The RAIN Method: A Step-by-Step Guide to Breaking Habit Loops

A patient walked into my office and told me his head would explode if he didn’t smoke.

He wasn’t being dramatic. He genuinely believed it. He’d been smoking for decades, and every time a craving hit, the pressure built so fast and so intensely that lighting up felt like the only way to survive it. He’d tried patches. He’d tried gum. He’d tried quitting cold turkey more times than he could count. None of it worked, because none of it addressed what was actually happening in his brain when that craving wave hit its peak.

So I did something I hadn’t planned. I walked over to the whiteboard in my office and drew a simple graph — intensity on one axis, time on the other. Then I walked him through a practice, step by step, right there. Recognize what’s happening. Allow it to be there. Investigate what it actually feels like in your body. Note the sensations, one by one, with short words: tightness, heat, restlessness, pressure.

As he noted each sensation, I asked him to rate how strong it was, and we plotted the points on the whiteboard. The line climbed. He described the intensity building — the familiar crescendo that always sent him reaching for a cigarette. And then something happened. The line plateaued. And then it started to come down.

His eyes got wide.

He told me that he always smoked at that exact moment — the peak — because he couldn’t tolerate the craving one second longer. He’d never stayed with it past that point. He’d never gone over the edge and down the backside of the mountain. He had no idea the wave would break on its own.

That practice was RAIN. And that moment in my office captured something I’ve been teaching for over two decades: the only way out is through. Not through force. Not through resistance. Through curiosity.

What Is RAIN?

RAIN is a four-step practice: Recognize, Accept/Allow, Investigate, Note. It’s a way to work with difficult emotions, cravings, and anxiety in real time — not by fighting them, not by analyzing them, but by turning toward them with genuine interest and riding the wave until it passes.

The practice was originally developed by the meditation teacher Michelle McDonald. I first learned it through Tara Brach, who did a tremendous job popularizing it and making it accessible. When I started using RAIN in my clinical work and research, I adapted the final step. In the original formulation, the N stood for Non-identification — the idea of not getting caught up in the experience. That’s a fine concept, but it’s abstract. It’s hard to do non-identification when you’re in the middle of a panic spiral or a craving.

So I changed the N to Note — based on the noting practice from the Burmese meditation master Mahasi Sayadaw. Noting is concrete. It gives you something specific to do: label what you’re feeling in your body with short, direct words. That single shift turned RAIN from a contemplative framework into a clinical tool I could hand to patients and watch them use in real time.

How RAIN Connects to the Habit Loop

If you’ve read about the habit loop — the trigger-behavior-reward cycle that drives every habit — you already have the foundation for understanding why RAIN works.

Every habit, whether it’s smoking, worrying, stress eating, doomscrolling, or nail-biting, follows the same pattern: a trigger creates discomfort, you do something to relieve it, and the brief relief reinforces the behavior. Your brain learns: when uncomfortable, do this thing. Loop established.

RAIN disrupts this loop by inserting awareness and curiosity at the exact moment you’d normally react on autopilot. Instead of trigger → automatic behavior → brief relief, you get trigger → RAIN → direct experience of the sensation → the sensation passes on its own. Your brain gets updated information: I don’t actually need the cigarette / the food / the worry spiral to survive this feeling. And with that update, the loop starts to weaken.

This is the same principle behind the Three Gears framework I teach for anxiety. First Gear is mapping the loop. Second Gear is getting disenchanted with the old behavior by seeing what it actually delivers. Third Gear is finding the Bigger Better Offer — something genuinely more rewarding than the old habit. RAIN operates primarily in Third Gear. It is the Bigger Better Offer in action — the practice of bringing curiosity to difficult experience rather than running from it.

The Four Steps of RAIN

Let me walk you through each step. As you read these, think of a specific habit loop you’re working with — a craving, an anxiety pattern, an emotional eating urge, whatever is most alive for you right now.

R — Recognize (and Relax)

The first step is simply noticing that you’re caught in a loop. This is less obvious than it sounds. Most habit loops fire so fast and so automatically that you’re already three bites into the ice cream, fifteen minutes into the worry spiral, or reaching for the cigarette before you realize what’s happening.

If you’re on autopilot, you’re not in control. Recognition is the moment you step off autopilot. It’s the moment you say, even silently: Something is happening right now. I’m caught in something.

