Sit
Mindful minutes timer: a short silent sit focused on the breath
Sit quietly for one to ten minutes with attention on the breath, and read what the NHS and NCCIH say about a wandering mind, benefits and limits.
SitMindful minutes
Exercise, not treatment
Sit comfortably and upright, let your eyes close or soften, and let your body settle.
Source of these settingsNHS Every Mind Matters beginner meditation guide and NHS mindfulness page; NCCIH on mindfulness. Session lengths are shorter than the NHS guide of about 20 minutes.
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The exercise above is a silent timer for a short breath-focused sit. A few short cues appear on screen, and then the timer runs quietly until it ends. It is meant for beginners and is an exercise, not a treatment.
Before you start
The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) says meditation and mindfulness usually are considered to have few risks, but that few studies have looked at harms. A 2020 review of 83 studies it cites found about 8 percent of participants had a negative effect, most often anxiety or depression. The NHS adds that mindfulness is not right for everyone and can make some people feel worse. If a sit feels distressing, stop. NCCIH advises against using meditation to replace conventional care or to delay seeing a provider about a medical problem. For more on this, read mindfulness: risks and limits.
What the sit involves
The NHS Every Mind Matters beginner guide suggests finding a comfortable place where you can be upright, then silently saying "breathe in" and "breathe out" in time with your breath. Its guideline is about 20 minutes, but it stresses that there is no right or wrong way to meditate. The timer offers 1, 3, 5 and 10 minutes because shorter is an easier place to begin, and that choice is the editors', not the NHS's.
When the mind wanders
It will. The NHS guide calls a wandering mind a natural part of the practice, not a failure. When you notice that your attention has drifted, you simply bring it back to the breath, and if that happens ten times, you bring it back ten times. The NHS mindfulness page makes a related point: the aim is not to make thoughts go away but to see them as mental events that come and go. Noticing the drift is part of the exercise.
What the evidence does and does not show
NCCIH defines mindfulness as maintaining attention or awareness on the present moment without making judgments. It reports that a 2018 analysis found mindfulness approaches beat no treatment for anxiety and depression, but that a 2021 analysis urged caution, noting that the few studies following people beyond two months found no long-term effects. NCCIH also says much of the research has been preliminary or not rigorous. Those findings come mostly from structured programmes, not a three-minute timer, and so they cannot be assumed to apply here. See does mindfulness work for anxiety? and how to meditate: mindfulness for beginners for more, or try the body scan walkthrough for a different focus.