Mindfulness Activities

Hello and good morning (it is currently morning).

I wanted to share with you a few "mindfulness" activities today which I've found helpful for me and my family. But first, I wanted to share with you a little about how I came to find mindfulness activities to begin with.

Picture it...Fort Knox, 1980ish. A young mother with two super young children and a husband overseas. The youngest of the children always bouncing off the walls, running in circles around the coffee table, up super early, unable to stay focused. You guessed it, that child was me! Military doctors diagnosed with severe ADHD (both attention deficit AND hyperactivity, they are different and the diagnosis can be one, the other or both) and suggested...medication! Of course, even in the 80's that was the go to.

My mother, truly an Angel among us, decided to delay medicating me favoring, instead, behavioral interventions as a first line of attack. For me, this approach worked (it may not have the same results for anyone else, I am just sharing my personal story with ADHD). She put me on a strict schedule/routine, researched foods that exacerbated hyperactivity and disrupted typical brain function, learned self-soothing techniques to teach me, coached through impulse control difficulties, etc. There are many areas of ADHD that most people don't realize-we're not *just* bouncing off the walls (click here for a good overview from the NIH: ADHD Summarized).

The two top interventions my mother taught me, coached me, reinforced (and sometimes forced) and gave to me are: meditation and breathing. Sounds simple, right? Well, it is if your brain is functioning typically. But for me, when I get swept up in the moment and begin to act impulsively sometimes I forget to breathe. You read that correctly, sometimes I forget to breathe and certainly I do not breathe deeply. You can imagine the signals of fight, flight or freeze this sends throughout my body. And for me, with severe impulse control issues I almost always fight. Now, some 35+ years later, I can talk myself down, step away and take a few breaths. I have learned to scan my body and read when it is heading towards the edge...my face gets hot, my neck gets red (I can feel it), my pupils change, I can feel the color of my eyes morphing, my shoulders raise up and my chest caves in...these are all signals for me to engage in something or else...well, it rarely ends well. Luckily, I'm not a violent person but I am very vocal.

So I take a few breaths. But it's not just taking breaths, it's taking intentional breaths in a very intentional way:
Breathe in for a count of two, breathe out for a count of two (repeat a few times)
breathe in for a count of three, out for a count of three (repeat a few times)
Breathe in for a count of four, out for a count of four (repeat a few times)

Often many people stop at a four-count breath. See if this works for you. For me, I have to take myself up to a count of six to really get control of my body. I have also learned breathing in for a count of six forces me to use diaphragmatic breathing (more on diaphragmatic breathing from the Cleveland Clinic here: Diaphragmatic Breathing). Sometimes I can actually feel light headed from receiving so much oxygen! It almost always talks me off the ledge and brings me back to reality. The act of counting while breathing also distracts me from the conflict that I may be attempting to resolve, whether real or perceived.

And the second gift my mother gave me was that of meditation. I want to save meditation for an entire post on its own so please return for that one. I am working on compiling some resources, links, and even some videos of me coaching you through some guided meditations.

So, long before "mindfulness" was a field of study, an en vogue catch phrase...well informed and educated parents across the US have been using it to help their children learn to live with and thrive with ADHD...both with and without pharmaceutical interventions. I will put together a more exhaustive list of activities which I've found helpful, for today try some deep breathing and see if it has an effect on you, I know it has on me!