Plenty of parents whose kids have ADHD are understandably reluctant to medicate them – while the medications are effective and generally pretty safe, they are still medications and it is, after all, a parent’s job to be skeptical.
So I found this story pretty interesting: A pilot study of 10 kids between the ages of 11 and 13 who had been diagnosed with ADHD and were taking medication but still having trouble at school and home were taught transcendental meditation techniques. Both teachers and students reported significant improvement in the kids’ symptoms.
In TM, practitioners sit quietly for 10 or 15 minutes, silently repeating a mantra, such as a sound, word or phrase. It relaxes and calms mentally and physically, and some research has shown real physical changes to the nervous system from it.
As someone who both has ADD and has tried meditation, I was mostly surprised by the findings that the kids learned it easily and took to it. One of the way the brain works with ADD, at least it always has for me, if that I can be sitting there quietly repeating my phrase and before I know it I my mind is far, far away. It’s like my mind is a TV with someone sitting on the remote, making it change channels constantly.
This is not to criticize either meditation or the study – I do benefit from it even though it’s damn hard for me to do, and I think it’s so great to teach these kids a simple technique that, while not curing their ADHD, can at least put them in charge of managing their symptoms in a beneficial way. Researchers are now looking at whether or not TM can reduce or eliminate the need for medication or if it’s best used as an adjunct to a drug regimen.
