Two things drain you at the same time: the unfiltered noise itself, and the effort of holding yourself together in spite of it. That is why the collapse tends to come in the late afternoon, and why it looks like a character problem to anyone watching. There are really only two directions from here. Take some of the input away, through medication or changes to where and how you work, or build in more recovery, through rest, movement and sleep. Most people need some of both.

This cuts both ways, and both are worth knowing. Two weeks of daily practice with no obvious result is not proof that it will not work for you. And large claims about quick transformation deserve a raised eyebrow. Small and often beats long and occasional, so pick a length you would still do on a bad day.

People with restless attention often try meditation, find their head full of noise, decide they are uniquely bad at it and never go back. Nobody empties their mind, including people who have practised for decades. The aim is fewer trips away and a quicker return, not silence. If you came back twice in five minutes, you did the thing twice.

This is a more useful target than clearing your mind, because you can tell whether it is happening. Some days it is bumper to bumper and the practice is simply watching it go past. Other days there are gaps. Both are the practice working as intended, and expecting an empty road is what makes people give up in the second week.

When you get absorbed in something these signals go unheard for hours, and then you wonder why you feel dreadful by four o'clock. The scan is dull, and that is fine. Head, jaw, shoulders, chest, stomach, hands, legs, feet. Answering what you find is half the point. The other half is that noticing bodily signals at all makes moods easier to read, since a good deal of what we call a mood is first felt in the body.

It genuinely helps to know that sitting and breathing is not nothing, particularly if you have been told your whole life to just try harder. It also pays to hold the claims loosely. Pictures of the brain are easy to over read, and a change on a scan will not tell you how much better your Tuesday is going to go. Practise because of how the weeks feel, not because of an image.

Two things end a practice early: it was longer than the attention you had that day, and you had to decide what to do before you could start. Short sessions deal with the first, a menu labelled by situation deals with the second. An app is fine for this, and so is a note on your phone with three recordings saved on it. Length is not the measure of whether it counted.

It usually feels absurd at first, and slightly embarrassing, which is worth expecting rather than reading as a sign that it is not for you. Start with something small and true instead of grand phrases: may I be a bit gentler with myself today. The old commentary does not vanish, it just stops being the only voice in the room.

The standard sequence is to tense a muscle group, hold it, then release gradually, and for some people that long release is unbearable to sit through. A quick drop suits them and nothing is lost by it. Try both ways across a week and keep whichever one you still feel like doing on the seventh day.