Research Recap with Skye: Mindfulness and ADHD

Summary

Podcast Summary: Hacking Your ADHD

Episode: Research Recap with Skye — Mindfulness and ADHD

Host: William Curb
Guest: Sky Waterson
Date: July 3, 2026

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Overview

This episode of Hacking Your ADHD dives into how mindfulness practices, specifically meditation, impact ADHD in both children and adults. Host William Curb and recurring guest Sky Waterson discuss findings from two research papers: one examining mindfulness meditation in primary school children, the other comparing mindfulness to psychoeducation in adults with ADHD. The episode explores the nuances of these studies, practical implications for ADHD management, and broader insights into what truly helps those with ADHD thrive.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting up the Episode & Study Summaries

• Research Recap Concept: William and Skye regularly break down research papers on ADHD, aiming for practical takeaways.
• Today's Focus:
  • Study 1: "Mindfulness Oriented Meditation for Primary School Children: Effects on Attention and Psychological Well-Being"
  • Study 2: "Mindfulness versus Psychoeducation in Adult ADHD: A Randomized Control Trial"

Notable Quote:

"In this episode we're going to be discussing a paper called Mindfulness Oriented Meditation for Primary School Children. Effects on Attention and Psychological well Being."
— William (01:28)

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2. Study 1: Mindfulness Meditation in Children

• Design:
  • Evaluated two classes of Italian primary schoolchildren (ages 7-8) over eight weeks.
  • Intervention: Guided mindfulness meditation with experienced instructors, not via worksheets.
• Mindfulness Practice:
  • Sessions 3 times a week, starting with 30 minutes/week, ramping up to 1.5 hours/week in the final weeks.
  • Activities framed as games: mindful breathing, body scans, noticing thoughts.
• Why this Study is Noteworthy:
  • Previous studies often had parents participate and rate their children—potentially conflating effects as regulated parents feel better too.
  • This study included both student and teacher perspectives for a broader view.

Interesting Moment:

"You can just imagine that your kid, you know, the parents open their eyes, the kids have been quiet for a few minutes and they're just like, this is amazing. ... They're probably now meditating, so good for them."
— Sky (03:14)

Discussion on Feasibility:

• Skepticism about 7-8 year olds handling long sessions ("I couldn't do that." — William, 05:06)
• Importance of presenting meditation as non-threatening and playful.

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3. Approaches to Emotional Regulation

• Insight:
  • The study applied a "top-down" approach (focusing on thoughts to regulate the body), which is uncommon for ADHD, where "bottom-up" (regulating the body first) is usually recommended, especially for kids.

Notable Quote:

"Often with ADHD we need more of a bottom up approach where we're looking at the body first. ... for young kids to be like, oh, we're going to look at your thoughts and that's going to help you affect how your body feels..."
— William (05:39)

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4. Study 2: Mindfulness vs. Psychoeducation in Adults

• Design:
  • 81 adults with unmedicated ADHD, assigned to either an eight-week mindfulness group or a psychoeducation group.
  • Outcomes measured at baseline, 8 weeks, and 8 months.
  • Psychoeducation included info on ADHD causes, symptoms, treatment, and peer support (not just a passive control group).
• Why the Comparison Matters:
  • So much ADHD advice focuses on mindfulness, but it's important to test whether other group-based interventions work as well.

Key Finding:

"...the psychoeducation option, where they're doing this active group therapy ... worked basically as well as the meditation intervention."
— William (08:42)

• Effort made to separate mindfulness elements from the psychoeducation group for clearer results.

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5. What Actually Works? Group Support, Self-awareness, and Flexibility

• Takeaway:
  • Both meditation and psychoeducation offered significant benefits for ADHD; the social aspect of group work itself may be powerfully supportive.
• Reflection on Community:
  • Sky emphasizes the power of "me too" moments among ADHDers—normalizing shared struggles reduces stigma and isolation.

Notable Quote:

"It's amazing how much working with other people with ADHD and being like, oh, yeah, me too. I do that all the time. ... That actually makes me feel a lot better."
— William (11:20)

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6. Personal Experiences and Practical Advice

• Sky’s Take:
  • Never had success with traditional meditation, prefers active mindfulness (e.g., mindful dishwashing).
  • Main point: You don’t have to use just one approach—flexibility is key.

Memorable Moment:

"You know, I think a lot of people have a lot of different ways of getting at the same thing ... engaging with your ADHD, connecting with others, being more present in your own body, and identifying your thoughts."
— Sky (11:50)

• William’s Advice:
  • The danger of black-and-white thinking in ADHD: feeling like you have to use only one strategy or none at all.
  • Even small, inconsistent actions can help.

