Why Mindfulness Can Make You Feel Worse (And What Nobody Tells Neurodivergent People)

You have been told, probably more times than you can count, that mindfulness will help. Sit still. Close your eyes. Focus on your breath. Notice your thoughts without judgement. Let them float past like clouds.

And you tried. Of course you tried. You downloaded the app. You sat on the cushion. You closed your eyes and turned inward. And within about forty-five seconds your heart was hammering, your thoughts were louder than before, you felt vaguely sick, and you opened your eyes more anxious than when you started.

Then you felt like a failure. Because if mindfulness is supposed to help everyone, and it made you worse, what does that say about you?

Here is what it says about you: nothing. It says something about the way mindfulness is usually taught, and why that approach is fundamentally wrong for a significant chunk of the population, particularly neurodivergent people.

Relaxation-induced anxiety is real, documented, and more common than you think

What you experienced has a name. It is called relaxation-induced anxiety (RIA), and it has been studied since at least 1983 [1]. It is not a fringe concept. It is not something you invented. It is a clinically documented phenomenon in which the act of trying to relax triggers an increase in anxiety rather than a decrease.

The numbers are striking. Research estimates that between 17% and 53% of adults experience some form of relaxation-induced anxiety [2]. A 1983 study found that roughly half of participants felt their tension increase during a deep breathing exercise, while nearly a third experienced heightened anxiety during progressive muscle relaxation [2]. For people with generalised anxiety disorder, trauma histories, or neurodivergent conditions like ADHD and autism, those numbers are likely even higher [3].

This is not a niche edge case. This is potentially half the people being told to "just try mindfulness."

What is actually happening in your nervous system

There are several things going on simultaneously, and they compound each other. Let me walk through them.

Your brain uses worry as armour. Professor Michelle Newman at Penn State developed what is called the Contrast Avoidance Model to explain RIA [4]. The theory proposes that people with chronic anxiety unconsciously maintain a low-level state of worry because they fear the sharp emotional drop from feeling calm back into feeling distressed. In other words, if you are always braced for the worst, the worst cannot blindside you. Relaxation threatens that protective shield. When your body starts to let go of tension, your brain interprets it not as safety but as vulnerability, and it panics to get the armour back on [4].

Newman's 2020 study, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, confirmed this: contrast avoidance was strongly linked to relaxation-induced anxiety across participants with generalised anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and healthy controls [4]. If you have ever felt that relaxing is somehow dangerous, or that you cannot afford to let your guard down, this is why.

Your interoception may be unreliable. This is the part that is particularly relevant for neurodivergent people, and almost nobody in the wellness space talks about it.

Interoception is your ability to sense and interpret signals from inside your body: hunger, thirst, temperature, pain, heartbeat, breathing, and the physical sensations that underpin emotions [5]. It is sometimes called the eighth sense. And it is frequently disrupted in people with ADHD and autism.

A 2019 study from the University of Tubingen found that adults with ADHD performed significantly worse on a heartbeat detection task than controls, indicating reduced awareness of internal bodily signals [6]. A 2025 systematic review published in Psychophysiology confirmed that individuals with ADHD may have decreased interoception compared to those without [7]. CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) describes the connection plainly: people with ADHD are often more externally oriented, seeking stimulation in their environments, and this can result in being disconnected from important internal cues [8].

A recent meta-analysis demonstrated that interoception is of central importance for effective emotional regulation, and that reduced interoception may contribute to the self-regulation deficits that drive ADHD symptoms [9].

Now here is the problem. Mindfulness, as it is conventionally taught, is built almost entirely on interoception. It asks you to close your eyes, turn inward, and notice what you feel in your body. But if your interoceptive system is unreliable, you are essentially being asked to tune a radio that only picks up static. You are not going to find a calm signal in there. You are going to find noise, confusion, and escalating anxiety about why you cannot find what everyone else apparently finds so easily.

For neurodivergent people with interoceptive over-responsivity, the problem is different but equally disruptive. Rather than missing signals, they feel everything too loudly. Heartbeat, breathing, digestion, muscle tension: all of it floods in at once when they turn their attention inward, creating sensory overwhelm that looks and feels identical to a panic response [10].

