Study: Meditation Can Help Adults and Children with ADHD

By Alvaro Fernandez

Travel back, in your mind's eye, to a time when you felt a healthy exhaustion after hiking, biking, playing sports.., and let you re-live that moment as vividly as you can.

Then, remember, re-experience, a loving exchange that really touched you. Pause. See your partner. See the moment. Smell it. Hear what happened around you.

Next, visualize the most caring gesture you have ever received, as full of details as possible. Who gave you that gift of caring. How you felt.

Now, travel to the most magnificent place you have seen. Enjoy the views. Pause. Listen. Smile. Appreciate.

Congratulations. You have trained your brain. As Newsweek's Sharon Begley explained recently:

"But now neuroscientists have documented how "mere" thoughts can also sculpt the brain. Just thinking about playing a piano piece, over and over, can expand the region of motor cortex that controls those fingers; just thinking about depressive thoughts in new ways can dial down activity in one part of the brain that underlies depression and increase it in another, leading to clinical improvement."

We have talked about the value of meditation before. Only a few days ago, in predicting brain health trends for the next 5 years, I wrote that:

"Noncomputer-based programs will also prove to be effective tools. Research increasingly is affirming the value of such methods as meditation to train attention and regulate emotions, using cognitive therapy to build self-motivation and other abilities, and keeping a gratitude journal to affirm positives in one's life and improve self-reported happiness.

A fascinating new study (Mindfulness meditation training in adults and adolescents with ADHD. Journal of Attention Disorders, 11, 737-746) suggests the benefits of mindfulness for adolescents and adults with attention deficits.

Let's see what Dr. David Rabiner, Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, has to say about the topic:

"Mindfulness meditation is described as involving 3 basic steps: 1) bringing attention to an "attentional anchor" such as breathing; 2) noting that distraction occurs and letting go of the distraction; and, 3) refocusing back to the "attentional anchor". This sequence is repeated many times during the course of each meditative session. As the individual becomes better able to maintain focus on the attentional anchor, the notion of "paying attention to attention" is introduced and individuals are encouraged to bring their attention to the present moment frequently during the course of the day."

"By directing one's attention to the process of paying attention, to noticing notice when one becomes distracted, and to refocusing attention when distraction occurs, mindfulness meditation training can be thought of as an "attention training" program. As such, examining the impact of such training on individuals with ADHD becomes a very interesting question to pursue."

The Results of the study?

Seventy-eight percent of participants (25 of 33) completed the study. On average, participants attended 7 of the 8 weekly training sessions. Adults reported an average of 90 minutes and 4.6 sessions per week of at-home meditation practice; adolescents averaged 43 minutes and 4 sessions of weekly at-home practice. Both adolescents and adults who completed the program reported high levels of satisfaction with it - average scores above 9 on a 1 to 10 satisfaction scale.

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.

On neurocognitive test performance, significant improvements were found on the measure of attentional conflict and on several other neuropsychological tests (i.e., Stroop color-word test and Trails A and B) but not for measures of working memory.

For adults, significant reductions in depressive and anxiety symptoms were reported. Comparable reductions in these symptoms were not evident in adolescents

In short: in order to fight Attention Deficits...may it not make sense to develop the "mental muscles" to Pay Attention?

Copyright (c) 2008 SharpBrains

Alvaro Fernandez is the CEO and Co-Founder of SharpBrains.com, which covers the brain fitness field including products developed by Posit Science and Dakim. SharpBrains has been recognized by Scientific American Mind, Newsweek, Forbes. Alvaro holds MA in Education and MBA from Stanford University, and teaches The Science of Brain Health at UC-Berkeley Lifelong Learning Institute. You can learn more at http://www.sharpbrains.com/

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Use Guided Meditation To Realize Your Goals

By Laurie Raphael

We all deal with so many stressors in todays society that we become overwhelmed and cannot handle things and therefore, miss our goals. We need to learn to deal with the stress in our lives in order to make and meet goals and be successful in our day to day lives.

Facing stress is effortless. You will see that positive change can happen if you meditate on the positive as it happens.

Many people profess that stress is negative energy that destroys the human mind. This is true if you let it. Force can build positive results. Negative stressors, such as death, monetary burdens, illnesses, grievance, and so on can give good turnarounds stock to you providing you take time to meditate, contemplating on the big picture. For example, if a loved one passes on of some disease, you can turn the negative stress in to positive results by striving harder to avoid poor health conditions that could prove cataclysmic.

Instead of looking at debt as a grievance, think of it as a challenge. Sit down and meditate, thinking of great ideas to reduce some of your debt. Illnesses should move you to work toward medical management. If you become injured think of ways to try harder.

Do you see where thinking positive could lead you? Now that we design to abolish negative incidents leading the mind to positive thinking, we can make suggestions to consider positive actions leading to our success. For instance, if you purchased a home, did you sit down and take some time to meditate to see if you could repay the loan by the end of the designated term? With any new home comes, monetary obligations, other responsibilities, and so forth. Buying a new home is a gamble. Now you have the stress of worrying for the following five, 15, or 30 years if you can repay the amount owed without defaulting. Stress may mount up, yet if you entertain new ideas, you may resolve to see a way through it.

To help you see how positive thinking works along with dealing with stress by relating to the stressors that come your way. When we become overwhelmed by stress it often prevents us from meeting our goals. You need to find a way to deal with stress as it is a part of daily life. When you overthink a situation you cause yourself stress. Try to realize how you understand, disect and label your ideas.

Learn to relax and meditate over your ideas in order to make positive decisions. They failed to meditate to think through the problem carefully.

After you learn to relax, you will commence to represent a clear mind that will bring you to goal realization, in turn enabling you to develop new skills. Meditation promotes forward-looking energy and thinking.

At times when you approach an idea, the goal is to consider it carefully and in detail enabling you start developing new skills from new beliefs. The key is teaching your mind to reach the goal.

Probe into some meditative strategies to discover what works best for you. Meditating each day will benefit you in your self-development processes. Probe in your mind and discover helpful information that may help you into meditating successfully.

Thought works in a few ways. That is, meditation intermittently helps you to find what works best for you. You commence to comprehend your goals and can then set plans to reach those goals. Meditation is searching to give in. When you meditate, you can envision possible changes to enable you to overcome the stress in your life. Meditation will eliminate detrimental thinking by replacing it with positive thinking so that you can see your values more clearly and develop your talent more readily.

Get the comprehensive report on Guided Meditation at: http://alternativemedicinebasics.com/meditationreport

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