Feeling like your mind gets louder during meditation? You’re not alone—this happens to most people, and it doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. In this episode, Nick Trenton explains why your racing mind shows up on the cushion, why mind wandering happens, and what to do when anxiety or overthinking surfaces during practice. Learn practical, compassionate ways to work with mental chatter instead of fighting it—including how compassionate acceptance can transform your relationship with intrusive thoughts. Build a meditation habit that actually feels sustainable.

Hey there! If your mind gets louder and you find yourself struggling with a racing mind or overthinking, Nick Trenton’s channel is here to help. Through mindfulness practices like anxiety meditation and building a consistent meditation habit, you can learn to stop overthinking and embrace compassionate acceptance during those moments of mental chatter and mind wandering awareness. Join the journey to calm your racing thoughts and cultivate present moment awareness with The Path to Calm.

If you’ve ever sat down to meditate and felt like your mind actually got louder, that’s a very normal experience.
And it’s worth understanding why.
There’s a common assumption that meditation should feel calm from the first sitting.
In practice, it’s often the opposite.
You notice, maybe for the first time, just how much noise was already there.
In this section, Nick Trent walks through what to do when that happens, and specifically the difference between trying to stop your thoughts and learning to simply notice them.
Sounds like a small distinction, but it isn’t.
He also gets into why a racing mind can start to feel almost like a trance you slide into without meaning to, and what actually pulls you back out of it.
Let’s get into it.
It’s perfectly normal for things not to go quite according to planet first.
Don’t let a little snag in the beginning convince you that you’re not cut out for meditation and stop entirely.
You may just need to do some troubleshooting.
Firstly, don’t worry if you’re shocked by just how uncomfortable and unruly your mind is.
Don’t freak out and attempt to stop these thoughts.
Remember, your only goal is to notice without judgment or interpretation.
Being caught up in a frenzied mess of thoughts can feel like a seductive trance you can’t help but slip into, but when you do, just slip out of it again.
Watch and see that even though thoughts come, they also fade away.
You’re not doing anything wrong.
Notice the planning, fantasizing, worrying, analyzing, interpreting, storytelling, judging, questioning.
Just be there and be aware of it.
Notice if you’re grasping at something, wanting to be somewhere other than the moment, wanting to escape or deny what’s in front of you.
Notice how you may push certain sensations away in anger or fear, or jump toward others to cling to them in desperation or excitement.
Watch to see if you feel sleepy, irritable, restless or doubtful.
Are you asking yourself, is this even working?
A great way to approach all of these challenges is not to see them as problems at all.
They are simply part of the experience.
A universal human experience.
What happens when you don’t try to control, resist or judge?
Your attention can go to what is arising without identifying with it.
You can name it fear, anger, without getting lost in it or stuck in its thought spirals.
A key principle to keep in mind is that you are not your thoughts.
Any thought could occur in your mind, but it does not follow that you have to believe every thought you think or that you have to act on every idea that floats in your head.
When a thought comes, you can simply stand aside and observe it as it passes by, as if watching a cloud float across the otherwise blue skies.
As you master the art of beholding your thoughts in this way, you’re saved from being carried away by destructive urges and emotions.
You become better at simply letting things be instead of trying to control or judge everything that happens to you.
You get to meet all experiences with compassionate attention, then you’re able to let them go.
If you have experienced great trauma, it may not be advisable initially to stay with very intense or powerful emotions as they emerge.
Some traumas are so severe that they evoke emotions unmanageable by meditative practices alone.
Such adverse experiences need to be processed through trauma work with a trained mental health professional before you can safely hold these emotions by yourself.
If for any reason you begin to feel intensely uncomfortable or overwhelmed by emotions during meditation, it may make more sense to place attention on something calming and compassionate instead of staying with the emotion.
If you feel like you may be descending into panic or becoming disconnected from your body,
Anchor into the present moment using the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique.
Look around you and identify five things that you see, four things that you feel, three things that you hear, two things that you smell, and one thing that you taste.
Or, if you find this difficult, one good thing about yourself.
Mindfulness meditation is about full, open awareness, but be patient and compassionate with yourself.
It sometimes takes time to bear witness to emotions, memories, sensations, thoughts, or parts of ourselves that are distressing.
Focus awareness on a soothing image, a person you love, or a mantra that reaffirms your safety and well-being.
