Telling yourself "don't think about it" makes the urge louder. Instead: notice it, name where you feel it in the body, breathe and watch it rise, peak and fall, like a wave, usually within minutes. Then choose. You're not forbidding anything; you're just not obeying on autopilot.
S Evidence: strong. Large trials or many studies, pointing the same way.
P Evidence: promising. Good studies, but small or few. Use it and keep checking.
Sources
People told to suppress thoughts of chocolate for 5 minutes then ate more chocolate than those who just talked (Erskine 2008, randomised, 134 people, 🟡) · in 286 people after addiction treatment, mindfulness-based relapse prevention (urge surfing) gave fewer days of drug use and heavy drinking at 12 months than standard aftercare (Bowen et al. 2014, RCT, 🟢) · see 312.
Not medical, legal or financial advice.