Notable Quote:

"As long as you're doing something, you're going to be making progress."
— William (12:30)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:28 — Episode intro; research papers introduced
• 02:09–04:08 — Study 1: Setup and discussion of mindfulness practices in kids
• 05:39–06:09 — Top-down vs. bottom-up emotional regulation (ADHD angle)
• 06:22–09:16 — Study 2: Design and comparison with Study 1
• 09:56–10:52 — Making the psychoeducation group truly distinct from mindfulness
• 11:20–11:43 — Power of group/community for ADHD support
• 11:50–13:33 — Personal experiences, flexibility in ADHD strategies

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Conclusion

This episode emphasizes that while mindfulness meditation can help those with ADHD, it's not the only effective strategy. Group psychoeducation and social support rival meditation in benefit, highlighting that different approaches suit different people. The core message: there is no universal fix—it's more important to consistently try strategies (mindfulness, education, social connection, or otherwise) and avoid all-or-nothing thinking.

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Notable Quotes (with Speaker Attribution & Timestamps)

• "In this episode we're going to be discussing a paper called Mindfulness Oriented Meditation for Primary School Children..."
  — William (01:28)

• "You can just imagine that your kid, you know, the parents open their eyes, the kids have been quiet for a few minutes and they're just like, this is amazing..."
  — Sky (03:14)

• "Often with ADHD we need more of a bottom up approach where we're looking at the body first."
  — William (05:39)

• "...the psychoeducation option... worked basically as well as the meditation intervention."
  — William (08:42)

• "It's amazing how much working with other people with ADHD and being like, oh, yeah, me too."
  — William (11:20)

• "As long as you're doing something, you're going to be making progress."
  — William (12:30)

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For listeners: This episode is a reassuring reminder that tailored, flexible approaches—whether mindfulness, psychoeducation, or communal support—can all play meaningful roles in managing ADHD. Try what feels right, mix it up, and remember: You're not alone.

Transcript

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

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[Hiker 1]

Awkward time to ask this, but. Hey, did you download the trail map?

[Hiker 2]

Yeah. No, I don't need to.

[Hiker 1]

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[Hiker 2]

I'm trusting T Mobile. They have the best network and if we end up in bumtots nowhere, well, we've got T satellite for backup. Whoa.

[Hiker 1]

I don't trust my carrier that much.

[Hiker 2]

We'll just use your phone as a flashlight.

[T-Mobile Announcer]

With America's best network and T Satellite, we're keeping you connected in places you never thought possible. And if you switch today, you get free phones for zero down and only 25 bucks a month per line for four lines. Find out more@t mobile.com or visit your local store.

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[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

Welcome to Hacking your adhd. I'm your host William and I have adhd. On this podcast I dig into the tools, tactics and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today I'm joined by Sky Waterson for our Research Recap series. In this series we take a look at a single research paper and dive into what the paper says, how it's conducted and try and find any practical takeaways. In this episode we're going to be discussing a paper called Mindfulness Oriented Meditation for Primary School Children. Effects on Attention and Psychological well Being. So the study investigates mindfulness oriented meditation and its effects on attention and emotional health in 7 to 8 year old children. So let's get into it.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yes, yes. So we were looking for two year classes of primary school in Italy and essentially what we wanted to see, or what they wanted to see was is mindfulness and meditation having an effect on These students, both from their perspective and then also from their teacher's perspective as well. And they talked about how. And I thought it was really interesting. They were like, one of the limitations in previous studies was that the parents had been doing the meditation with the students and then making a response of how much they thought it helped. And they were probably, without realizing, also responding to how much more peaceful they felt doing the meditation.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

Because that's a huge factor. Like, as a parent, I notice when I am dysregulated, anything my kids do is, feels so much worse. And so I'm like, okay, it's really important that I regulate myself. But that does like, yeah, if I'm regulated, I'm going to have a different perspective on if they're acting out or not.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah. You can just imagine that your kid, you know, the parents open their eyes, the kids have been quiet for a few minutes and they're just like, this is amazing. This is, this is going to work so well, which is great. At the end of the day, they're probably now meditating, so good for them.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah, it's like, it's like, yeah, sometimes it doesn't matter how you get the result as long as you get the result.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah. And that might honestly be the theme of today's episode because you'll see this when we talk about another paper later. But they basically did a, a test over a period of time. They called it longitudinal, but it wasn't multiple years or anything. It was an eight week intervent conducted by two mindfulness instructors. So those people had several years of experience, which was really cool. It wasn't like they were working off a worksheet or anything. They had instructors there who guided them through these different, these different supports.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah. And they were really looking to see, okay, what, you know, how feasible is this a tool? And especially this is an interesting thing to do with 7 to 8 year olds who are not known for being mindful.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah, yeah. If it's working, it's unlikely that they just innately.

