Lower Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Symptoms are Associated with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Unlike many tools for ADHD, mindfulness develops the individual’s inner skills. It improves your ability to control your attention by helping to strengthen your ability to self-observe, to train attention, and to develop different relationships to experiences that are stressful. In other words, it teaches you to pay attention to paying attention, and can also make people more aware of their emotional state, so they won’t react impulsively. That’s often a real problem for people with ADHD.” – Carl Sherman

 

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is most commonly found in children, but for about half it persists into adulthood. It’s estimated that about 5% of the adult population has ADHD. Hence, this is a very large problem that can produce inattention, impulsivity, hyperactivity, and emotional issues, and reduce quality of life. The most common treatment is drugs, like methylphenidate, Ritalin, which helps reducing symptoms in about 30% of the people with ADHD. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the drugs appears to be markedly reduced after the first year. In addition, the drugs often have troublesome side effects, including nervousness agitation, anxiety, irritability, sleep and appetite problems, head and stomach aches, nausea, dizziness, and heart palpitations. If that’s not enough they can be addictive and can readily be abused. So, drugs, at present, do not appear to be a good solution, only affecting some, only for a short time, and with unwanted side effects.

 

There are indications that mindfulness training may be a more effective treatment for ADHD. It makes sense that it should be, as the skills and abilities strengthened by mindfulness training are identical to those that are defective in ADHD,  attention, impulse control, executive function, emotion control, and mood improvement. In addition, unlike drugs, it is a relatively safe intervention that has minimal troublesome side effects. Since mindfulness is so promising as a treatment, it is important to further investigate the role of mindfulness in ADHD and its treatment.

 

In today’s Research News article “Self-Reported Mindful Attention and Awareness, Go/No-Go Response-Time Variability, and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.” (See summary below) Keith and colleagues recruited college students with diagnosed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and a comparable group of students without ADHD. They had the students perform a simple go/no-go task. Whenever a small square was presented on a computer screen they were to press a key as quickly as possible and whenever a different shape appeared to not press the key. From the students’ responses they measure response times, response-time variability, omission errors, commission errors, discrimination sensitivity, and an overall attention performance index. The students also completed measures of mindfulness, attention difficulties, depression, and anxiety.

 

They found the overall there was a very strong negative relationship between mindfulness and attention difficulties with high mindfulness associated with low attention problems. High mindfulness was also associated with low depression and anxiety. On the go/no-go task, high mindfulness scores were associated with high overall attention levels and discrimination sensitivity and faster reaction times, lower reaction time variability and fewer omission errors. Compared to control participants the students with ADHD had significantly lower mindfulness, greater attention difficulties, and performed poorer on the go/no-go task.

 

These results are interesting and document that ADHD in young adults is associated with low levels of mindfulness and even within the students with diagnosed ADHD the greater the levels of mindfulness and smaller their attentional and mood problems. These results should be interpreted cautiously as the study was correlational and causation cannot be conclusively demonstrated. But, given that previous studies have demonstrated that mindfulness training can improve ADHD symptoms, it seems reasonable to conclude that one cause of ADHD is low mindfulness and one way to improve ADHD is to train mindfulness.

 

So, it is clear that lower attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms are associated with mindfulness

 

“adults with A.D.D. were shown to benefit from mindfulness training combined with cognitive therapy; their improvements in mental performance were comparable to those achieved by subjects taking medications. The training led to a decline in impulsive errors, a problem typical of A.D.D. Mindfulness seems to flex the brain circuitry for sustaining attention, an indicator of cognitive control.” – Daniel Goleman

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Keith, J.R., Blackwood, M.E., Mathew, R.T., Lecci, L.B. Self-Reported Mindful Attention and Awareness, Go/No-Go Response-Time Variability, and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Mindfulness (2017) 8: 765. doi:10.1007/s12671-016-0655-0

 

Abstract

The abilities to stabilize the focus of attention, notice attention lapses, and return attention to an intended object following lapses are precursors for mindfulness. Individuals diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are deficient in the attentional and self-control skills that characterize mindfulness. The present study assessed the relationship between mindfulness and ADHD in young adults using the Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale (MAAS), a computerized Go/No-Go task (the Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA)), the World Health Organization Adult Self-Report Scale (ASRS), a tool used as an adult ADHD screen, the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II). We recruited 151 adult volunteers (ages 18 to 40); 100 with confirmed ADHD diagnoses and 51 control participants. Overall, participants with prior diagnoses of ADHD scored lower on the MAAS than controls and ASRS scores were strongly negatively correlated MAAS scores. Attention performance index, response time, and response-time variability subscales of the TOVA were positively correlated with MAAS scores and negatively correlated with ASRS scores. Intrasubject response-time variability on the TOVA, a parameter associated with attention lapses, was also strongly negatively correlated with MAAS scores. Overall, participants’ self-reported mindfulness, as measured by the MAAS, was strongly related to self-reports on a clinical measure of attention disorders, anxiety, depression, and multiple indices of concentration and mind wandering on a standardized Go/No-Go task, the TOVA.