I got diagnosed with ADHD at 28. Before that I just thought I was bad at being a person. The constant mental noise, the inability to just sit and exist without fidgeting or reaching for my phone – it’s exhausting in a way that’s hard to explain to people who don’t have it.
Medication helps with the focus stuff but it doesn’t really touch the internal restlessness. My psychiatrist suggested I try breathwork as a “grounding exercise” and I literally rolled my eyes in the appointment. But she was pretty insistent, so I gave it a shot.
I started doing box breathing for just 4 minutes a day. That’s it. Four minutes. And tbh? Those four minutes are now the calmest my brain gets all day. It’s not a cure, it’s not replacing my meds, but it’s like pressing a soft reset button. The mental chatter dims for a bit and I can actually feel my body instead of just living in my head.
I use Lunair to guide me through it because left to my own devices I’ll forget where I am in the count (thanks, ADHD). Having the visual guide is the only reason I can actually do it without getting distracted.
Does anyone else with ADHD do breathwork? I’m curious if the effect builds over time or if it’s always going to be a temporary calm.
My brain insists on counting the sides of the box while breathing. My brain always wants to count things, be it steps or breaths or hearthbeat or the sides of a person’s eyebrows or the straight lines on digital numbers. Basically only way to make it quiet is by listening to someone talk (=podcast) while walking. But counting breaths is among the least annoying babble it produces so I often do it, intentionally or not.