Mindfulness for Overthinking

A 3-minute meditation for overthinking

Sit with your feet on the floor and set a timer for 3 minutes. Each time a thought pulls you away, name it in one word, then go back to the anchor for that minute.

1. 0:00 Breath. Feel the air at your nose or your belly moving. Don't change it.
2. 1:00 Sounds. Near sounds, far sounds, then the quietest one in the room.
3. 2:00 Contact. Your hands, your feet on the floor, the seat under you.
4. 2:40 Widen. The whole room at once: light, sound, your body sitting there.
5. 3:00 Open your eyes and stay seated for a breath or two.

The three words are past (you were replaying something), future (you were planning or worrying) and judging (you were grading yourself or someone else). Pick the closest one and move on. Say it silently, in a flat voice, the way you'd read a label on a jar. Without the timer, count the returns on your fingers.

We change the anchor every minute so that when the same thought keeps landing on your breath, you have somewhere else to return to.

Mindfulness for rumination: when the label is "past"

During the practice, a replay gets a word and a return, even if part of you wants to see how it ends. If "past" wins most rounds, try the contact anchor, your hands and feet, for all 3 minutes. That is our suggestion, not a tested rule. After the timer, if the same event is still there, deal with it once on paper with the steps on how to stop ruminating, which are built for a scene that keeps coming back.

Mindfulness for racing thoughts

When thoughts come too fast to label, drop the labels for that sitting.

• If you can't keep up with labeling, count breaths instead: one on the in-breath, two on the out-breath, up to 10, then start again. A Harvard Health article suggests this for racing thoughts and before sleep ^[1].
• If your own heartbeat feels too loud, stay with sounds for all 3 minutes and keep your eyes open.
• If even 3 minutes feels like too much, do one minute of the contact anchor: press your feet into the floor and feel it.

Racing thoughts with a pounding heart or fast breathing may be closer to panic. In that case, start with 5-4-3-2-1 grounding, which gives your attention more to do.

When the label is "future"

A noticed "future" thought sometimes contains a real task. Let it go during the timer, and if it's still there afterward, write it down and decide what to do with it. The method for that, postponing worries to a short slot later in the day, is on how to stop overthinking.

Why name the thought instead of fighting it

Noticing that you've drifted is the part of the practice that does the training. In a 2012 study, 14 experienced meditators focused on their breath inside a brain scanner and pressed a button each time they realized their mind had wandered. The researchers then split each cycle into four phases, wandering, noticing, shifting back and staying, and found different brain networks active in each one ^[2]. Our timer uses the same idea, with a label added to the button.

Naming a feeling can lower the brain's reaction to it. In a 2007 scanner study, naming the emotion in a disturbing photo lowered the response of the amygdala, a region involved in threat, compared with other ways of looking at the same photo ^[3]. That study labeled feelings in pictures, not your own thoughts, so read it as a reason to try labeling, not proof that it works for overthinking.

In a 2010 experiment, 190 female students did 15 minutes of mindful breathing, muscle relaxation or loving-kindness meditation. After mindful breathing they reported more distance from their thoughts, and the number of repetitive thoughts they had was less tied to how upset they felt about them ^[4]. The thoughts still came, but they bothered people less.

Does mindfulness help overthinking? What studies found

Courses lasting weeks lower rumination. Short sessions on their own show a much smaller effect. The numbers in brackets are effect sizes: about 0.2 counts as small, 0.5 as medium and 0.8 as large.

In 2019, an 8-week MBSR course that taught acceptance lowered stress in daily life; a matched version that taught only monitoring, without acceptance, did not ^[10]. The practice above borrows that idea: label the thought, then let it be.

Our 3-minute timer has not been tested in any trial.

How long and how often

The trial that cut rumination ran for a month ^[6], and the course in the 2019 trial for 8 weeks ^[10]. Our suggestion: 3 minutes a day for two weeks, at the same time each day, then look at your counts. If you can sit longer, our meditation timer keeps time without guidance, and meditation for beginners has a 7-day plan.

If mindfulness makes you think more

For some people, turning attention inward brings up more worry, at least at first. A 2020 review of 83 studies found unwanted effects in 8.3% of meditators, and anxiety was the most common one ^[11]. Shorten the session to one minute, keep your eyes open, and use the sounds or contact anchor instead of the breath. The page on mindfulness for anxiety has more changes to try. If you feel unreal or detached during practice, stop.

Frequently asked questions