Either way, the instruction to "go inward and notice" is the wrong starting point.

Stillness itself can be a trigger. For an ADHD brain that is chronically under-stimulated, sitting still in silence is not neutral. It is actively uncomfortable. The absence of external input does not create calm; it creates a vacuum that the brain fills with whatever is most emotionally charged, which for an anxious person is usually catastrophic thinking [3].

This is not a willpower problem. It is a neurological mismatch between what the practice demands and how the brain is wired. Telling a person with ADHD to sit still and observe their thoughts is like telling someone with a broken leg to just walk it off. The instruction is technically coherent. It is just completely wrong for the situation.

Why conventional mindfulness was not built for you

I want to be careful here. Mindfulness is not the problem. The evidence for mindfulness-based interventions in reducing anxiety is real, and multiple meta-analyses support its effectiveness [11]. I teach mindfulness. I believe in it. I use it myself, every day.

But there is a meaningful difference between mindfulness as a practice and mindfulness as it is typically packaged and sold. The mainstream version, the one on the apps, the one in the corporate wellbeing workshops, the one your therapist probably recommended, tends to follow a standard template: sit down, close your eyes, focus on your breath, observe your thoughts, do this for ten to twenty minutes.

That template works well for people with neurotypical nervous systems, functional interoception, and no significant trauma history. It was largely developed by and for that population. For neurodivergent people, people with anxiety disorders, and people carrying unprocessed trauma, it can be anywhere from unhelpful to actively harmful.

Even the Mayo Clinic acknowledges that meditation may sometimes worsen symptoms linked to certain mental health conditions [12]. And a PMC-published study on RIA notes that repeated exposure to relaxation-induced anxiety can condition a belief that "relaxation is dangerous," leading to avoidance of all relaxation efforts and potential resistance to treatment [4].

This matters. Because when a neurodivergent person tries mindfulness, finds that it makes things worse, and concludes that they are broken, that is not just a missed wellness opportunity. It is a door closing on a genuinely useful set of skills that could help them, if those skills were taught differently.

What actually works for neurodivergent minds

Here is what I do differently at Low Tide Calm, and why.

External anchors instead of internal ones. Rather than asking you to close your eyes and feel your body, I start with external sensory grounding. What can you hear right now? What is the texture of the surface under your hands? What temperature is the air on your skin? These are interoceptive-adjacent skills that use your exteroceptive senses (the ones that face outward) as a bridge. For a neurodivergent person whose internal signals are unreliable or overwhelming, this is dramatically more accessible than being told to "notice your heartbeat" [8][10].

Eyes open, always an option. Closing your eyes removes your primary source of environmental information and forces all attention inward. For someone with trauma, this can trigger hypervigilance. For someone with ADHD, it removes the last anchor keeping them in the present moment. Researchers have noted that many young people, especially those with ADHD, report that they struggle with mindfulness meditation, and that these practices could, by their very nature, increase psychological distress by bringing attention to one's inattention [18]. I never require eyes closed. A soft downward gaze at a fixed point does the same attentional work without the sensory deprivation.

Movement-based practice. Mindfulness does not require stillness. Walking mindfulness, gentle stretching, even mindful hand movements give the ADHD brain the baseline level of stimulation it needs to stay present rather than spiralling. A Frontiers in Psychology study found that mindfulness meditation increased performance on all executive functioning tasks in children and youth with ADHD, with medium to large effect sizes, while acute exercise separately enhanced positive mood and self-efficacy [18]. Combining movement and mindfulness is not a compromise. It is using both pathways simultaneously.

Short, structured sessions with concrete feedback. Ten minutes is too long to start with. I work in blocks of three to five minutes, with a specific focus for each block, and a brief check-in afterward. For an ADHD brain that responds to novelty and concrete progress, this is far more sustainable than an open-ended instruction to "sit with whatever arises."

