Autism

I have pretty severe adhd (combined type). I use the Headspace app for guided meditations, and my favorite course is “Managing Anxiety.”

Rather than simply accepting the train of crazy thoughts, which is hard, it teaches me to categorize thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations into a few groups.

1. Thinking or feeling (physical or emotional). Do this for a while.
2. eventually add “pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral”.
3. After a good bit of practice, it adds “in a word, name the thought or feeling” and talks you through how to do that healthily.

This categorization is an active step that helps the mind acknowledge a thought or feeling without being sucked into it or identifying with it. I use a similar labeling method when I struggle to stay calm. This idea is to start labeling the individual feelings and bodily signs rather than feeling anxious or excited: thinking or saying to myself “elevated heart rate”, “sweaty palms”, “rapid shallow breathing”. It’s a grounding exercise you can do anytime to check in with your body and add distance to the emotion, rather than attaching your current state to a lizard brain feeling.

The broader goal of meditation isn’t to “be zen”, or without thought, but rather to help you separate your thoughts from your identity. Once you learn to recognize the signs of various feelings through regular practice, noting, and labeling, you may learn to use the tools to help reset a little when you’re NOT meditating.

If you’re like me with a hyper sensory experience (mine is sound), then learning to identify when a sensation is present can also help to ground you.

Anyway, hope that helps. I can answer questions if you have any.

As a person who is not diagnosed ADHD or autism (but has traits of both), what's made sense for me with meditation is that it's about relaxed attention. Choosing to focus your mind on something specific (for example, the sensations of breathing in and out, or even something simple like counting). Recognize that yes, your mind will wander, and you'll catch yourself drifting off to think about the show you just watched or the burrito in the fridge or how stupid meditation is... And that's normal. The practice of meditation is catching that your mind wandering, acknowledging that with kindness and without judgment, and going back to what you were focusing on for your meditation. Don't be hard on yourself! Every time you catch your mind wandering, you are actually SUCCEEDING (because you recognized it), and are PRACTICING catching your mind wander and practicing getting back on track. :)

For me, that's what made it work. Focusing on nothing or letting my mind wander just leads to anxiety about doing it wrong and boredom, but gently focusing on something neutral and just practicing catching myself wandering is something I can do.

Meditation isn't about stopping thoughts but about noticing them. Thinking is not the issue - it's thinking without knowing that you're thinking. Beating yourself up for getting distracted is just more thinking without knowing that you're thinking.

https://thedailytism.com/audhd-man-at-spa-retreat-worries-about-relaxing-wrong/

OP, listen up, because you've got the wrong idea.

The goal of meditation isn't to have an empty mind. The goal is to be present.

We say "practice mediation" when we allocate time to practice meditation.

So when is it no longer practice? When do we utilise "real" meditation?

Now. When you're working. When you're taking a shit. When you're waiting in line.

The goal is simply to pay closer attention to what your mind is doing in any moment.

Neurodivergence makes for a noisy mind, sure, but barring conditions which dissolve your ability to make observations about your mind in the moment (schizophrenia, disassociation, psychedelics), it doesn't make meditating "harder"

I was harassed and plagued by normie people telling me to "just meditate". Not possible for me, but that doesn't stop the "helpful advice" from flowing from them.

I figured it out though. If I completely exhaust myself physically with exercize, my brain takes the same meditation instructions theirs does and can respond as theirs to the meditation. It helped after that.

I can't meditate in the way that everyone describes. I have a similar combination of brain traits, so I'll share what helps me. One small caveat, I also have c-ptsd and my experience is that even my choice for meditation analog isn't going to be helpful until you're able to use therapeutic skills to protect yourself (like acknowledgment and redirection).

I have been told this counts as a "ritual" which might give you a keyword to find something for yourself that you'd prefer. But what I do is I make tea or coffee in a methodical and intentional way. Everything from choosing my beans, tea or herbal ingredients to the method of brewing gives me a chance to center myself and work out things that may be troubling me. I use a hand grinder and gooseneck kettle to make pour-over coffee. I harvest my own herbs or put together my own blend for tea and use a blooming pot. It's very sense-driven but routine, which is important for my ADHD and autism to sit happily together for a few minutes.