Finally, what about all those more mundane distractions, i.e., that wildly annoying feeling of your legs going to sleep or a tiny mosquito buzzing around your ears?
The sad fact is, most of us are not used to sitting up straight, unsupported.
Cramps, itching, and numbness might happen.
On the other hand, previously ignored sensations may come flooding to the fore.
in the past, you might have been able to push away such sensations because you’ve been operating on autopilot and often get powered up by adrenaline in these busy times.
However, now that you inject mindfulness in your life and take time to be still and observe, a heightened awareness of your body can make you aware of just how tired or unwell you feel.
Here’s the trick.
Any sensation, be it mental, emotional, physical or spiritual, can be dealt with in the same way with compassionate awareness.
We can sit with and accept unpleasant physical sensations just as we can emotional or mental ones.
Just offer gentle attention.
Breathe into it.
Be kind to yourself and open up a space to experience what you are experiencing.
Notice what springs up in you in response to a physical sensation.
Can you see a whole cascade of inner thoughts and feelings that erupt over a simple leg itch?
Meet these with kindness and nonattachment too.
You could direct your attention to something else if physical discomfort is really weighing on you.
Be present with the feeling of unpleasantness.
Try not to immediately flee the sensation, but then again, there’s nothing wrong with giving up in shifting position or ending the session.
Just remind yourself that all these sensations are fleeting.
Put a little distance between you and doubt, discomfort or rumination.
Discomfort in a part of your body or doubt entering your mind are all part of you, but they are not you.
Hence, you can retain a consciousness that is not bothered or irritated by these sensations, but one that is able to hold and accept them as they come.
the most probable culprits of meditation troubles.
There’s nothing wrong with experiencing worry, rage, irritation, doubt, lack of motivation, restlessness, impatience, low mood, or even falling asleep while you try to meditate.
It’s normal to get carried away with planning something else, trying too hard and getting frustrated, or finding it impossible to care enough to stick with it.
That being said, there are a lot of meditation mistakes that will make it so much more likely that you’ll experience these kind of challenges.
The most common is simple.
Your practice is not consistent.
Strive to be consistent with meditating daily.
You don’t need to worry about allotting a huge chunk of your data sitting on the floor and closing your eyes as you immerse yourself in a meditative practice.
The length of time you sit is of secondary importance to the regularity of your practice.
Your mind is churning around constantly 24-7.
For a meditation practice to have any noticeable effect, it needs to be frequent enough to make a difference.
Knowing this, have some discipline.
If your day is jam-packed with task after task on your to-do list, sit for only two or three minutes.
It’s better than nothing.
Practice with commitment and intention.
Have respect for yourself and your practice and give it the time and intensity it deserves.
Sloppiness or lack of effort is a disservice to yourself.
Meditation is not just some boring thing on your to-do list, so don’t treat it like one.
Prepare well before each session and give it the care and consideration it deserves.
Set your intention, take some breaths and ease into it.
Related to this is simply expecting too much too soon.
It took you a lifetime to be what you are right now.
You will not magically achieve radical changes within a few weeks.
Most of us begin a practice because of the benefits.
Hard as it is though, trying to forget these in the moment and practice simply for its own sake.
No grasping.
Forget about the end result.
Pay attention to how it feels to meditate in each passing second and nothing more.
As with exercise that ultimately becomes a more enjoyable experience when you’re fully in the moment, relishing how your body feels as you stretch and work your muscles, so does meditation become totally gratifying when you surrender yourself to the experience.
If you’re too impatient for quick results, you may be tempted to flip from one technique to another, confusing yourself and never giving any one method a chance to work.
Experimentation is great, but be modest in your expectations.
No meditation session, no matter what technique you use, can radically alter your life as a whole with a single go.
Give a new routine a good few weeks before deciding it isn’t for you.
Low self-esteem and doubt can be a particularly pernicious obstacle to meditation.
You may overanalyze and wonder if you’re doing it right, becoming self-conscious rather than self-aware.
Appraising the meditation process as it happens actually just takes you out of the moment and ultimately demotivates you.
To overcome this, remind yourself that it’s okay to be on a learning curve.
Just keep going.
More familiarity and clarity will come with time.
It’s okay to be uncertain or to make mistakes.
Nobody is watching or judging you.
Ask questions, keep learning, and don’t worry about doing it perfectly.