Building interoception gradually. Rather than assuming interoceptive awareness is already functional, I treat it as a skill that can be developed over time. We start with the most obvious external sensations and progressively work toward subtler internal ones. Research on interoceptive training in neurodivergent populations supports this approach: a study published in Occupational Therapy International found that children who practiced identifying body signals and linking them to emotions showed improved emotional regulation afterward [13].

Language that does not command. This one sounds small. It is not. Pay attention to the language used in most guided meditations and mindfulness classes. "Close your eyes." "Focus on your breath." "Relax your shoulders." "Let go of your thoughts." These are commands. They assume compliance is possible and that the instruction is safe for everyone in the room. For someone with a trauma history, being told to close their eyes by a person in a position of authority can activate a threat response before the session has even begun. For a neurodivergent person who has spent a lifetime being told their instincts are wrong, another instruction they cannot follow is another small failure stacked on a pile of them.

Trauma-informed facilitation uses invitational language instead. "I invite you to close your eyes, or if you prefer, you can soften your gaze downward." "If it feels ok, you might bring your attention to your breath." "You are welcome to rest your hands wherever feels comfortable." "If at any point this does not feel right, you can open your eyes, shift position, or simply stop." This approach is grounded in SAMHSA's six principles of trauma-informed care, which include empowerment, voice, and choice, and emphasise that participation should never mirror the helplessness or loss of control associated with traumatic experience [19].

The difference is not cosmetic. It is the difference between a practice that assumes safety and a practice that builds it. Every time you give someone genuine permission to opt out, you are communicating that their autonomy matters more than the exercise. SAMHSA's trauma-informed care framework is explicit on this point: working collaboratively to facilitate a client's sense of control and to maximise their autonomy and choices is crucial, and this applies not just to major decisions but to common tasks and everyday interactions [19]. For a person whose boundaries have been overridden, whether through trauma, medical settings, school environments, or workplace dynamics, that message is profoundly regulating in itself. The nervous system cannot relax into a practice it does not feel safe to leave.

This extends to how I frame the entire session. I do not say "we are going to do a body scan." I say "I am going to offer a body scan, and you can follow along with as much or as little of it as feels right for you today." I do not say "notice the tension in your jaw." I say "if you are aware of any tension, you might notice where it sits, or you might not notice anything at all, and that is completely fine."

For neurodivergent clients, this language does something else too. It removes the performance pressure. There is no right answer. There is no correct experience. There is nothing to get wrong. And for an ADHD brain that has been corrected, redirected, and told to try harder for its entire life, being in a space where the facilitator genuinely does not mind if you fidget, open your eyes, or stop halfway through is, for some people, the most therapeutic part of the whole session.

This is not watered-down mindfulness. It is mindfulness that actually accounts for how neurodivergent nervous systems work, delivered in language that does not re-traumatise the people it is supposed to help.

The connection to breathwork and bodywork

If you have read my previous blog on why "take a deep breath" is bad advice for anxious people, you will recognise a pattern here. The standard wellbeing playbook, whether it is breathing exercises or mindfulness, is built on assumptions about how the nervous system works that do not hold true for everyone.

Breathwork through the Buteyko method works for neurodivergent clients precisely because it does not ask for big dramatic breaths or inward focus. It gives you something concrete to do (breathe less, through your nose) and something concrete to measure (the Control Pause). The same principle applies to the way I teach mindfulness: make it external, make it specific, make it trackable, and do not ask the nervous system to do something it is not yet equipped to do.

Reflexology and Indian head massage fit into this picture too. They are body-based interventions that regulate the nervous system through safe, structured touch without requiring the client to "go inward" or sit with their thoughts. For someone with relaxation-induced anxiety, receiving a treatment where someone else is doing the regulatory work through their hands, while you simply lie there and let your parasympathetic nervous system respond, can be the first time they experience genuine physiological calm without the accompanying panic.

That experience matters. Because once your body knows what regulation feels like, even briefly, you have a reference point. And building from a reference point is completely different from building from scratch.

The honest caveats

I want to be upfront about a few things.

