In this 20‑minute guided session, Aaron Doughty shares the specific meditation practice he has used daily for five years that he claims eliminated his need for Adderall and dramatically improved his focus. He begins by explaining his personal journey—from reliance on medication with harsh side effects to discovering research on meditation’s impact on concentration and hormonal balance. He then walks viewers through the full routine: using a candle flame as a visual anchor, a progressive body‑scan that moves awareness from hands to chest, diaphragm, legs, and feet while synchronizing breath, adopting an observer stance toward thoughts to reduce reactivity, and finally a listening phase that creates mental gaps and heightened alertness. Throughout, he emphasizes the technique’s suitability for people with ADHD, the importance of consistency (20 minutes twice daily), and the broader claim that this practice can replace pharmaceutical focus aids. The video ends with a call to action to try the method and share the experience.
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Welcome to another video. In this one, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take you with me and show you the exact meditation that I've been doing for about 4 years now. And ultimately, it's the meditation that cured my ADHD and changed my life. Now, when I started this channel, one of the first videos that I did was on the idea of how meditation cured my ADHD and changed my life. The reason I'm going like this is because I'm gonna put the link right here in case you want to check that out, kind of like a precursor to understand more about why I'm making this video. But I would also say that it's probably one of the questions that I get asked more than anything else, is how do I meditate? Now, this is the first 20 minutes of my day and the last 20 minutes of my day every single day. I haven't missed a day in about 5 years now, and it's important to me because I feel and I know the amount of difference that it makes in my days and how I feel. And just to kind of put this video in a nutshell, basically I used to have Adderall, took Adderall for years, it had very harsh side effects, and because of that I decided that I would do my own research find out what really works for me without having something with harsh side effects. And what I came across was studying meditation, or the research on meditation. And what it showed was that there's a huge difference in the amount of concentration— the parts of the brain that activate during meditation help with concentration— and that there's a difference in the hormonal balance of the body. So upon realizing all this, I decided that I was going to try it and within just a couple weeks of doing it, it completely changed the way that I feel. And after 2 weeks, I gave up Adderall, have never taken it again, and since then have had a level of concentration and focus that I've never had in my life. So this is the exact meditation that I do. This is going to be more of like an interactive meditation where I take you along and show you the exact thought process that I have while I go through it, while also giving you a reference point or something that you can refer to when it comes to understanding meditation. So this is also for people that want to learn how to meditate, but what I do is I mix in kind of a couple tools that people can use that can help people learn how to focus more or not need something like a pharmaceutical drug to help them focus, just to kind of show you that there are ways of doing it without putting something into your body that makes you have those harsh side effects. So right now, what I— we can do is we can simply allow ourselves to soak in the moment. What we're going to do is we're going to take a deep breath in together. Before I do that, I want to explain why it's important to use a candle. Now, this is optional. This is especially for people that have ADHD. But what I noticed, and I did a video about this before as well, is the idea of focus and when it comes to being able to focus on one point. So normally when we— our eyes wander around, like you might even notice right now that as my eyes are moving around, it looks like I have a scattered mind. And a lot of times when the eyes will wander, the mind will follow and wander as well. So what I learned within a couple days of meditating is I came across the candlelight, being able to stare at a candlelight and the benefits of that. And from it, I realized that my mind really began to slow down, and it became a powerful tool that I still use every day when I meditate. So stare at the candle flame, and what it does is it helps you not have such a mind that wanders, and it helps become more concentrated and more focused into the breathing and the focus on what we're doing right now. So Right now what we can do is we're going to take a deep breath in, we're going to take a deep breath out, and as we begin to do that, simply feel into what you are doing. Feel the breath as it expands. Feel yourself sinking into the moment, becoming present. So right now, let's take a deep breath. Now there's going to be a couple parts to this meditation. Now one of the first parts is us becoming present and coming present to the moment. So what we're going to do is we're going to bring the awareness out of our head and