Noting

1. Sit comfortably. Pick 1, 3 or 5 minutes and press Start.
2. Rest your attention on the breath, at your belly or your nose.
3. When something takes your attention, name it softly in your head: thinking, hearing, feeling or seeing. Tap the word if you like.
4. Let the label go, and come back to the breath. Keep it light: one word, then back. No need to work out why.

The NHS says some people find it helps to silently name their thoughts and feelings, and that mindfulness is not about making thoughts go away but seeing them as mental events that come and go (NHS (opens in a new tab)).

Noting comes from insight (vipassana) meditation in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, and is widely taught in Western mindfulness too (Vago, 2014 (opens in a new tab)). That paper is a review of ideas; we haven't found a trial that tests noting on its own, so we can't promise what it will do for you. If you want to go deeper, ten-day Vipassana courses in the related Goenka tradition are offered freely, though they don't use labels like these (dhamma.org (opens in a new tab)).

Meditation isn't for everyone. A review summarised by the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health found about 8 in 100 people had a negative effect, most often anxiety or low mood (NCCIH (opens in a new tab)). If a sit leaves you feeling worse, stop.

• When your head is full of chatter and you want some distance from it.
• After a match, a class or a long day, to come back to the present.
• Not while driving or doing anything that needs your attention.

This is a self-help practice, not medical advice. If anxiety or low mood is affecting your daily life, talk to a doctor.