First, the research on interoception and ADHD is still developing. The 2018 PMC study from Kutscheidt et al. actually found preserved interoceptive awareness in adults with ADHD on a heartbeat perception task, while the 2019 study from the same university found the opposite [5][6]. The 2025 systematic review acknowledges this inconsistency and calls for more research [7]. I have presented the weight of the evidence as I understand it, but I am not going to pretend it is settled.

Second, relaxation-induced anxiety is not exclusive to neurodivergent people. It affects neurotypical people with anxiety disorders and trauma histories too. I focus on neurodivergence because that is my audience and my lived experience, but the principles apply more broadly.

Third, if you are experiencing severe anxiety, trauma responses, or dissociation during mindfulness practice, that is something to bring to a qualified mental health professional, not just a mindfulness facilitator. I am clear about the boundaries of my scope. What I offer is practical nervous system regulation support. I am not a therapist and I do not treat clinical conditions.

And fourth, none of this means mindfulness cannot work for neurodivergent people. It means the entry point needs to be different. The research supports mindfulness-based interventions for ADHD and autism when adapted appropriately [9][11]. The key word is adapted. The standard template is the problem, not the underlying practice.

Why neurodivergent people may actually benefit more, not less

This is the part I do not want you to miss, because it flips the entire narrative.

If you have ADHD and you have tried mindfulness and it backfired, it would be completely reasonable to conclude that mindfulness is not for you. But the research says something different, and honestly, something more hopeful than that.

A 2017 pilot trial published in the Journal of Attention Disorders found that an eight-week mindfulness meditation programme for adults with ADHD produced large effect sizes for improvements in both ADHD symptoms and emotional dysregulation [14]. Self-reported symptoms, clinician ratings, and ecological momentary assessments all improved in the treatment group compared to the waitlist control. The treatment had a 90% attendance rate and high satisfaction scores. These were not people who found mindfulness easy. They were people with ADHD who were given a structured, supported programme and stuck with it.

A 2022 systematic review examining mindfulness interventions specifically for people with ADHD found possible benefits across self-compassion, quality of life, wellbeing, depression, and anxiety, alongside improvements in ADHD symptoms, executive function, and emotional dysregulation [15]. A 2025 meta-analysis in PMC confirmed that mindfulness-based interventions may be effective in improving core ADHD symptoms and overall functioning in adults [16].

Here is the bit that matters most. Mindfulness directly targets the exact things that ADHD disrupts: attention regulation, executive functioning, emotional reactivity, and interoceptive awareness [14][16][17]. It is not a coincidence that these overlap. Mindfulness is, at its core, a training programme for the self-regulation system, and ADHD is, at its core, a disorder of self-regulation [5][9]. That means the potential upside of mindfulness for a neurodivergent person is not the same as for a neurotypical person. It is potentially much greater, because the baseline deficit is larger and the room for improvement is wider.

Neuroimaging research supports this. Studies suggest that mindfulness meditation improves connectivity in the default mode network, the same network that functions atypically in ADHD and that ADHD medications work to normalise [17]. Experienced meditators show reduced default mode network activation during meditation alongside stronger functional connectivity in brain regions involved in cognitive control and self-monitoring [17]. In other words, mindfulness may do some of the same neural work as medication, through a completely different pathway.

I am not saying mindfulness replaces medication. It does not. But the research consistently shows that it complements it, and for people who cannot tolerate medication, who have tried it and stopped, or who want additional support alongside it, adapted mindfulness is one of the most evidence-supported options available.

The catch, and this is the whole point of this article, is that the adaptation matters enormously. A neurodivergent person sitting down with a generic meditation app and a ten-minute guided body scan is not getting adapted mindfulness. They are getting the standard template, and for the reasons I have outlined, that template can make things actively worse. The research that shows mindfulness working for ADHD used structured programmes with trained facilitators, short guided sessions, concrete anchors, and progressive skill-building. That is what I offer at Low Tide Calm. That is the version that works.

Where to start

If you have tried mindfulness and it made things worse, try this instead. Right now, wherever you are.

Keep your eyes open. Pick one thing you can hear. Not the loudest thing. The quietest thing. The hum of a fridge. A bird outside. The sound of your own breathing through your nose. Stay with that one sound for sixty seconds. When your attention wanders, bring it back to the sound. Not to your thoughts about the sound. The sound itself.

