Image via WikipediaMindfulness meditation for ADHD: I am heading back to the hospital to deal with my mother and her situation, but meantime I want to put out something about ADHD and mindfulness meditation. I often tell students and patients that mindfulness meditation is, among other things, a process of training the attention. And that, accordingly, there is really good reason to believe that it might be an effective way to help people with attentional problems, including full-scale ADHD. Recently, two studies have supported this hypothesis. The work we did in the fall semester of 2007 at Avila University (Mindfulness-Based Wellness) included training in mindfulness meditation, and our pre- and post-measures of attentional problems showed that there was a significant reduction in attentional problems among those who completed the training. (Unfortunately, this same type of training was not offered in the spring semester.) I presented research results about the fall semester program at the Association for Psychological Science in May of 2008.Also, my friend, Dr. Lidia Zylowska (at UCLA) has published her study about mindfulness meditation as an intervention for attentional problems. The study is described very well at Sharpbrains (click here).
Here's an excerpt from the Sharpbrains summary:
Seventy-eight percent of participants reported a reduction in total ADHD symptoms, with 30% reporting at least a 30% symptom reduction (a 30% reduction in symptoms is often used to identify clinically significant improvement in ADHD medication trials). Because the majority of participants were receiving medication treatment, for many these declines represent improvement above and beyond what benefits were already being provided by medication.
I thought it was important to highlight Dr. Zylowsa's work (and my work at Avila), because a recent NYT special article about alternatives to medication for ADHD did not mention mindfulness meditation practice. Results for this type of intervention are far from "proven" at this point, but it seems to be a promising direction that ought to receive more attention (and a lot more research).
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