous system.

Why ADHD Brains Benefit from Meditation

The ADHD nervous system is rarely in a true state of rest. There’s often a constant sense of inner buzzing, thoughts flying, background noise overwhelming, emotional waves crashing.

Meditation helps us shift into a calmer state where we can begin to:

• Regulate our emotions

• Reduce stress and overwhelm

• Increase self-awareness and focus

What Makes Meditation ADHD-Friendly (and What Doesn’t)

You don’t need to sit cross-legged on a cushion in silence for 30 minutes. In fact, you shouldn’t start there.

Here’s what makes meditation work better for an ADHD brain:

• Short and structured sessions: Even 3minutes will make a difference but around 10-15 mins is perfect. 

• Guided meditations: Having a voice to follow can help anchor your attention however this is a preference thing as it can also be distracting. 

• Movement-based or sensory meditations: Try walking, tapping your fingers as you count your breath, focussing on an object or using a mala to count the beads as you pass them through your fingers.

• Visualisation practices: Especially powerful for ADHD brains as a lot of us are very visual.

• Body doubling: Meditating with a friend or accountability partner or whilst in the company of someone even if they aren’t meditating can be helpful.

  
  

What Happens When You Meditate Consistently

When meditation becomes part of your routine (even imperfectly), it creates powerful shifts:

• You become less emotionally reactive. 

• You may sleep better

• You tap into your intuition and start trusting yourself more.

• You feel more level-headed. 

  
  

It’s not about becoming someone different. It’s about returning to who you are without all the noise and it's about giving your body a chance to reduce stress and repair.

My Personal Practice

I never meditate in the morning, mornings are already overloaded with decisions and demands.

Instead, I meditate at night when everything is done, the house is quiet, and I can finally drop into myself. 

I consistently return to that practice because without it my reality feels like it's out of kilter and things start going wrong for me. Obviously this is not the case for everyone who meditates but in my 10 years + of meditating I see this as a pattern for myself.

It’s the reason I created a whole course for people with ADHD who want to feel more emotionally regulated, calm, capable, and focused without burning out trying to do it all.

You don’t have to do meditation right.

You just have to do it your way.