Mindfulness and meditation for ADHD, neurodivergence, anxiety, and chronic conditions

Mindfulness is everywhere these days. You might have been told to try mindfulness if you’re anxious, stressed, overwhelmed, struggling with your emotions, or living with chronic pain.

And perhaps you’ve tried. But as soon as you were told to sit still, close your eyes, and focus on your breathing… you discovered that focusing on your breathing made you more anxious.

Or perhaps your mind simply wouldn’t stop: Am I doing this right? Why can’t I clear my mind? Why am I thinking about dinner?

If that sounds familiar, you aren’t necessarily bad at mindfulness. You might simply have been taught a version that doesn’t work particularly well for you. If you’re neurodivergent, have ADHD, live with chronic pain or a long-term condition, have low interoception or sensory sensitivities, or find traditional meditation instructions difficult to follow. Because the basic general instructions designed to help you start were not given with your mind, body, or nervous system in mind. 

So what is mindfulness?

At its simplest, mindfulness means paying attention to what is happening in the present moment, with a little less judgement.

That might mean noticing your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations or what is happening around you.

It doesn’t mean emptying your mind. It doesn’t mean being calm all the time, or being comfortable with everything you notice. Sometimes mindfulness is simply being able to say: I’m noticing that I’m anxious. I’m having the thought that I’ve messed everything up. My shoulders are really tense. I don’t actually know what I’m feeling yet. That small shift can be surprisingly important.

Instead of being completely caught up in an experience, we begin to have a little space around it.

What are the benefits of mindfulness?

There are lots of reasons mindfulness has become such a widely used psychological practice. For some people, it can help with stress, anxiety and emotional regulation. It can make it easier to notice what’s happening internally before we automatically react.

It can also help us recognise patterns. Perhaps you notice that you become irritable when you’re exhausted. Or that you start catastrophising when you’re overwhelmed. Or that you say yes to things when what you really want to say is no.

Mindfulness doesn’t necessarily change the situation. But it can help you notice what is happening sooner. And once you can notice something, you have a little more choice about what happens next.

Mindfulness can help you create space around difficult thoughts

Our thoughts can feel very convincing, particularly when we’re anxious or distressed. I’m going to mess this up. They must be angry with me. I can’t cope with this. Mindfulness gives us an opportunity to notice the thought without automatically treating it as a fact.

You might move from: I’m going to mess this up to: I’m noticing the thought that I’m going to mess this up. That’s a subtle difference, but it can create some breathing room. You don’t have to argue with the thought or replace it with a positive one. You are simply noticing it.

Mindfulness can support emotional awareness

Not so that we are constantly monitoring ourselves, but so that we can gradually begin to understand: Something is happening here. And that can be the beginning of responding rather than simply becoming overwhelmed and reacting.

Mindfulness can be helpful when you live with chronic pain or a long-term condition

Mindfulness is sometimes recommended alongside other approaches for people living with chronic pain and long-term health conditions. This doesn’t mean that pain is imaginary; it isn’t. The pain is very real, and telling someone with chronic pain to “just relax” is incredibly unhelpful. But pain, stress, fear, and muscle tension can sometimes become tangled together. When our body is continually protecting itself, our nervous system can remain on high alert, amplifying the causes of the pain.

Learning to notice what is happening without immediately fighting against it can sometimes reduce some of the additional distress around pain. Mindfulness isn’t about making the pain disappear at all. It might simply be about making a difficult moment a little easier to be in.

But mindfulness isn’t one-size-fits-all

You know that mindfulness exercise that works beautifully for many people and is being repeated everywhere? It might be completely unhelpful for you. 

Perhaps you’re neurodivergent or have ADHD and sitting through a twenty-minute meditation feels impossible. 

Perhaps you have low interoception and being told to focus on what’s happening inside your body leaves you with very little useful information. 

Perhaps you’re highly sensitive to sounds, sensations, or darkness.

Perhaps visualising a peaceful beach doesn’t work because you have very little visual imagery.

Perhaps focusing on your breathing makes you more anxious.

Perhaps you’re exhausted, and the last thing you need is another thing you’re supposed to be doing.

None of this means you’ve failed at mindfulness.

It might simply mean that this particular instruction isn’t the right fit for you.

I’ve written a separate guide on substack about this, with practical alternatives to some of the most common mindfulness instructions:

Maybe You’re Not Bad at Meditation. Maybe You’re Just Doing the Wrong Kind →

You don’t have to meditate in the “right” way.

You can find a way of practising awareness that works with your mind and body rather than against them.

And sometimes mindfulness isn’t about becoming calm

I think this is another important distinction, mindfulness is often presented as a way to relax. And sometimes it is.

But if we make “I must become calm” the goal, we can end up monitoring ourselves to see whether we’re calm yet: Am I relaxed now? Why am I still anxious? This isn’t working.

Suddenly mindfulness has become another thing we’re getting wrong. SO let’s change the purpose to simply: This is what is happening right now? Without immediately trying to fix it.

That might be anxiety.

It might be sadness.

It might be anger.

It might be tiredness.

It might even be the realisation that you don’t need another technique right now. You need to rest. That, too, is awareness.

You don’t have to figure all of this out on your own

Mindfulness can be a useful tool, but sometimes what we need isn’t another technique. We may have been trying to cope alone for a very long time. We may have learned to ignore our needs, push through exhaustion, keep everyone else happy, or believe that we’re somehow failing because other people seem to manage things more easily. Sometimes it helps to have someone sit alongside you while you work out what is actually going on. 

That’s one of the things counselling can offer. In my 1:1 online counselling, we can slow things down and explore what’s happening for you, without turning the process into another list of things you should be doing.

You don’t need to explain everything perfectly.

You don’t need to know exactly what’s wrong.

And you don’t need to arrive with a clear goal for therapy.

If you’re curious about whether counselling might be helpful, you’re welcome to book an introductory session with me. We can talk about what’s bringing you to counselling and see whether working together feels like a good fit. And if counselling isn’t what you need right now, that’s okay too.

Sometimes the most helpful next step might be trying a different mindfulness approach, talking to someone you trust, getting some proper rest, or simply giving yourself a little more time to understand what’s going on.

You don’t have to have everything figured out before you take the next step.

A gentle place to start

If you’d like to experiment with mindfulness, don’t start by trying to become a different person.

Start small.

Notice one sound.

Feel your feet on the floor.

Pay attention to the warmth of your cup of tea.

Notice what your mind is doing without telling yourself it shouldn’t be doing it.

And when your attention wanders, notice that too.

You haven’t failed.

Noticing and returning is the practice.