by Ritsumeikan University Researchers assessed the ease of practicing mindfulness meditation using novel scales. They found that a supine or upright posture may improve the ease of doing meditation for people with ADHD tendency. Credit: Dr. Ayano Fukuichi from Ritsumeikan University, Japan ADHD is a developmental condition of the brain with symptoms such as inattention, hyperactivity or impulsivity. People with ADHD may struggle with self-control as well as experience anxiety, depression, academic failure, and low self-confidence. These symptoms can be alleviated by a holistic approach such as mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.
These practices encourage patients to pay attention to the present moment with purpose and without judgment. However, these practices involving meditation require sitting in certain postures which can be challenging for patients with high ADHD tendency.
To address this, a group of researchers led by Dr. Ayano Fukuichi of the Research Organization of Open Innovation and Collaboration, Ritsumeikan University (Graduate School of Psychology, Kansai University at the time the study was conducted), Japan, along with Prof. Takafumi Wakita and Prof. Genji Sugamura from Kansai University, Japan, examined the ease of meditating in various postures among participants.
Their findings were published on 6 August 2024 in Japanese Psychological Research .
"Although mindfulness programs have been devised for patients with ADHD, there are challenges with respect to mindfulness meditation . To overcome this, we explored various postures that can be adopted by both patients with high and low ADHD tendencies for performing meditation easily without the need of special tools," says Dr. Fukuichi.
In this study, the participants enrolled were divided into four groups: combined, hyperactive/impulsive, inattentive, and without ADHD tendencies. They were then asked to perform body-scan meditations with upright, slumped, leaning-back sitting, and supine postures and to answer a questionnaire.
To assess their responses to various postures during meditation, researchers developed Mindfulness Encouraging Reactions Scale (MERS) and the Mindfulness Discouraging Reactions Scale (MDRS).
The researchers found that participants with hyperactivity/impulsivity tendency found body-scan meditation challenging in a slumped posture and easier to perform in the supine and upright postures. These findings suggest that people with hyperactivity/impulsivity tendency should adopt upright or supine […]
Study highlights best meditation postures for individuals with ADHD