That is mindfulness. No cushion, no app, no eyes closed, no internal body scan. Just attention, placed deliberately, on one external thing, for one minute.

If that felt more manageable than what you have tried before, you are in the right place.

I run mindfulness and breathwork sessions through Low Tide Calm, both in person in Wicklow and online. Everything I offer is designed specifically for neurodivergent adults and people who have found conventional approaches inaccessible. If the standard playbook has not worked for you, it is not because you are broken. It is because the playbook was written for someone else.

Cian O'Driscoll is a breathwork and mindfulness facilitator, reflexologist, and complementary therapist based in Wicklow, Ireland. He works with neurodivergent adults and burned-out stressed humans through Low Tide Calm.

To book a session or find out more, visit lowtidecalm.ie

References:

[1] Heide, F.J. & Borkovec, T.D. (1983). Relaxation-induced anxiety: Paradoxical anxiety enhancement due to relaxation training. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Referenced via PMC6185835 and Healthcare Trends/ZocDoc.

[2] Healthcare Trends (2023). For Some People, Relaxing Makes Anxiety Worse. Citing Newman, M.G. & Llera, S.J. https://www.zocdoc.com/blog/some-anxious-people-get-more-anxious-when-they-try-to-relax/

[3] Millennial Therapy (2026). Relaxation Induced Anxiety. https://www.millennialtherapy.com/anxiety-therapy-blog/relaxation-induced-anxiety

[4] Newman, M.G. et al. (2020). The paradox of relaxation training: Relaxation induced anxiety and mediation effects of negative contrast sensitivity in generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7288612/

[5] Kutscheidt, K. et al. (2018). Interoceptive awareness in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. PLOS ONE. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6185835/

[6] Kutscheidt, K. et al. (2019). Interoceptive awareness in patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorders. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30937850/

[7] Bruton, M. (2025). Diminished Interoceptive Accuracy in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Systematic Review. Psychophysiology. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/psyp.14750

[8] CHADD. Interoceptive Awareness and ADHD. https://chadd.org/adhd-news/adhd-news-adults/interoceptive-awareness-and-adhd/

[9] PMC (2025). Diminished Interoceptive Awareness in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Systematic Review. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11842156/

[10] Neurodivergent Insights. Autism, ADHD, and Interoception. https://neurodivergentinsights.com/autism-adhd-interoception-profiles/

[11] Chen, K.W. et al. (2012). Meditative Therapies for Reducing Anxiety: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Depression and Anxiety. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3718554/

[12] Mayo Clinic. Meditation: A simple, fast way to reduce stress. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/meditation/in-depth/meditation/art-20045858

[13] Mahler, K. et al. (2022). Referenced via WPS Publish: How Practitioners Can Help With Disrupted Interoception. https://www.wpspublish.com/blog/how-practitioners-can-help-with-disrupted-interoception

[14] Mitchell, J.T. et al. (2017). A Pilot Trial of Mindfulness Meditation Training for ADHD in Adulthood: Impact on Core Symptoms, Executive Functioning, and Emotion Dysregulation. Journal of Attention Disorders. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4045650/

[15] Sheridan Sherlock, H. et al. (2022). Mindfulness Interventions for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. ADHD Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorders. https://www.mdpi.com/2673-5318/3/4/31

[16] PMC (2025). Mindfulness-based interventions for adults with ADHD: A systematic review and meta-analysis. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12440486/

[17] Bachmann, K. et al. (2016). Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and the Adult ADHD Brain: A Neuropsychotherapeutic Perspective. Frontiers in Psychiatry. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2016.00117/full

[18] Liang, S. et al. (2021). The Differential Impact of Acute Exercise and Mindfulness Meditation on Executive Functioning and Psycho-Emotional Well-Being in Children and Youth With ADHD. Frontiers in Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.660845/full

[19] SAMHSA (2014). Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services. Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series, No. 57. https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health/trauma-violence/trauma-informed-approaches-programs and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207195/