Meditation Misconceptions and ADHD Realities with Kelly Smith

Hacking Your ADHD

William Curb

Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 702 Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hey Team!

In this episode, I'm sitting down with Kelly Smith, a yoga and meditation teacher who has ADHD herself and has guided over 23 million meditations through her incredibly popular podcast, Mindful In Minutes. Kelly walks us through why meditation is especially beneficial for the ADHD brain, what to realistically expect from starting a meditation practice, and how even just a few minutes a day can sharpen your focus, reduce impulsivity, and make executive functioning a bit less exhausting.

We explore practical advice on how to start meditating, even when you’re convinced it’s not your thing, and break down the misconceptions that keep a lot of us with ADHD from ever even giving meditation a try. Kelly shares her insights on the best meditation styles for ADHD brains and introduces us to practices like yoga nidra that go beyond the mat and offer deep restorative rest—something I’m pretty sure we all could use more of.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/217

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This Episode's Top Tips

1. Start small and aim for just 5-8 minutes of meditation daily. Research shows even short practices can significantly benefit the ADHD brain. Choose a simple focus, like your breath or a body scan, to help redirect your wandering mind.
2. Remember, meditation isn't about silencing thoughts. Accept that distractions will happen, and when you notice them, just gently try to bring your attention back to the practice itself.
3. Try performing regular mindful check-ins by simply pausing, taking a breath, and asking yourself honestly, "How am I doing right now?”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Hacking your ADHD.
0:06.8	I'm your host, William Kerb, and I have ADHD.
0:10.0	On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain.
0:16.5	Hey, team, in this episode, I'm sitting down with Kelly Smith, a yoga and meditation teacher
0:21.1	who has ADHD herself and has guided over 23 million meditations through her incredibly
0:25.7	popular podcast, Mindful and Minutes. Kelly walks us through why meditation is especially
0:31.0	beneficial for ADHD brains, what to realistically expect from starting a meditation practice,
0:36.7	and how even just a few minutes
0:38.2	a day can sharpen your focus, reduce impulsivity, and make executive functioning just a little
0:43.3	less exhausting. We explore practical advice on how to start meditating, even when you're convinced
0:48.2	it's not your thing, and break down the misconceptions that keep a lot of us with ADHD from ever
0:52.7	giving meditation a try.
0:58.5	Kelly shares her insights on what she considers the best meditation styles for ADHD brains and introduces us to practices like Yoga Nidra that go beyond the mat and can offer
1:03.3	deep restorative rest, something I'm pretty sure we could all use some more of.
1:07.7	If you'd like to follow along on the show notes page, you can find that at Hacking Your ADHD.com slash 217. All right, keep on listening to find out how meditation and
1:17.1	ADHD actually go together.
1:23.3	Really excited to chat with you about yoga and meditation and mindfulness, but I think a really good
1:29.1	place for us to start would be talking about this dynamic between ADHD. And I know for a lot of
1:34.2	people, they're like, well, I have ADHD. I can't meditate. Whereas I know there's like a lot of
1:39.6	research saying that it's actually incredibly beneficial for ADHD. So can we start off with this idea of the
1:45.1	dynamic between them? Absolutely. So first, I want to be a testament to someone who both has ADHD
1:51.3	and is also a meditation teacher that I promise it is possible to meditate if you have ADHD.
	...

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