And here’s the critical piece that most people miss: when you recognize you’re in a loop, your instinct will be to tense up. To brace. To clench against the experience. Don’t. Instead, relax. Not relax as in “calm down” — relax as in soften your body. Drop your shoulders. Unclench your jaw. Take one normal breath. You’re not going to war with this experience. You’re going to get curious about it.

Recognition without relaxation often becomes another form of resistance — and resistance, as I tell my patients, is the engine that keeps habit loops running.

A — Accept/Allow

The second step is letting the experience exist without fighting it. Whatever you’re feeling — the craving, the anxiety, the dread, the tightness in your chest — let it be there. Don’t judge it. Don’t try to push it away. Don’t analyze it. Just allow it.

This is harder than it sounds, because our default response to discomfort is to do something about it. That’s the whole basis of the habit loop — discomfort arises, and we immediately scramble to make it go away. The cigarette, the food, the phone, the worry — they’re all strategies for not feeling what we’re feeling.

What we resist really does persist. Every time you fight a craving, you’re feeding it energy. Every time you try to force anxiety away, you’re reinforcing the loop. Acceptance isn’t passivity. It’s strategic. You’re removing the fuel that keeps the loop cycling.

Think of it this way: if you’re caught in a riptide, fighting it pulls you under. The way out is to float, let the current carry you, and wait for it to release. RAIN works the same way. You stop fighting the wave, and the wave runs its course.

I — Investigate

This is where the real magic happens — and where most people get it wrong.

Investigate means bringing genuine curiosity to your direct, physical experience. Not intellectual curiosity. Not analytical curiosity. Felt, embodied, “what does this actually feel like in my body right now?” curiosity.

The question is simple: What does this feel like in my body?

Where is the sensation? Is it in your chest? Your stomach? Your throat? Your hands? What’s its quality? Is it tight? Hot? buzzy? Heavy? Hollow? Does it move or stay still? Does it have edges? Does it change when you pay attention to it?

Here’s the key, and I cannot emphasize this enough: the attitude matters more than the technique. If you approach investigation with the energy of “I’m going to RAIN the heck out of this anxiety and make it go away,” you’ve missed the point entirely. That’s resistance wearing a mindfulness costume. It’s still fighting.

The shift in attitude sounds like this:

“Oh no!” → “Ohhh? What’s going on in my body?”

That subtle tonal shift — from dread to genuine interest — is everything. The first is contraction. The second is opening. And that opening is what makes RAIN work, because curiosity and contraction can’t coexist. You can’t be genuinely curious about a sensation and simultaneously clenching against it.

This is why I teach that the I in RAIN is really about the attitude — the quality of curiosity you bring. Not grim determination. Not clinical detachment. Open, warm, interested curiosity. The kind you had when you were five years old and everything in the world was worth looking at.

N — Note

If I is the attitude, N is the action. Noting is the practice of labeling what you experience with short, direct words or phrases. One word at a time. Staying in the body. Staying in direct experience.

It sounds like this, internally:

Tightness. Rising. Burning. Heat. Restlessness. Pressure. Vibration. Tingling… lessening. Softening. Relaxing. Relief. Expanding.

Each word is a tiny anchor that keeps you in your body and out of your head. When thoughts arise — and they will — you simply note “thinking” and return to the body sensations. When stories start spinning — and they will — you note “storytelling” and come back. Noting is the discipline that keeps curiosity grounded in the present moment.

Here’s what my smoking patient discovered, and what thousands of people in my programs have discovered since: when you note your way through a craving or an anxiety wave, the sensations follow a predictable arc. They build. They peak. And then — without you doing anything to make them leave — they subside. The wave breaks. Every time.

You don’t have to take my word for it. You can verify this for yourself the next time a craving or anxious feeling shows up. Note the sensations. Watch the arc. See what happens on the other side of the mountain.

Note to float. That’s the instruction I give my patients. Use noting to stay buoyant on the surface of your experience, rather than getting pulled under by the story about your experience.

RAIN as Your Surfboard

Think of RAIN as helping you ride out the stormy seas of challenging thoughts and emotions. When the wave of anxiety hits, when the craving surges, when the urge to eat or scroll or avoid builds to what feels like an unbearable peak — RAIN is your surfboard. You’re not stopping the wave. You’re not fighting the ocean. You’re riding it.