into our body. And now the reason this is important is because especially when we have ADHD, what we'll notice is a lot of the energy is inside the head, and from that we become more reactive. And what we're going to do is bring it into our body. We become more present and we bypass overthinking. So right now, bring the awareness into your hands. What you can do is put your hands right on your lap, hands palms up, feel into the sensation of your hands. And as you begin to do that, you're taking the awareness out of your head You're bringing it into your body, and as you feel the sensation in your hands, move it up along the arms and feel the sensation in your arms. Take another deep breath in. Now, where our attention goes is where our energy goes. So put the attention now in your chest, in your heart space, and feel into it, and take another deep breath. If your eyes continue to wander, every time they do, just bring it right back to the flame. It's okay. Just stare at the flame and bring the sensation inwards. Now feel into your diaphragm and your stomach. And feel the sensation there. And all you have to do to feel it is really just bring your attention to that space in your body. Take another deep breath in and out. Now bring the awareness into your left leg and your left foot, and bring it into your right leg and your right foot and feel the sensation in each of those. Take another deep breath in and deep breath out. Breathe out. Every time your mind, your eyes begin to wander, bring it right back to the flame. It's okay. Now, the next part of this meditation is bringing ourselves into an observer mode. And what being an observer means is that we simply observe the thoughts that we have. Now, when I first began meditating, what I would do is I would try to control my mind, and I would think that certain thoughts were bad, and I would end up resisting them, or I would think I'm not supposed to be thinking this. What that does is that causes internal resistance, and it's not something that helps. But a powerful hack for that is simply being able to observe the thoughts and let them be okay that they're there. When you observe them and you allow them to be, you'll notice that a lot of times those thoughts will go away anyways. So what we can do right now is simply to simply observe the thoughts that are coming through our mind. So simply move to that space. Even as I'm with you right now, I can observe some of the thoughts that come into my mind, and they are the fact that I'm hungry, and that I want to eat. But you see, I'm not reacting to those thoughts. I'm just observing them. And as I observe it, it becomes less power over me. In the same way, I know that In the next hour, I need to go to the gym because I haven't gone to the gym yet. But I'm not reacting to that thought. I'm just observing it. I might be remembering some work that I need to do, some editing that I need to do. Once again, I'm observing the thought. It's totally okay that I'm thinking it. I'm observing it. And as I observe it, my mind is actually slowing down. Now in the same way, what are the thoughts that are coming through your mind? Pay attention to them. Observe them. It is 100% okay whatever thought comes into your mind. So right now, observe them. You might be noticing that you're wondering what you're going to do next. Observe that. It's okay that it's there. You might be remembering something that you did yesterday. That is okay. Observe that thought. As you begin to observe it, you're moving yourself from reacting to observing, which is where all the power is, especially somebody who has ADHD. Because we then are less reactive to our mind. We're less of a victim of our own mind. And we realize that we can allow it to be, and we can use our mind as a powerful tool, and we can focus in a more powerful way. Now, the third part of this meditation is simply the idea of listening. When we bring ourselves to a state of where we're listening, what we do is we then bring the awareness inwards and we become more alert. What I want you to do right now is think, is sit there, be present, and pay utter attention to the next thought that comes into your mind. Right now, let's do that. What you may have noticed is that there was a little bit more of a gap in between what you were thinking to when I said, "Think of the next thought." Because what happens is as we begin to listen, as we begin to listen, what we do is we put ourselves into a state to where we're more alert. And in that alert state of listening is being in the present moment. And is the ability to bypass thinking as much. Now this only needs to be maybe 10, 15, or 20 minutes a day, but if you do these things, if you allow yourself to listen to the silence, to observe your mind, and to bring the awareness into your body, it can make a profound change on the way that you feel. It can give yourself the ability to have a focus that you've never had in your life, and it can give you the ability to know that you can generate the power within. I hope this video helped you at some level today understand more about the idea of meditation and the powerful effect that it can have on you if you choose to do it. So feel free to like this video if you liked it, share it if you think it would help other people that you know, and much love to you guys. I'll see you on the next video.