Some people go for a run and find that meditative, I can see it because I feel similarly when I go for a hike to collect plant specimens. Really, with ADHD you may find that getting your body senses involved (yes even with primary inattentive) helps your brain loosen up and hit that meditative point. I don't think I've ever had a silent brain, and I think that's a sticking point for a lot of people when it comes to meditation. You can still have the benefits with a loud brain :)

My work did a mindfulness monday through lockdown. I joined one, it was typical meditation. It was horribly overwhelming for me, the more I relaxed the more it felt like my insides were screaming at me.

Im on a group therapy session for autism with my health provider currently. They just spoke about meditation the other day. When they said the word I was like 'oh no'. But when they spoke about it they said meditation doesnt need to be sitting still and aligning your chakras, it can be anything from walking in nature, to biting a pillow (i might be using some creative license on that second example). Its supposed to be an activity that puts you in touch with yourself, you do that any way that works for you.

"Meditation" is a very broad term, and there are many types and approaches. Some of these, such as the admonition to quiet your mind and stop all thoughts, are designed to induce a crisis that leads to an insight.

Meditation is about directing attention, and is called "practice" for a reason. Many people think that each time their mind wanders and they lose track of their meditative focus they have failed, but that is exactly backward. Each time you notice your attention bas wandered and you bring it back to your focus you have succeeded!

I like to sit under a tree near a creek in the mountains. The sound of the water rushing is really loud from that close; enough to put me into a kind of sensory overload state, but the general peacefulness of the situation makes it one that isnt distressing. The extremely complex path the various eddies and currents in the water help too, I can just stare at and try to follow them if "eyes closed next to the creek" isnt working. To generalize that a bit in case you don't have access to something like that, what works for me is lightly overstimulating my senses in a controlled and relaxed setting where it isn't scary that I'm a bit disabled by the overstimulation. That allows me to do meditation that's a mix of not thinking and thinking about neutral to positive things like fluid dynamics or water tables when I can't pull off mental silence

Meditation is all about the trying. "Sucess" is in the attempt itself.

When your mind wanders, don't worry that it wandered. It inevitable will. You can't really stop that. What you can do is notice when it's happening. Then pay attention to the wandering. Why did that thought pop up? Now that I noticed it where does it go. It's like watching what the bus driver does instead of just letting the scenery absorb your attention as it passes by. Or it's like thinking about how a movie was made instead of letting yourself get swept up in the narrative.

Don't stress meditation. Half the point is to just chill.

ADHD, OCD, and PTSD are among my diagnoses. Also ADHD subscores are super high on inattentiveness 🤟

Guided meditation is pretty important for me. If it's not guided I find myself trying and trying, but I keep standing up, or my mind wanders and I forget what I was doing. I go lie down again, but before long I find myself following through on some random thought. It's a dance that rarely works well. Though it can during certain periods. Especially if I have integrated it well into my day - that is, I know when I'm going to meditate and ease off tasks before, and I know what I will do after.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQhYKN2L7oQ
This video, which I found in the meditation community here, is a pretty good example of what works.

Just focusing on my breath. Letting thoughts, sensation and all that come and whatever, but keep returning focus to the breath, without trying to change anything and just doing it until the end.

I still have many days where I just can't get into it, and don't even manage to stay on the floor for the twenty minutes or whatever time I set. But other times it works great. I consider it a success if I manage to stay on the floor at least the entire time :)

I think if you've been in a somewhat meditative state before, it will be easier to understand what it's about and how to get there.

I personally like to scan through my body too. Just focusing awareness in there, maybe starting with how it touches the ground. Which has a pretty strong relaxing effect.

