Meditation

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For the people who meditate: do your ASD symptoms temporarily decrease/disappear after meditation? I'm asking because it seemed like they disappeared for me once. Also, my ADHD symptoms definitely disappear.

Are there people who have been meditating for long time and who have decreased permanently their ASD/ADHD symptoms?

"Meditation" is an umbrella term. The answer to your question may well depend on which kind of meditation you are doing, for what purpose, which techniques you are employing, your cultural and psychological perspective, etc. There are many variables. What exactly do you mean to describe when you say "meditation"?

I thought there is only one kind of meditation.

Where you get into lotus or on a chair or something, you relax completely, back straight, hands on the knees, closed eyes, and you try to think about nothing or to think about just your breathing and listen the things around yourself (but not think about them). This about more than 20 minutes.

Very complex thing to talk about really. Which symptoms particularly? Meditation can definitely help improve a bunch of things.

I think a 'letting go' kind of meditation probably relaxes your amygdala sensitivity, reducing anxiety and the need to act, get, control or think about.

i meditate alot but mostly to clear my head of negitive,and wondering thoughts..... but if it works for you more power to you :3

I particularly like the types of meditation that use music, mantra or imagery to capture the attention, focus and calm the mind

I practice Mindfullness Meditation daily:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness_(psychology)

It's non-religious and focuses on reshifting your attention to thoughts that are beneficial and healthy for you. Although I'm unsure whether it really helps with AS, it does wonders for my anxiety and low-self-esteem issues. I'm a lot more motivated to get things done, much calmer, and overall less stressed. Before mindfulness I had a very low threshold...I'd snap at people or get into crying spells very easily when I was frustrated or unhappy with myself. When I started practicing, I learned to handle my emotions better and now I never have meltdowns.

Meditation can temporarily reduce symptoms, probably because it decreases stress.
I don't meditate but take time to watch nature and be alone with my thoughts. My attention becomes much clearer and I become motivated to do more things.

I don't meditate per se, but hiking/climbing uphill while alone accomplishes the same thing for me. Blocks out everything ... all I focus on is my own physical self and putting one foot in front of the other. The world disappears. When I get back home or to work or wherever, I feel corrected.

I used to meditate a lot - for religious reasons, a very important part of visualisation, plus part of divination and that whole personal discovery dealio, but I tend to have problems grounding myself so came out spacey and a bit more 'out of it' for a few days afterwards, this meant my sensory issues were a bit more of a problem and I went into myself more often.

I don't think I could meditate now, I'm too rushed and my head is too full of 'AAARGGGGHHHHHHH' right now to be able to get back into it on my own, if I had someone to guide me through more structured meditation I'd probably get on a lot better, it would probably relax me a lot more and centre me so I'm not so all over the place mentally.

I am tempted to try Mindfullness Meditation as anneurysm mentioned, I do think that has benefits for aspies...I have a book on such things, but again I'm too rushed and my head is too full of...well, you get my point, I find it hard to sit down and focus on much right now.

I've listened to mediation music for years and occasionally tried 'normal' mediation techniques to help me with sleep problems. It definitely helps with stress, depression, anxiety etc. which are conditions commonly experienced by aspies. I often find myself going into trance like states when I listen to classical music too.

I love turning off all the lights at night, putting on some relaxing music, and flying around some forested mountains in the moonlight in flight simulator. If that isn't relaxing, I don't know what is.

I have meditation experience off and on for several years at different times. Currently I've been meditating consistently for a month and noticed alot of improvements. I do about 20-30 minutes a day, several sessions of just sitting and paying attention to breathing. I have undergone intense stress and grief in my life and was having meltdowns too often, but now they are mostly gone. Many of my ASD symptoms have diminished and my sense of empathy has been restorted somewhat. I meditated years ago as a Buddhist but I got distracted on a religious quest that ultimately did not lead to a great place (I reverted to my childhood Christian faith and tried to join the Orthodox church, which didn't work out). I think I will go back to meditation now, and wheather it has religious conotations or not, I will be "religious" about meditating, it does work. I'd like to see more research into meditation and Autism if possible, I wonder why there's not more talk about it.

For me years ago when I started, a big obstacle in meditation was judgementalism, and this time it was too, but I delt with it faster than in the past. Meditations focused on replacing negative thoughts and feelings with positive feelings (Metta-bhavana or "Lovingkindness" meditation, etc), seem like they were needed for me too. If your mind is so full of harsh thought patterns and feelings, it can make just sitting very difficult, because the tendency then is to be harsh on yourself when your mind wanders, etc.

I was never able to medicate successfully. The few times I tried it, all I ended up with is headache and feeling angry as hell. I fixed that by punching a couch cushion and drinking a shot of vodka.

I believe I practice daily what would be considered a form of meditation, however I would be hard-pressed to verbalize concisely what it is I do. To put it in an metaphor I suppose I could describe it as being akin to sifting for gold.