Does meditation work if you cannot sit still or stop thinking?

Yes, and the belief that meditation requires an empty mind is the single most common reason people quit. Noticing that your attention has wandered and returning it is not a failure of the practice, it is the practice — that repetition is the trained skill. If sitting is genuinely intolerable, walking meditation, breath counting during a commute, or body-scan practices lying down are legitimate forms. Start at three to five minutes rather than twenty. Consistency over months matters far more than session length, and the benefits show up in how you respond to stress rather than during the sitting itself.