Have you just tried relaxing?
I have never been a meditation person. I have always been suspicious of anything that sounds too “wellness”. Once, on a trip to the West Indies at a Spa, I was rubbed in salt, forgotten for hours in an algae bath, and then blasted clean with a firehose. It was the most expensive near-drowning I have ever had. Since then, I have had a deep mistrust of anything that promises serenity.
The truth is, I have never been able to sit still long enough to find it anyway. My ADHD brain is always scanning, shifting, moving. Stillness has always felt umm… itchy. I have tried to sit still and meditate in the past, but my brain never allowed it. The moment I closed my eyes, my thoughts multiplied. The harder I tried to stay present, the faster they scattered. I later learned this is not unusual for people with ADHD. Our brains struggle to switch off the networks that create mental noise. The same system that helps most people settle into calm keeps people like me chasing stimulation. Stillness does not quiet the mind; it amplifies the noise.
Over time, though, I began to realise that I already had my own version of meditation. Drawing was the first thing. I draw detailed dog portraits that take forty or fifty hours each. I can only draw on long-haul flights, where there are no distractions, no one to please, and nothing else I am supposed to be doing. The hum of the engines, the white noise of the cabin, and the stillness of being suspended in the sky combine to form the one place where I can focus completely. It feels like safety and I can draw for hours. It is a flow state, disorienting but happy, like a reset button has been pressed.
Later, I found other ways to reach that state. Synthesizers, woodworking, oil painting. All of them give me the same sense of calm through single focus. Woodworking in particular has its own logic. I call it my mindfulness with power tools practice. The spinning blades of death demand full attention. There is danger in them, but that danger sharpens my focus. Knowing my own distractibility makes me careful. It forces me into presence. Scientists call this monotropism, the tendency of autistic or ADHD minds to narrow into a single channel of attention. What looks like hyperfocus to others can feel like meditation to me. It is not an escape from the world but a narrowing of it, a way to quiet the noise by focusing on one thing at a time. Research backs this up. Studies show that people with ADHD often struggle with practices that require open awareness but respond better to movement-based or sensory-anchored meditation. The structure and feedback give the brain something to hold onto.
After my ADHD diagnosis, I started listening to podcasts in the car. One episode Alex Connor from The ADHD Adults talked about ADHD-friendly meditation techniques, and it stopped me in my tracks. I looked around and found Jeff Warren on the Calm app. He has ADHD and records short ten-minute sessions that are practical, body-based, and human. They are not new-age or abstract. They focus on a single point, a breathing rhythm, a body scan, a thought noticed and let go. I fell asleep to those meditations every night for a year and a half. They taught me how to relax my body and switch off the adrenaline that had been my default setting for years. His ten-minute sessions worked for me because they were short, structured, and practical. Another rule I broke with these was to listen whilst lying down trying to sleep, and it worked. Long meditations never stuck, but these did. Research supports that too. Short, guided sessions tend to help ADHD adults more than open-ended ones. The clear rhythm and voice keep attention anchored, and the body-based focus gives quick feedback to a brain that struggles with delayed reward.
There is a difference between finding calm and finding your footing. The meditations helped me unwind, but I also needed something for the moments when my nervous system went into overdrive. That is where grounding techniques came in, things like the 5-4-3-2-1 method, naming what I can see, touch, hear, smell, and taste, or box breathing, in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. I have used both in airports, in traffic, and in situations when I could feel panic rising. They do not fix the feeling, but they stop the spiral. They pull me back into my body when my mind tries to run away.
I have also learned to create calm spaces before I need them. I carry Loop earplugs everywhere, Engage, Quiet, Dream and Experience, each for a different level of overwhelm. They do not block the world completely but take the edge off just enough. They let me stay in a café, or a busy office, without needing to escape. They turn the maelstrom of noise from open spaces into something manageable.