[T-Mobile Announcer]

Yeah.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Did this. So the actual process, they had three meetings a week and they were working with similar mindfulness programs that they'd done with other children before. So this wasn't the first time. And they gradually increased the meditation periods over the eight weeks. So they were, for the first two weeks, it was about 30 minutes per week, which is a really long time, like, well done. And then. But in weeks three and four, it lasted 45 minutes and then it reached a duration of an hour and a half at the end of the course, which is, which is honestly wild.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah, I couldn't do that.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

No, these were like full on doing medical meditation exercises for an hour and a half. So yeah, that in itself was interesting. And they did things like mindfulness, breathing, mindfulness of body parts and mindfulness of thoughts. And the three meditation exercises were meant to be seen by the children as games. So not meant to be like a test or anything difficult that this is a game. This is something that they're doing for overall benefit in general.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah. I did think it was very interesting that they were looking at this through a top down emotional regulation view because often with ADHD we need more of a bottom up approach where we're looking at the body first. Not that we shouldn't be looking at our thoughts and patterns, but it's very interesting especially for young kids to be like, oh, we're going to look at your thoughts and that's going to help you affect how your body feels and how you're like in your like base regulation.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah, it is true. I recently started with a new EA and nothing teaches you how random your thoughts are like a person that you're supposed to message whenever you have a new idea.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah. As we mentioned earlier, we also wanted to look at this in conjunction with another paper that has a slightly different view of things. And that paper was called Mindfulness versus Psychoeducation in Adult adhd. A randomized control study or a randomized control trial. And so that study was like more looking at, looking at medication one thing, but then also a educational approach and seeing how basically does group therapy have as much of an effect as. Or what's the comparative effect on ADHD compared to meditation?

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah. And we'll give you the results of these for those of you who are wondering in a minute because we kind of want to talk about these. Both papers back and forward, they are similar. Obviously this paper, the mindfulness and psychoeducation paper with adults, this was a randomized control trial. The other one was not a randomized control trial, but it also worked. It was like 81 medication free adult ADHD patients participating in either an 8 week mindfulness program or a structured psychoeducation program which was also eight weeks. So they were measuring at baseline, so at the beginning after eight weeks and then again after, after eight months. So they had a little bit of a longer follow through in that way as well. So very similar in what they were trying to find though was there effectiveness in terms of meditation and mindfulness?

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah. And yeah, this one didn't have a Placebo, but it was looking at two different groups. So that was. I was like, when there's a placebo, like there's two groups and a placebo. But I. You can only have so many participants.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah, yeah. It wants a randomized control trial. You do want a control group.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

But in this case, it was not. There was just the other group. I guess it's a bit of a conversation from their perspective. They would consider the psycho education group, which was looking at providing information on the causes, symptoms, and treatment options for ADHD in adulthood. They would have considered that to be the control group. But. Yeah, it's a bit up for debate.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah. Because, I mean, it's clearly an intervention.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

So you learn. You come out knowing more about ADHD than you did when you went in, which is. Yeah, yeah.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

And so I guess we should also talk, say, like, why we want to compare these studies is part of the thing that we always see a lot of stuff about how important meditation is for adhd. And we don't want to say that it's not, but we do want to say that there are other options. And that's what this paper found, is that the psychoed education option, where they're doing this active group therapy designed to help each other and understand the mechanics of their own brain, worked basically as well as the meditation intervention.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah. Whereas in the first paper looking at the kids, what they found was that the meditation intervention was working significantly well. And so the reason we wanted to look at both papers, because we usually talk about one paper, but in this case, we decided to make an exception, was because it's clear that the mindfulness is helpful. But the research is also unclear as to whether interventions are helpful. And particularly, like you said, those sort of being in irl, connecting with people, understanding yourself better, those sort of intervention space is what we're looking at here.

