I’d like to try and tell you all a little story, although with my ADHD that itself can be quite challenging! It is very difficult to stay on topic and I tend to veer off into lots of other stories because my brain doesn’t work in a straight line.
So, many years ago, my father had a stress related heart attack. I was 9. We were on holiday in Gran Canaria and therefore had to stay there for months until he could fly home, (we ended up spending Christmas there – no presents… boo). After we got home, my father started doing relaxation techniques. It was the early 80’s, he didn’t call it a particular name but it is what we would now call a “body scan” and a form of mindful based stress reduction (MBSR) and meditation.
Now, having ADHD, usually means it is a generational thing. My dad could never sit still, was into numerous hobbies, changing jobs, moving, not being able to control emotions, eating and sleeping like most people and of course burning out. Until he had a heart attack at only 40! I did these “body scans” with my dad every day in which we would tense up our toes first really hard and release them, feeling the difference when relaxed, then moving through the rest of our body (great for adhd me who cannot lay and focus on breath alone!) When I was older and moved out and went on to have my own family, I completely forgot about it as I too went into a cycle of ADHD hyperfocus and burnout.
My eldest daughter and I were finally diagnosed with ADHD and PDA in 2015 but had no support. By 2017, I’d had enough. So I started researching books on mindfulness, meditation and studying Neuroscience. It all made so much sense and I threw myself into doing courses and practicing daily. I was fortunate to have worked for myself so could that this time. However the mindful meditation was so hard for me. Telling ADHD me to just keep practicing, don’t beat yourself up if it’s not working etc etc DOES NOT WORK. I can not lay or sit down and just let my thoughts go. I can become completely paralysed by my brain sometimes. The only way I can explain it is like having fifty different TV programmes playing all at the same time and volume and you are trying to take in all of them! Some maybe fictional, some factual, many fantasy, there will be music, it’s common to feel like I can hear a radio playing sometimes too. Basically I am so hyper aware of everything around me I pick it up subconsciously and then it all gets played back in my head if I allow it and don’t distract myself with something else!
I started to run again and realised that was my meditation, because of the rhythmic thud of my feet on the ground, focusing on my breath, listening to my heartbeat. These things gave me enough distraction to switch off as much of my ADHD mind as possible. Sometimes I would do yoga first and give myself a little three word mantra that I would repeat over in my head as I ran.
Music has always calmed me and been my therapy. I would obsess over the same song/songs for months because the beat/rhythm/vocals created a familiarity that quietened mind. Just like how a sound bath using instruments with high vibrational frequencies have been proven to slow down brain waves!
So for me, from my own personal experience as a woman with ADHD, I have put together my own sound bath which I hope to be more ADHD-friendly.
Of course everyone is different and by all means my sound baths are open to everyone although I do run women’s only (including ADHD/Autistic mums & daughter) sessions too.