If you can bring your mind back after it wanders, then don’t worry, you’re doing it right.
Be kind to yourself and don’t beat yourself up if you miss a session or have a bad session.
Self-criticism is only another distraction.
Mindfully and compassionately, let it go.
Finally, there may be a bunch of things you routinely do outside of meditation that actually interfere with your attempts.
Allowing your mind to spin out of control throughout the rest of the day is going to make meditation much harder.
You can’t undo a day’s worth of binge drinking and junk food with 10 minutes at the gym.
And you can’t counteract a day of chaos and stress with a 10 minute mindfulness session, no matter how relaxing.
Is your life disorganized, erratic, or bursting with emotional volatility?
Do you constantly fill your mind with noise, news, social media, movies, gaming, internet?
Information overload can be so intense it takes an entire meditation session just to come down off the dopamine high.
Do you engage in bad habits that undermine your overall health, like undersleeping, never exercising, or drinking too much coffee?
Meditation is great, but it’s not a magical mind vitamin that will cancel out a terrible daily diet of mindless information consumption and unhealthy habits.
The more your non-meditating life is in alignment with your meditating one, the more results you’ll see.
In this vein, let’s briefly mention not just the quantity of information you’re bombarding your nervous system with daily, but its quality.
Unfortunately, much of the noise we encounter on social media, in the news and online, in TV and movies and, perhaps worst of all, in advertising is deliberately designed to capture our attention by force and hold it hostage.
flashy, emotive, and hard to look away from, these images and words affect us deeply, cognitively, and emotionally.
Not to mention, they actively instigate feelings of desire, craving, strong emotions, distraction, and addiction.
A little mindfulness in our media consumption can do wonders.
Simply notice what you’re feeding your brain day in and day out.
What effect is it really having to read that rage inducing article online, to watch that depressing documentary, or to engage in the Instagram scrolling that leaves you feeling utterly worthless as a human being?
A media detox can help you calm down, recenter, and take charge of your own awareness again, not to mention boosting self-regulation and saving you a bunch of wasted time.
Put mindful limits on what you consume, how, why, how often, and for how long.
This may be as simple as deciding you will not start every day by reaching for your phone within seconds of waking up.
how to address meditation challenges.
If you’re encountering a constant mental chatter, remind yourself, it’s not a problem.
Thinking is what brains do.
You’re not trying to eliminate thoughts.
Just become aware of them.
And in so doing, find space and distance.
The trick is that resisting and avoiding is simply more of the same.
So don’t resist, just notice.
This is what it really means to have an attitude of compassionate acceptance, to not cling to some idea of how you should be, but to simply welcome what is.
Are you feeling restless and agitated?
Okay, that’s how you are right now.
Sit with that.
Has a strong emotion emerged within you?
Okay, it’s no less worthy of your kind attention than any other sensation.
When you stop resisting, you’ll notice something interesting.
Things flow.
It’s the grasping or pushing against certain sensations that makes meditation feel difficult and conflict-ridden.
When we let go, we see that there’s no need to control or force or prevent or cultivate anything.
The present moment is just right, exactly as it is.
and it changes.
Anger, sadness, or restless legs don’t seem like such a big deal when you notice that they’re never permanent, but rise and fall in the moment, like waves, disappearing just as they arrived.
Go deeper and watch how your consciousness itself is also moving and changing over time.
In the beginning, impediments to meditation may seem big and obvious, but they become more subtle the more you practice.
You may notice yourself getting up after a session feeling slightly disappointed, perturbed by an unconscious desire to achieve something, a state of bliss, a happy flash of insight, or some deep calm as your reward for being so disciplined.
Again, these sensations are just waves in the ocean.
In time, you may start to see that awareness is its own reward, that the present moment is sufficient in itself, and that all you can ever really do is be who you already are in the ever unfolding, perfectly formed, peaceful moment.
Making Meditation a Learned Habit
Researchers from the University College London have found that it takes around 66 days for a habit to become cemented, or, as they put it, for a person to develop automaticity.
That said, there also seems to be a large variation between individuals.
Some participants took as little as 18 days, while others took a whopping 254 days.
Naturally, the kind of habit in question also determines how easy it is to adopt in the long term.
How long does it take for meditation to become a fixed habit?
There’s no telling.
But committing to regular practice in the beginning is far more important than trying to tough out super long sessions before you’ve properly established a habit.