And here’s the thing about waves: they all break. Every single one. The craving that feels like it will kill you? It peaks and passes, usually within sixty to ninety seconds of direct body awareness. The anxiety that feels permanent? It shifts and changes shape the moment you bring genuine curiosity to it. The urge that feels irresistible? It’s only irresistible when you’re on autopilot. The moment you turn toward it with awareness, it becomes something you can ride.

The only way out is through. And curiosity helps us turn toward our experience instead of running from it.

RAIN in Action: Anxiety, Cravings, and Emotional Eating

RAIN isn’t a sitting meditation you do for twenty minutes on a cushion. It’s a practice you can deploy anywhere, in real time, in the exact moment a habit loop fires. Let me show you what this looks like across the three areas where I use it most.

RAIN for Anxiety

You’re lying in bed at night. The familiar anxiety shows up — that tight, churning sensation in your stomach, the mind starting to generate worst-case scenarios about tomorrow. Old pattern: engage with the worry, run through scenarios for forty-five minutes, fall asleep exhausted.

R: There it is. Anxiety loop just kicked in. Let me soften rather than brace. A: This feeling is here. I don’t need to fix it right now. Let it be. I: What does this actually feel like? Where is it? N: Churning. Tightness in stomach. Heat in chest. Racing… thoughts. Noting “thinking.” Back to body. Buzzing. Vibrating. Intensity… holding… holding… lessening. Softening. Spreading. Warmth. Settling.

The loop doesn’t get its payoff. The worry spiral never launches. Your brain gets updated information: I can feel this without running the worry program. Over time — and it doesn’t take as long as you’d think — the anxiety loop weakens because the automatic behavior (worrying) is no longer the default response.

RAIN for Cravings

This is where RAIN was born in my clinical practice. Whether the craving is for a cigarette, a drink, your phone, or anything else your brain has learned to reach for when discomfort arises, the process is identical.

The craving shows up. It feels urgent, overwhelming, like you must act on it. That urgency is the top of the wave — and it’s the exact moment most people bail out and give in. RAIN asks you to stay on the surfboard for thirty more seconds.

R: Craving is here. Big one. Okay. A: It’s allowed to be here. I’m not fighting it. I: What does this craving actually feel like right now? (Not the story about what I want — the physical sensation.) N: Tightness in throat. Restlessness in hands. Pulling sensation in chest. Heat. Intensity… building… building… peaking… and… easing. Releasing. Cooling.

That’s it. You’ve ridden the wave. The craving crested and subsided. Your brain just learned something crucial: I survived the peak without acting on it. And that update — experiential, not intellectual — starts to rewire the loop. This is exactly how my approach to everyday addictions works at the individual sensation level.

RAIN for Emotional Eating

The anxiety-eating-shame cycle is a place where RAIN is particularly powerful, because the urge to eat is almost always preceded by a feeling that the person is trying not to feel. RAIN gives you a way to be with the feeling instead of eating over it.

You’re standing in the kitchen after a stressful day. The urge to eat is strong, and it has nothing to do with hunger. Old pattern: open the cabinet, eat, feel guilty, eat more.

R: Urge to eat. Not hungry. Something else is driving this. Let me soften. A: There’s a feeling underneath this urge. Let it be here. I: What’s actually happening in my body right now? N: Tightness in chest. Anxious. Hollow feeling in stomach — not hunger, more like… emptiness. Restlessness. Sadness? Noting “sadness.” Pressure behind eyes. Heaviness… sitting with it… noting… softening. Breathing. Settling.

The urge often passes within a couple of minutes. Not always — sometimes you’ll still eat, and that’s fine. But even then, you’ve gathered information. You’ve started to see what’s underneath the eating. And that awareness, practiced repeatedly, changes the loop.

RAIN at Work: It Only Takes an Instant

One of the members of our Going Beyond Anxiety program shared a story that captures how RAIN works in daily life. She had a meeting coming up with a former friend — someone she now had to work with professionally. She was dreading it for days.

During the meeting, instead of white-knuckling her way through it or checking out mentally, she used RAIN internally. Not a big production. Not a meditation break. Just a few seconds of noting, right there in the conference room: tightness, constriction, heat, noting “dread,” back to body, softening.

Noting only takes an instant.

She reported afterward that while the meeting wasn’t a picnic, she was proud of how she handled it. She stayed present enough to facilitate the discussion. She didn’t shut down. She didn’t snap. She rode the wave.

