ADHD, mindfulness and savasana

Something I'm sure we've all seen plenty of articles a out lately... How to quiet our busy minds !

It was only very recently when a new student gave my classes a go and explained that savasana was her idea of h e l l !

Savanasa is a beginner yogic pose where you lie on your back with your feet outstretched and your arms relaxed to the sides... Sounds simple right ? But it's actually mentally quite a challenging move!

Allowing your body to completely surrender and allowing your mind to take over is no easy feat! We all have such busy minds and when suffering with the complexity of ADHD it adds another layer of difficulty!

ADHD is, unfortunately quite misunderstood based on its name sake, but one of the many symptoms that a lot of people experience is a racing mind that doesn't stop scattering all over the place, thinking of several things at a time, including internal echolalia, intrusive thoughts, and general inner chaos !

This is why many people with ADHD use distraction and disosiating techniques to actually distract themselves from the constant noise, and always seem busy and "hyper".

So the idea of laying flat on your back, with little to no meditative guidance, and being told to "breathe and sit with your thoughts" is an incredibly big ask!

So, how does savasana help and what do we do to be able to enjoy it?

During a savasana, in my classes I will generally cue you to notice the ground beneath you, notice how it feels against your body, how your legs feel heavy, or light even, and at the moment we are lucky enough to be able to enjoy the garden classes outside in nature, so we notice the smells sounds and sensations we can feel.

These calming, grounding techniques help to get the mind to focus on the body. We then bring our attention to our breath and the world around us rather than the world inside of us.

We allow our body breath and mind to connect, bringing them together in a very natural way, and remove the notion of thinking strategically. We allow the thoughts to float.

If they struggle to quieten, we can keep bringing our attention back to our breath, and focus on the breathing techniques we following during conscious connected breathing or box breathing techniques.

These help to open our parasympathetic nervous system and quieten the "fight or flight" state we may be stuck in, without even realising it!

Watching TV, scrolling or other "mindless" tasks, are exactly that.. mindless ! They are not mindfulness!

These acts are disosiating rather than relaxing and don't give your brain an actual break.

If this is something you struggle with, let me know! I'm happy to give free mindfulness advice online or over the phone, and even happier to give you a free class to

try it out for yourself !