Focus music designed with ADHD minds in mind.
Silence is not always calm. Many people with ADHD traits concentrate more easily with steady, stimulating sound in the background. ADHD mode is a switch that gives every Sotuno session more drive, faster modulation and short blocks with a clear start, without lyrics and without surprises.
The same music, built for more input.
ADHD mode does not add a new library. It changes how every session is built, so Focus, Relax and Sleep all follow the same idea: more to hold on to, nothing that pulls you away.
Faster modulation, more drive
The rhythmic drive is stronger and more constant, and the modulation is tuned to the faster rates early research links to sustained attention.
Short blocks with a clear start
Sessions are chunked into 15- or 25-minute blocks with a brief reset in between, so you restart instead of pushing through a long decline.
No lyrics, no surprises
No vocals, the element studies most consistently link to distraction, and no sudden drops, builds or breaks that pull attention toward the music.
An intensity dial you control
The right amount of stimulation differs from person to person. Turn it up when the room is loud, down when the music starts to feel like noise.
The research is young, and it points in one direction.
We build ADHD mode on published research about sound and attention, name the studies, and say where the evidence is still thin. That is the standard we hold ourselves to, and the reason we are preparing studies of our own.
Steady noise helps attention in ADHD, a little
A 2024 meta-analysis of 13 randomised trials found that young people with ADHD or elevated attention problems performed slightly better on lab tasks with white or pink noise in the background, while people without attention problems performed slightly worse. The effect is small and consistent.
Nigg et al., 2024, Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
More stimulation for minds that need it
A series of Swedish studies since 2007 has found that moderate background noise improves memory-task performance in children with attention difficulties and worsens it in highly attentive children. The researchers explain it with a model in which people with ADHD need more external stimulation to reach a good level of arousal.
Söderlund, Sikström & Smart, 2007, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry; Sikström & Söderlund, 2007, Psychological Review
Rapidly modulated music and sustained attention
A 2024 study in Communications Biology reported that music with rapid amplitude modulation, around 16 times per second, helped participants with more self-reported ADHD symptoms stay on a sustained-attention task, and that brain activity locked onto the modulation. The study was authored and funded by a functional-music company and has not yet been independently replicated.
Woods et al., 2024, Communications Biology
Lyrics are the reliable distractor
A meta-analysis of 65 studies found that intelligible speech and music with lyrics are the most reliable distractors during reading and verbal work, and that steady, repetitive sound disrupts far less than sound that keeps changing. This is why every Sotuno session is instrumental and steady.
Vasilev, Kirkby & Angele, 2018, Perspectives on Psychological Science; Jones, Madden & Miles, 1992, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
Responses are individual. In a classroom study, some boys with ADHD worked better with music and others worse (Pelham et al., 2011), and a 2024 study found that inattentive profiles tended to benefit from noise while hyperactive profiles did not (Söderlund et al., 2024). That is why ADHD mode has a dial, and why we ask you to try it for a few sessions and adjust.
From "I should start" to started, without the fight.
ADHD mode is designed around the three moments that are hardest: starting, staying and coming back after a drift.
01
Name the smallest first step
Not "write the report" but "open the document and write one heading". Pick Focus, switch on ADHD mode.
02
Set a 15-minute block
Short enough to start, long enough to get somewhere. The music gives the block a clear start and a clear end.
03
Restart, do not push
When the block ends, the music resets. Take the break, then start the next block. Drifted off halfway? Restart the block instead of forcing it.
We are preparing medical studies for 2027.
Most of the research cited on this page was done with children and adolescents in short lab sessions. We want to know how functional music with ADHD mode holds up in adult everyday life, over weeks, and we are preparing studies with clinical partners to find out.
Practices, clinics, researchers and people with ADHD who would like to take part or learn more can write to us:
info@kiwimo.comNo obligation, no sales pitch. We reply personally and will keep you informed as the studies take shape.
ADHD mode, explained
What people with ADHD ask us before their first session.
No. ADHD mode is a listening setting, not a medical product. It is designed for anyone who concentrates more easily with more stimulation in the background, with or without a diagnosis. If it helps you, use it.
Sotuno is background music and does not interact with medication or therapy. It is not a replacement for either. Keep the care you have, and talk to your doctor about any change.
Not in the way a medicine is proven. Research suggests that people with attention difficulties often benefit from steady auditory stimulation, and one 2024 study links rapidly modulated music to better sustained attention in people with ADHD symptoms. The effects are small, the studies are short, and we are preparing studies of our own for 2027. We describe the evidence, we do not oversell it.
Several studies found that moderate background noise improves task performance in people with attention difficulties while it worsens performance in highly attentive people. The explanation researchers offer is that minds with ADHD traits need more external input to reach a good working level of arousal. ADHD mode provides that input in a form that stays wordless and steady.
Then turn it down or switch it off. Responses are individual: research shows inattentive profiles tend to benefit from more stimulation while hyperactive profiles may not. The intensity dial exists exactly for that.
Yes. The switch carries over: Relax keeps a little more movement, and Sleep keeps an even, slightly denser sound bed for minds that find pure quiet unsettling. The fade-out and the all-night mode work the same way.
For Focus with ADHD mode, headphones help because they keep the room out and let the drive do its work at a lower volume. A speaker in a quiet room works too.
Sotuno is made for adults and for students from about 16. Much of the research we cite was done with children, which is one reason we are preparing studies with adults. Parents who want to use Sotuno with younger children should talk to their paediatrician first.