Mindfulness

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Hi everyone,
I work with a young adult who has an autism diagnosis. I have read about the numerous benefits of mindfulness for helping reduce anxiety and depression in people with this diagnosis, and I have attempted to implement mindfulness practices into my sessions with her. She is interested in incorporating mindfulness, however, she finds it challenging as her mind races with thoughts and she is bombarded with numerous sensations.

I was wondering if anyone has any tips on how to begin to incorporate mindfulness practices for individuals with autism. I have tried to do some research, and I'm finding information about how it can be beneficial, but not on adaptations that can be made to make it more accessible for her.

I appreciate any help that you can give me!

Seems like you'll need to address the sensory issues first.

I lived in a center for teaching meditation for years. I noticed that we were not the only group with "the best" instructions. I think that various practices are the best for certain individuals because they are predisposed to have faith in them. Some people can't stray far from the religion of their youth, and others have to try something very different to get past the disillusionment. The best path is just the one that you will actually walk.
Have you tried meditation yourself? Everyone seems to struggle with quieting the mind. I sometimes think of the object of meditation as a paper put down for a puppy. You keep putting the puppy on it, and it keeps wandering off, but if you are patient, it will get things right for a moment or two.
Now, I have my own "brand" of meditation that works for me. It does not matter how you have climbed the mountain once you are on top. My mind does keep trying to fake stillness with a memory, while multi-tasking on something else, but I'm trying to not settle for such a shallow experience.

I have studied Buddhism (through books) for a number of years and think that mindfulness meditation can be really useful to help some reduce anxiety, although i think different people take to different versions of "mindfulness".

What is now labelled as "mindfulness" meditation is a form of zen meditation, which was brought to the world of psychology by a man named Jon Kabat Zinn, who is a qualified psychologist and experienced meditator.

Zen Meditation / mindfulness meditation can be done in loads of different ways.
The most common is the exercise to follow the breath, other popular ways would be walking meditation.

The objective of meditation is not to completely empty your mind but to learn to control your mind, so that
you can learn not to get attached to your thoughts.

Meditation takes a lot of practice and constant involvement for it to be effective. Ideally a daily practice.

People with ASD may have extra obstacles to their meditation, for example, sensory abnormalities may cause more distraction than normal.

For such people, i recommend that you find an extremely quiet place to meditate, otherwise, it may be extremely hard for the person with ASD to work out how to focus.

One way of overcoming this, is for the person with ASD to get a guided meditation CD and listen to it on noise cancelling headphones.

Body Scan Relaxation Therapy CDJon Kabat Zinn sells some CDs for this purpose which are very reasonably priced.

Personally, rather than meditation, i like Jon Kabat Zinn's guided body scan relaxation CD.

body scan cd

body scan cd

I also sometimes use physical exercise as my vehicle for meditation.
For example, training on the cross trainer, i count to ten (each movement adding 1 to my count),
and once i get to ten, i return to 1 again. and if i get lost in thought away from the count, i return back to 1 and start again.

The objective of the activity apart from to exercise is to train my mind to keep focus on the count and get better at avoiding distraction.

Hope that helps.

I love your post, madbutnotmad.

I think a lot of people have that misconception that meditation is a completely quiet mind. Not that I'm big on meditating, but when I do, it's never a "quiet" experience. It is about letting thoughts come and the not go, letting my heart rate and breathing normalize and settle down. Everything falls in place after that. Ideally. it doesn't always work that way, but it's nice when it does.

I am a person with sensory issues. I second that a quiet place is ideal. Headphones are great for that, sometimes I play music though if it's noisy outside. I can get my house quiet enough,I'll cut off the power for a bit if I need to. Sometimes the sound of electronics annoy the hell out of me, so that helps now and then. I also use use things to help me focus, my favorite being citrus fruit. Oranges are great for mindfulness with me. I can feel them, see them, smell them, if I move the orange from one hand to another in a bit of a tossing motion, I can hear them. They're not overpowering to the senses, but they're enough to engage them for me. They were one of the first, if not the first (I forget) things I used when trying to get a handle on mindfulness.

From there I went onto things like hand washing my dishes. The warm from the water was pleasantly engaging, the sound of it coming from the tap, the smell from the soap was mild enough for me, and I used dishes that felt good, smooth to the touch (I literally used my hands andnot a dish towel or anything). I had to get tactile to help drown out other things that were going around me. I also benefit from mindfulness during exercise. I needed that body engagement and um, yeah, it works for me.

I also count,but I do four counts and breathe in for four, hold for four, exhale for four,hold for four, and repeat. Not only while exercising though,but when trying to regulate my breathing in general. I might trace a square while breathing, either with my eyes Or literally use my hand to trace a square object. It depends on my headspace, I guess.

Anxiety can manifest from several sources, sensory input, fearfulness. apprehensions, and may even have biological and nutritional components.

Experimentation will be the key for any individual to find what works to manage and reduce anxiety.

With sensory inputs, one may find that intentional stimulation such as finger rubbing imparts a degree of control that can help reduce anxiety. Other things like Greek "worry beads" can also be helpful.

With fearfulness or apprehensions mental exercises can be used to face reality and help let some of the air out of inflated concerns.

Keeping a record of ones diet may help reveal if high anxiety experiences can be associated with anything unique in the diet. Also one can experiment with various supplements to see if anything provides some relief.

According to This Article, "mindfulness" might not work as you expect.

The practice of mindfulness brings life-long changes. It is a practice and like anything else, it takes time and effort to obtain significant benefits.

I like dear_one’s analogy to puppy training.

Another thing that helps is to have someone else do it with you. Starting out with guided meditations can be helpful.

Thanks everyone, this has all been so helpful and useful!

I know that I have done some mindfulness and meditation on and off for many years. It absolutely makes sense to me that sometimes you need to match the right type of mindfulness exercise to the individual. I know for a while I was going through a book that listed many different types of meditation. I wanted to experiment with different forms. Some came relatively naturally to me, others I found very difficult!

I appreciate all the suggestions. This has definitely given me some additional ideas to try as a starting point.