Taking the Noting Method Beyond Meditation
You can use it in your daily life too.
A popular method for beginner meditation is called ‘noting’. Mental noting is the act of labeling a particular sensation during meditation. Since it can be difficult to stay on track when meditating, this isn’t an uncommon technique for beginners to utilize in order to stay focused during meditation.
These notes can be simple acknowledgments of different sensations. For emotions, it can range from ‘anger’, ‘happiness’, ‘confusion’, or ‘sadness’. For thoughts, it can range from ‘wanting, ‘planning’, or even ‘daydreaming’. And of course, for physical sensations, they are often labeled as ‘itching’, ‘pain’, ‘tension’, and others. Whatever the label, it can be helpful to do this since it stops your mind from going down the rabbit hole of that particular sensation.
For example, when meditating for an extended period of time, I’ll often get some sort of pain or numbness sensation in my right leg. I can simply note this as pain. However, if instead of noting, I start to identify with this sensation, I can get lost pretty easily. Soon, I’ll start thinking about other times that my legs have gone during meditation. I might even start thinking about how hard it will be to walk after my session because of my leg falling asleep. In essence, it’s a slippery slope.
Using the Noting Method in Daily Life
So, we’ve kind of come to the conclusion that the noting method is a pretty effective tool to utilize during meditation. That being said, you might be wondering how to actually utilize it during your daily life. I think the best example here would be work. All of us, some more than others, experience stressful situations at work. Some of these situations force us to make quick decisions, juggle multiple tasks and put us into autopilot.
These sorts of situations are not ideal for the noting method. If you’re in autopilot mode or in a flow state, it’s not exactly beneficial for you to take yourself out of that by labeling each of the tiny rapid-fire sensations flooding through you. Instead, you should seek to note when you find yourself slowing down. Maybe, you’re headed to use the bathroom or to grab another cup of coffee. This is the time to pay attention.
You may notice that even though you’re doing something else entirely, your brain is still in work mode. This is when you can start noting to realize that the thoughts occupying your head are not entirely relevant for the time being. If you’re walking somewhere, you can pay attention to seemingly arbitrary sensations like the feeling of each foot making contact with the ground. And if you get really good at this, as some people do over time, you can start to note multiple sensations as you’re walking.
Different things work for different people. So if you have a hard time noting physical sensations, it might be better to try noting your thoughts at first. A great place to start would be noting as if you were meditating. This can be done by simply noting the ‘inhalation’ and ‘exhalation’ of your breath. As you do this, you’ll find that you clear your head a bit before jumping back into the chaos and turbulence of your work routine!
Personally, I’ve found the noting method is most helpful when I am feeling overwhelmed or swamped with a particular emotion. It helps to step back and identify the sensations clearly. By identifying, I can almost strip them of the initial power that they have. I can focus on the things that I want to focus on instead. Of course, this doesn’t happen overnight. But, I think integrating this method into daily life can definitely lead to more moments of gratitude and mindfulness.
