Research: 100% of Mindfulness Therapy Studies Show ADHD Symptom Improvement
Mindfulness Based Interventions (MBI) are an increasingly popular natural treatment for mental illness and cognitive disorders, including ADHD. A review of 13 existing studies on MBI showed consistent improvement in several key ADHD symptoms.
June 7, 2019
Mindfulness Based Interventions (MBI) — meditative practices used in therapeutic settings — are effective in treating symptoms of attention deficit disorder (ADHD or ADD), as well as executive dysfunction and emotion dysregulation, in adults. This finding, which echoes similar studies of children with ADHD, comes from Canadian researchers who analyzed existing studies on the effectiveness of MBI for treating ADHD, found improvement in ADHD symptoms in all of studied research, and published their findings recently in Behavioral Neurology1.
In analyzing the 13 selected MBI studies, the researchers measured the following outcomes for 753 adults with symptoms of ADHD: executive functioning, emotional disturbances, quality of life, mindfulness, and GPA at school. They then further broke down the data according to moderators such as participants age, ADHD subtype, medication status, and training of therapist. Across all measured factors, the researchers found a 100% improvement in ADHD symptoms for adults using mindfulness for ADHD.
While these findings look promising for MBI as natural remedy for ADHD, the absence of randomization and lack of control groups could affect the clinical value and implications of the studies. Considering these various biases, researchers recommend exercising caution when conducting further analysis.
Footnotes
1 Poissant, H., Mendrek, A., Talbot, N., Khoury, B., & Nolan, J. Behavioral and Cognitive Impacts of Mindfulness-Based Interventions on Adults with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Systematic Review. Behavioural neurology ( Apr. 2019). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6476147/