To help your new meditation habit really stick, there are a few simple but powerful tricks you can use.
For example, habit anchoring.
Choose a 30-second activity that will prompt you to meditate, like stretching, counting breaths, or saying a mantra, and then connect this 30 seconds to an established habit you already have, such as getting out of the shower, waking up, or making your morning cup of coffee.
This way, you tack on a new habit to an old one by way of a smaller activity that will kickstart your momentum.
For example, you always have your bedtime routine, but now you’re reminding yourself to do a quick stretch beforehand, which leads you into a 10-minute loving-kindness meditation practice.
The Habit Loop formula is a related idea.
A loop consists of a cue, a reward, and a craving.
And to establish a new routine, such as a morning meditation practice, you’ll need all three.
A cue is something that triggers behavior.
For example, you waking up in the morning.
A reward is a benefit for doing the behavior, such as feeling calm and centered after a morning meditation practice.
Finally, craving refers to the urge you feel when your brain associates these two, connecting the cue with the expected reward, i.e., when you wake up, your brain associates meditation with beneficial feelings of calm, which it then craves.
By deliberately strengthening the association of the cue and the feelings of reward, you anchor the behavior.
Do this by mentally conjuring up the positive benefits of meditation every time you experience your cue and thus cement in your mind the fact that you enjoy and crave meditation.
The process won’t be automatic at first, but every time you follow through, you strengthen those loops and take one step closer to an automatic habit.
Make sure your environment supports your habit by giving yourself time and space and reducing clutter.
And be clear and honest about your true motivations for taking up a meditation practice.
You’ll need to tap into this deep motivation on tired or lazy days when you don’t feel like meditating.
Choose a meditation style you actually like and hold yourself accountable.
Give yourself a little reward once you complete each session or track your progress so you can see your self-discipline strengthening with time.
Most importantly, just keep going.
Expect that it won’t be easy to start a new daily habit, whatever it is.
Don’t be discouraged if you slip up.
Just get back into your routine as soon as you can.
A skipped session or a difficult time isn’t a sign that something is going wrong.
But coming back to your practice, no matter what, is proof that you’re strengthening your resolve, committing to your well-being, and giving yourself the opportunity to really develop.
The Takeaway
Meditation is the deliberate and consistent cultivation of awareness, focus and relaxation.
Some widespread notions about meditation are nothing but myths.
You don’t need to convert to Buddhism or even incorporate religious elements in your practice.
Meditation is not selfish avoidance of reality.
Rather, it cultivates full acceptance of reality.
Meditation also does not require fighting with yourself just to keep your mind clear.
While mindfulness is generally taken to be a state that can be fostered through the practice of meditation, some people consider mindfulness as itself a form of meditation, along with other forms such as yoga, tantra, and visualization.
There are many different types of meditation and you can practice the one you resonate most with.
Guided meditation involves a recorded voice or live teacher leading a structured meditation session.
Loving kindness meditation trains you to yield your conscious awareness toward developing self-compassion.
mantra meditation has you speak out a repeated or meaningless word or sound to anchor you in the present.
In breathing meditation, you focus on your breath in order to stay in the moment.
Mindfulness meditation involves a conscious practice of non-judgment and non-attachment while cultivating awareness of the present.
It’s best to have a routine as to when and where you meditate.
Choose a time and place where you’re relatively free from distractions.
Most important is that your practice is consistent and that you approach it with a willingness to meet each moment with calm, kind awareness.
Among the most common challenges in meditation are lack of consistency, expecting too much impatience, low self-esteem and doubt, and an out-of-control racing mind resulting from a highly stimulating day with a lot of stresses and unhealthy habits.
It will take time to make meditation a habit, but you can help it along by attaching it to other daily habits you already have.
What stands out here is how ordinary Nick Trenton makes the struggle sound.
A racing mind at the start of a sitting isn’t a sign you’re doing it wrong.
It’s just what an unpracticed mind looks like once you stop distracting it.
The actual skill isn’t silence.
It’s noticing without getting pulled in.
If this episode was useful, the next section in this series looks at what happens when meditations start surfacing something harder than noise, real emotional discomfort, not just chatter.
So if you want more from this series on quieting and overactive mind, subscribe.
New sections, publish weekly.
And if there’s a specific obstacle you keep hitting in your own practice,
Leave it down in the comments.
It may shape a future episode.