Meditation and Mindfulness For Autism

Meditation and mindfulness are amazing and valuable treatments that have gained a lot of attention for individuals with autism. 

There’s a difference between mindfulness and meditation. The Depok Chopra Center explains that meditation is a planned practice, where you can spend a minute, an hour or more focusing in your inner self to create calmness, attentiveness and emotional balance, by putting all your attention in your breathing, and guiding your mind into a specific topic to focus on. On the other hand, mindfulness is being conscious of your existent in a particular moment and paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, movements and the affects you have on the people nearby. It has to do with what you see, hear, smell, taste and touch. 

Mindfulness and meditation connect with each other. They both can decrease stress and that’s something individuals with autism are prompted to. 

Scientists have done MRI studies and concluded that meditation is able to change the brain to diminish stress. The amygdala is the brain’s threat detector and it has a critical role in individuals with autism. In addition, it’s just very important to know that a practice so easy and simple as natural breathing can change your life in a very positive way.

Susan Moffit is a writer and an author of multiple pieces of literature including a website called Autism Key. In the website Autism Key she writes about her experience with her son with autism, how he started meditating and if it was beneficial or helpful to him. She has an adult son who has autism and had the opportunity to take him, when he was younger, to a mindfulness class. He was only excited to be with his friends and socialize so when the time came to sit still, he would only get more nervous. Nothing was really working for him to be able to do the meditation and mindfulness, so when the pandemic came and they had to stay at home, they both felt more stressed than they’ve ever been.

Moffit was so nervous that she decided to write a post on a neighborhood Facebook asking if someone could teach her son meditation for free. One of her neighbors ended up responding to her post and decided to give them both a meditation class at a park. “You and your son need to meditate together. The caregiver not taking care of herself, the child hypersensitive to the parent’s mood and the parent feeling like the center that does not hold,” said the neighbor to Moffit.

They started meditating in this way:

“One minute at a time. Breathe in ‘one,’ out ‘two,’ up to 10 and start over. If your attention wanders, start over at one. Your mind is in a rut and you fill in the rut with sand, so your mind becomes a smooth pathway. The sand is one minute of breathing — keep filling the rut one minute at a time and it will change the structure of your brain. Your breath is an anchor — keep coming back to your anchor”, said the neighbor to Moffit.

“We’ve been given a gift, accept it,”, said Moffit to her son. He then promised to try and do it. At first, he would do it as a task, but after a couple of weeks he would say “I feel better” while opening his eyes. He started asking to meditate for more time, and when he feels worried or stressed instead of having a meltdown he would just ask to meditate. Self-regulation is a very important thing for the mind, and is something that human beings should always practice.

“There’s a notion that there are two paths in life: One path is easy to get on but almost impossible to stay on. The other is a path that is almost impossible to get on, but once on it, you’re assured of your destination. For us, the path forward began with a single minute of breathing” said  Moffit in Autism Key.