Last piece of info from my experience that might be worth sharing: I had a great yoga instructor to get started and her guided meditation was on point. She let myself do all the exploring, but supported it. So it's more like "And when you are ready... ok I see maybe we wait a bit". Whereas someone I met later wouldn't notice much what was happening with me and just pushed me through their practice, which is pretty much the same as if I had a recorded meditation running.

Good luck and hope you have some good sessions to enjoy :)

I focus on trying to describe infinity from as many angles as I can. Gives my brain something to do and it's a topic I'll never be able to exhaust. I focus on breathing sometimes, but that only became possible after around two years of doing it "my way."

During my twenties I put in the work (years thereof, although some results came within months and I still keep in practice, among other things it's good for getting to sleep) and got a reasonable grasp of silence meditation. Generally this involved repeating a mantra for a while and then letting silence happen for as long as it would and then starting the mantra again, silence again, rinse, repeat.

It is hard for me to overstate how useful this has been for the rest of my life, I had intrusive, circular, exhausting thought patterns, now I can just will them to shut up. So peaceful. There are other benefits, but that seems the one most relevant to you. Key takeaway here is, it's like a muscle, you have to keep exercising it, and there's only so much you can do in any day that is helpful, indeed overdoing it, trying to make it happen faster, will just discourage and exhaust you, as it would injure a muscle, or it certainly did me. Just keep at it, to be cliche, it won't happen overnight, but it will happen (at least it did for me, and it's glorious).

Guided meditation is the only way i can do it. Focusing on the voice does work and thoughts can still to only be focused on what they’re saying

Doctors and therapists have pushed me to try it my entire life, as I have ADHD-i, ASD, and major depression/anxiety (late 40s). After literal decades of wrestling with the entire topic from one direction or another, I've come to the conclusion I do less psychic damage to myself by not even trying at this point. Basically, It would have a relatively large likelihood of increasing anxiety and/or depression each time I practiced, to the point it was almost a guaranteed trigger to spiraling by the time I gave it up. (Which would've been sometime in about 2020 or so?)

None of this is to say you shouldn't keep trying! Just attempt to be aware when it's having more of a detrimental effect on your mood than beneficial, and be prepared to shift your focus as needed.

I don't, music or a hot shower are very relaxing though

I went to therapy for ADHD, and was given a worksheet from this course, where she recommends body scan meditation. She mentions meditation builds cortical tissue, helping with executive function, focus, impulse control, emotional regulation, etc. This gave me motivation to try again. I also think I was taught or assumed meditation had certain rules, so I let them go.

I did 5 minutes of this video, seated with noise canceling headphones on. It felt like I was relaxed, and not thinking about my troubles. So next day did the other 5. After that, I think I tried the whole thing. Then looked for others so it doesn't get repetitive.

That's my starting advice. If you still don't feel it, some more tips follow.

Try again tomorrow. Maybe add a tip from below. Try again in a year+. That's how long I had given up originally! Sometimes my focus is on the "wrong" body parts for the audio. That's okay. Sometimes I pause to linger on a body part. Sometimes I need to scan everything quickly. Sometimes, I think in the smallest, detailed body unit. For example, Fingers vs. tip of my right index finger. I might move in place and shift. And then I focus on what's changed. Most times I lie with eyes closed in the dark. These are natural ways to tell the body to relax. Seated and/or gazing is okay too. I'll scrunch my muscles and relax to focus on the change in feeling. I'll pause the audio and stretch, focusing on the feeling of stretching. I absolutely have to do it with noise canceling headphones. "Being in the present" is not my goal anymore. Sometimes I've fallen asleep :> I try to do it every day. I prefer videos with relaxing background audio. Possibly 10Hz binaural beats. You might prefer videos with only spoken audio! You can get up entirely and walk around and focus on those feelings. eg. Hands if you touch something getting up, pressure on feet while walking.

There really aren't any rules. My goal is to relax, so I experiment until I'm relaxed.

You don't. It's not for you. You relax your mind by hyper fixation and flow.