When I am still, I need movement around me. I keep a fan running day and night, wherever I am. The steady hum and movement of air calm me. It is the same reason I sometimes use brown noise to sleep, predictable, constant sound that fills the gaps where my thoughts would otherwise start to race. These are my quiet companions, keeping my senses gently occupied so my mind does not spin out of control.
I also experimented briefly with EFT, or tapping, which some people find helpful for calming the nervous system. For me, it did not work. The structured, repetitive sequences made me more focused on doing it right than on actually relaxing. For those of us with ADHD or OCD tendencies, techniques with rigid steps can sometimes have the opposite effect, fuelling anxiety rather than calming it. What soothes one nervous system can overstimulate another.
The biggest shift, though, came when I finally sorted out my sleep. I started taking melatonin, getting eight hours a night, and waking up early. That gave me enough energy and time to have breakfast at home instead of at my desk, and half an hour to walk three kilometres before work.
I take the same route every morning through the park and the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. I take a photo at the same point on the path, an avenue of tall trees that change with the seasons. It started as a habit hook, an ADHD hack to keep me walking every day, but it has become something more. The pictures capture the light shifting across the months, the small details that show time passing. I do not even look at the photos now. I just know that tomorrow, I will take another. I look forward to these calm walks in nature now and make sure I make the time every day.
On weekends, the rhythm continues. I wake around the same time, take the dog to the beach, and walk along the tide line looking for sea glass and unusual stones. The sound of the waves has become my soundtrack to peace. Meditation never worked for me, but this does.
For years I thought I simply lacked discipline. I now know that meditation was asking the wrong thing of me. ADHD brains already work overtime trying to regulate arousal. Stillness without structure only adds pressure. Calm, for me, has come from rhythm, not rest. Studies echo this. Mindfulness can help adults with ADHD, but only when it is adapted to fit how our attention systems actually work. Short, structured, sensory-based, and forgiving.
They say that meditation takes practice. I think what I have built is a different kind of practice, one that grew out of routine, attention, and small daily acts that regulate my body as much as my mind. My calm is not just from stopping, but from finding rhythm.
What helps me find calm might not work for you. ADHD and autistic nervous systems regulate in very individual ways. Some people need movement, others need stillness, and most of us need something in between. If you are exploring what works for you, start with curiosity.
Movement-based calm can come through walking, swimming, yoga, or rhythmic movement such as drumming or pacing. Sound regulation might mean brown or white noise, humming, or playlists with steady rhythm. Predictable sound can quiet internal noise. Sensory anchors can help too, things like weighted blankets, fidget tools, temperature changes, or soft textures that bring you back to your body. Nature and patterns work for many of us, gardening, water, or light patterns like fire or waves, soft fascination that steadies attention without demanding it.
Grounding and breath techniques such as 5-4-3-2-1 grounding or box breathing can be useful for short, body-based resets in moments of overwhelm. Structured techniques like EFT or tapping work for some people. If you find that something doesn’t work, try something simpler or more flexible. Environmental calm also helps, loops or other earplugs, fans, predictable noise, or lighting control. For me, constant sound is comfort, the hum of a fan, the movement of air, brown noise at night.
The key is to treat all of this as an experiment. What feels calming, what feels forced, what makes you more alert? Notice it, adjust, and keep what helps. There is no single correct way to find calm, only what your nervous system recognises as safe.
If I were coaching someone about to start this process, I would invite them to reflect on a few things. What does calm feel like in your body? Is it stillness, focus, or movement? Which activities, places, or sounds bring you closest to that state? They might already be your version of mindfulness. Choose one moment this week to intentionally create calm, a short walk, a single-focus task, or five quiet minutes before your day begins. Notice what changes when you do. Whatever works for you, works for you. There’s no right or wrong, just what works for you.
Calm is not silence. It is rhythm, presence, and permission.
Does this resonate? I would love to hear about what works for you?
1. Lidia Zylowska – The Mindfulness Prescription for Adult ADHD (2012)
2. Jeff Warren – ADHD-Friendly Meditations (Calm App & Ten Percent Happier)
3. Leanne Maskell – The A–Z of ADHD (2023)
