An Interview with Lidia Zylowska on Mindfulness and ADHD

Dr. Zylowska, a UCLA-affiliated psychiatrist with a private practice in West Los Angeles, discusses mindfulness practice as a clinical intervention for adult ADHD. She describes mindfulness as the cultivation of heightened awareness, and points out that this can occur for anyone as a spontaneous state of mind, but that it can also be cultivated through regular practice of various forms of meditation so that a person's experience of mindfulness becomes more frequent and trait-like. She describes the history of mindfulness practice as a psychotherapy intervention, noting that Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program was the first application, followed on by Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). Both intervention protcols involve an eight week training period. In her own pilot research she has adapted mindfulness practices from the MBSR model for use treating adults and teens diagnosed with ADHD. Modifications including making practice sessions shorter, and encouraging walking meditation as opposed to sitting meditation. Her results, published in the Journal of Attention Disorders in 2007, showed that patients generally liked the intervention and that their ability to sustain attention under distracting circumstances was improved at the conclusion of mindfulness training. Together with Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D., she has co-authored a CD of mindfulness practices for ADHD. The summary of the exercises used in the research study is available for download from her website.