This is what RAIN looks like once you’ve practiced it a few times. It becomes a micro-skill — something you can do in the space between a trigger and a reaction, in the middle of a conversation, while driving, while lying awake at 3 AM. It doesn’t require silence, or a cushion, or twenty minutes. It requires about five seconds of genuine curiosity about what’s happening in your body.

The Mistake That Ruins RAIN

There is one mistake I see more than any other, and it will completely undermine the practice if you don’t catch it: using RAIN as a weapon against your experience.

It sounds like this: “I’m going to RAIN this anxiety away.” “I’ll just do RAIN until the craving stops.” “If I investigate hard enough, I can make this feeling leave.”

That is not RAIN. That is resistance dressed up in mindfulness language. And your brain knows the difference. When you approach a difficult experience with the agenda of getting rid of it, you are not accepting it (the A step). You are not genuinely curious about it (the I step). You are trying to use a tool to fight your experience — and the fighting is the very thing that keeps the habit loop alive.

Real RAIN has no agenda. You’re not trying to make the craving go away. You’re not trying to fix the anxiety. You’re getting genuinely interested in what this experience feels like, right now, in your body. If it goes away, great. If it stays, fine — you keep noting. The outcome isn’t the point. The turning toward is the point.

This is the difference between “Oh no, I’m anxious, let me RAIN this away” and “Ohhh, I’m anxious — what does this feel like?” One is contraction. The other is opening. One perpetuates the loop. The other breaks it.

What the Research Shows

RAIN is built on the same evidence base as the broader framework I use in my clinical research. In a randomized controlled trial with people diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, participants using curiosity-based practices like RAIN showed a 67% reduction in anxiety. The number needed to treat was 1.6 — meaning nearly two out of three people experienced clinically meaningful improvement.

In a separate study with physicians, app-based delivery of this framework — which includes RAIN as a core practice — produced a 57% reduction in anxiety within 30 days.

For smoking cessation, where RAIN was first systematically applied in my research, mindfulness-based approaches that include noting practices showed significantly better outcomes than the gold-standard quit-smoking program. The key mechanism? Participants learned to ride out craving waves instead of reacting to them. Exactly what RAIN is designed to do.

The research consistently points to the same two drivers of change: decreased reactivity (the ability to feel something without automatically doing something about it) and increased curiosity (the willingness to turn toward experience rather than away from it). RAIN trains both simultaneously.

Try It Right Now: A 2-Minute RAIN Practice

You don’t need to wait for a crisis to practice RAIN. In fact, the best time to learn it is when the stakes are low. Try this right now.

Bring to mind something mildly stressful — not your biggest fear, just something that creates a bit of tension. Maybe a conversation you’ve been avoiding. An email you haven’t sent. A decision you’ve been putting off.

Now:

R — Recognize: Notice what’s happening in your body as you think about this situation. Where do you feel it? Don’t try to change anything. Just recognize.

A — Accept/Allow: Let the sensation be there. You don’t have to like it. Just stop pushing against it for the next thirty seconds.

I — Investigate: Get curious. What does this sensation actually feel like? Is it heavy? Tight? Warm? Does it move? Drop into your body and look with genuine interest, like you’re encountering this feeling for the first time.

N — Note: Use one or two words at a time to label what you find. Tightness. Warmth. Pressure. Buzzing. Keep noting for about a minute. If thoughts pull you away, note “thinking” and come back to the body.

When you’re done, notice if anything shifted. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. Either way, you just practiced RAIN. And your brain just got a taste of what it feels like to meet difficulty with curiosity instead of resistance.

For a guided video version of this practice, try the RAIN exercise or explore Dr. Jud’s full library of mindfulness exercises. A body scan is another excellent complement to RAIN — it builds the body awareness that makes noting easier and more natural.

Your Next Step

RAIN is one practice within a larger system. It works best when you understand the habit loops it’s designed to interrupt, the role of curiosity in breaking those loops, and the Three Gears framework that ties it all together. If you’re dealing with chronic anxiety, everyday addictions, or the anxiety-eating-shame cycle, RAIN is the tool you’ll reach for again and again — the surfboard that keeps you above the waves.

The Going Beyond Anxiety program teaches RAIN alongside the full Three Gears framework, with live group coaching and structured daily practice. It’s built on the same research that produced a 67% reduction in anxiety in our clinical trials — and it’s designed for people who have tried other approaches and found them insufficient.

You don’t have to fight your way through anxiety, cravings, or habit loops. You just have to learn to ride the wave. RAIN is how you start.