🧠 When Breathe In, Breathe Out Isn’t Enough: Mindfulness for Autistic and ADHD Brains
If you’ve ever been told to “just take a deep breath” while your brain feels like a haunted house full of strobe lights and angry ghosts… this is for you.
Traditional mindfulness advice, sit still, close your eyes, quiet your mind, can feel downright inhospitable when you’re neurodivergent. Whether you’re riding the rollercoaster of ADHD, navigating the sensory landscape of autism, or living in a beautifully overstimulated body, sometimes… breathe in, breathe out just isn’t enough.
That’s where Monster Mindfulness comes in.
Welcome to a new kind of regulation: spooky, sensory-safe, and built for brains like ours.
🕸️ What is Monster Mindfulness?
Monster Mindfulness is our haunted-little-love-letter to the overstimulated and the misunderstood. It's trauma-informed, sensory-friendly mindfulness that doesn't ask you to be still or silent - it invites you to move, stim, sip, and feel.
This isn’t about getting it right.
This is about finding relief that feels like you.
🧊 8 Neurodivergent-Friendly Mindfulness Rituals
Here are our favorite simple rituals that help with focus, regulation, and daily grounding, no quiet mind required.
1. 🖐️ 5-4-3-2-1 Sensory Grounding
A sensory scavenger hunt to bring you back to your body.
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5 things you can see
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4 things you can touch
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3 things you hear
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2 things you smell
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1 thing you taste
✨ Bonus: add a tea, a fuzzy sock, or a rock with a name. Make it yours.
2. 🧊 Ice Cube Reset
Grab an ice cube. Let the cold bite into your hand.
Feel it melt. Let it pull your thoughts back into the now.
Say it with me: “The chill is real. So is my power.”
3. 🎶 One Song Stillness
Put on a single song (or playlist).
Don’t scroll. Don’t multitask.
Just stim, sway, tap, or lie flat and listen.
🎧 Let the music do the regulating.
4. ☕ Mindful Sipping (Tea Magic!)
Let your tea become your grounding spell.
Feel the warmth. Smell the herbs. Sip with intention.
It’s not just tea👻 it’s self-care in a cup.
💀 Pair it with our Monster Meltdown blend for extra nervous system necromancy.
5. 📦 Box Breathing With Your Hands
Trace a square in the air or on your thigh:
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Inhale (4 sec)
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Hold (4 sec)
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Exhale (4 sec)
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Hold (4 sec)
Repeat. You're not just breathing ⭐you're summoning calm.
6. 🖊️ Brain Dump Journal: The Chaos Scroll
Set a 3-minute timer. Dump your thoughts. Spelling? Irrelevant. Coherence? Optional.
Get the static out of your skull and onto paper.
7. 🌀 Object Tracing
Grab something textured. A fidget. A tea spoon.
Close your eyes (if comfy) and trace it slowly with your fingers.
Describe it like you’re narrating a gothic artifact discovery.
8. 👁️ Visual Focus Point
Pick one thing to stare at, no really. A crack, a curtain, a candle.
Let your eyes go soft. Let your thoughts wander and return, like waves.
🌊 It’s not zoning out. It’s intentional zoning in.
🕯️ Want to Go Deeper?
🧠 New to mindfulness?
Watch our Mindfulness 101 YouTube Video to learn what it actually means to be present when your brain won’t sit still.
💬 Need help feeling your feelings?
Try our gentle “How to Feel Your Feelings” Audio Ritual: it’s a soft haunted hug for when you don’t even know what you’re feeling, just that it’s a lot.
💀 Ready to Get Regulated?
👉 Download the FREE Monster Mindfulness Spellbook
🧠 Join the Haunted Tea Room Facebook Group
🍵 Explore our Spooky-Cute Teas for Focus, Sleep, & Emotional Support
You’re not too much. You just need the right magic.
Let’s find it together. 🖤
About the Author
Katarina Scott
Writer • Herbalist • Mindfulness Educator • Monster Mama
Katarina Scott is a neurodivergent mother of four, herbalist, and trauma-informed mindfulness educator who writes for the cursed but coping. As the co-founder of Emerald Coast Alternatives, she blends science-backed nervous system support with spooky storytelling, helping haunted humans (and their tiny monsters) explore emotional regulation through tea, rituals, and metaphor.
Her niche lives at the crossroads of soft horror, psychology, and self-love. She specializes in picture books, emotional regulation tools, and sensory-friendly rituals designed for ADHD, autism, PTSD, and the misunderstood magic of neurodivergent brains. Her signature project, Haunted Hearts & Monster Mindfulness, guides children through a haunted house of emotions using monster metaphors, mindfulness, and spooky-soft illustrations.
When she’s not writing children’s books and spellbooks, Kat leads mocktail mindfulness workshops, builds haunted tea parties, and teaches families how to turn emotional overwhelm into connection. Her work is a lifeline for the overwhelmed, the oversensitive, and anyone who's ever felt like too much.
She believes monsters aren’t meant to be feared, they’re meant to be heard.