[T-Mobile Announcer]

Yeah.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

And even one of the interesting things that they had for the psychoeducation model was like, they're like, yeah, these manuals that people go through often have Zen exercises in them that they then purposely took out to make sure that it didn't. Wasn't overlapping that much, so that you weren't.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Dare you be mindful.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah. And I was like, that's actually fantastic that they did that, because we do want to see if there's a difference between these two things. And it does seem that one of the most important aspects for helping your ADHD is simply working on it, listening to things about your brain. There were certain things that meditation definitely helped with more than the psychoeducation model did mindfulness in general and just being able to quiet and notice kind of things. But those are, like, very specific skills to mindfulness. So you would expect those to be what was helped the most.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And it's an interesting one because I think there's also something to be said for the fact that this is a group of people who all struggle with ADHD who are in a room together trying to support and learn. And that is awesome. With our community, often people are like, yeah, it's great. We have a group. And I'm like, that's cool. And it's got nothing to do with me. You guys are cool and you talk to each other. I'm really, really just here for that one. But I appreciate it. Yeah.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

It is amazing how much working with other people with ADHD and being like, oh, yeah, me too. I do that all the time. And then just someone hearing that and being like, oh, I'm not alone in this way. I thought that I was judging myself to be such a terrible person because I can't keep my car clean. And these other people are like, oh, yeah, I've never had a clean car and they don't care at all. And that actually makes me feel a lot better.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah, 100%.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

Yeah.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

So there are any other things you want to say about meditation here?

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

I think I have to, probably. So the academic in me, the qualitative academic in me feels the need to state my space on it. So I personally have not ever done very well with meditation. I'm more of an active mindfulness, like washing the dishes with intention kind of person. You know, I think a lot of people have a lot of different ways of getting at the same thing that we're trying to look at, which is engaging with your adhd, connecting with others, being more present in your own body, and identifying your thoughts. And I think if there's one thing we can see from this, from the both of these papers, regardless of the outcome, is that doing that was really helpful.

[William (Host of Hacking Your ADHD)]

Yeah. And I think it's a really good point for people to understand is that you don't have to do just one thing. And often it feels, you know, you come across something. ADHD has such black and white thinking often that you come across things and you're like, this is the thing I have to do. And really, as long as you're doing something, you're going to be making progress. You don't even have to. It's. Again with the black and white thinking. You don't have to even be. We're like, not only do I have to meditate, I have to meditate three hours a day or something. And yeah, okay, no, just maybe. Oh yeah, I could do. I could try meditating and I could try doing five minutes a day. We'll see how that helps. Or whatever is a doable option for you. Or yeah, I'm going to try and learn more about join a group to talk about my ADHD so that I don't feel so alone in my symptoms. And I don't have to do that all the time, but I can do that sometimes.

[Sky Waterson (Guest on Hacking Your ADHD)]

Hello everyone. If you have enjoyed listening to this episode, then you might like to listen to my podcast, the ADHD Skills Lab, where we go and deep dive into more of the research. And also we focus on ADHD support for business owners. Whether you're aspiring or you have your own company. And if you have your own company and you wish that you had somebody who would just build these systems for you so you could stop figuring out what to do all the time, well, that's what we do. We are mentor and operator together. So if you want to learn a little bit more about that, you can find me at Unconventional Organization. Thanks for listening.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the Name youe Price Tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

[Hiker 1]

Awkward time to ask this, but. Hey, did you download the trail map?

[Hiker 2]

Yeah, no, I don't need to.

[Hiker 1]

I don't understand. You're trusting your signal out here.

[Hiker 2]

I'm trusting T Mobile. They have the best network. And if we end up in bumtots nowhere, well, we've got T Satellite for backup. Whoa.

[Hiker 1]

I don't trust my carrier that much.

[Hiker 2]

We'll just use your phone as a flashlight.

[T-Mobile Announcer]

With America's Best Network and T Satellite, we're keeping you connected in places you never thought possible. And if you switch today, you get free phones for zero down and only 25 bucks a month per line for four lines. Find out more@t mobile.com or visit your local store.

[T-Mobile Legal/Disclaimer Voice]

Best Mobile Network Based on analysis by Ooklab Speed Test Intelligence data 2H 2025 with 24 monthly bill credits and 4 eligible port ins on essentials for well qualified customers with autopay plus taxes, fees and 35 connection charge per line credits and imbalance too. If you pay off earlier, cancel contact US Finance Agreement example 2 $299.99 Moto Edge 5G required T Satellite available with compatible device in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky included with experience beyond or $10 a month. However, news monthly cancel anytime. Visit t mobile.com.