NOTING
A Powerful Mindfulness Practice for Self-Awareness
Simple Mindful Noting
Mindful Noting, a technique rooted in mindfulness meditation, is a powerful tool to cultivate awareness, focus, and clarity in one’s daily life. It involves noting or labeling thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they arise, enabling individuals to observe their inner experiences without getting lost. This article will delve into mental noting, its benefits, and how to incorporate it into your mindfulness practice.
Understanding Mental Noting
Mental noting is a mindfulness technique that helps create a space between the practitioner and their thoughts, emotions, or sensations. By simply labeling these experiences as they come to the surface, individuals can avoid getting caught up in or carried away by them.
The Process
The Practice of mental noting involves observing the mind and applying soft labels to experiences as they arise. For example, if a thought about a looming deadline triggers anxiety, you might note ‘anxiety’ or ‘worry.’ If a sound catches your attention, you might note ‘hearing.’ The specific labels used are less important than the labeling process, which encourages an attitude of detached observation.
The Benefits of Mental Noting
Mental noting offers numerous benefits for those seeking to deepen their mindfulness practice.
Enhanced Self-awareness
By noting thoughts, feelings, and sensations, individuals can gain insight into their habitual thinking patterns and react. This self-awareness can empower individuals to respond to experiences more thoughtfully and less reactively.
Improved Focus
Mental noting can help individuals stay present and focused. When thoughts or distractions arise during mindfulness practice, noting them can be a gentle reminder to return to the present moment.
Reduction in Stress and Anxiety
The act of noting can help individuals navigate stress and anxiety more effectively. By labeling and acknowledging these feelings instead of suppressing or ignoring them, individuals can create a mental space to process them more objectively, reducing their impact over time.
How to Practice Mental Noting
Incorporating mental noting into your mindfulness practice can be done through the following steps:
Establish Mindfulness
Start by establishing mindfulness through a chosen anchor, such as the breath, body sensations, or ambient sounds. Allow your attention to rest on this anchor.
Note Experiences as They Arise
As thoughts, feelings, or sensations arise, gently note them. For instance, if a feeling of restlessness arises, you can note ‘restlessness.’ If a thought about a past event comes up, you can note ‘remembering.’
Return to Your Anchor
After noting, gently return your attention to your anchor. The process of noting should be soft and gentle, not disrupting the flow of your mindfulness practice.
Be Consistent
Like any skill, mental noting becomes more effective with consistent practice. Over time, it can become a natural part of your mindfulness practice, enhancing awareness, clarity, and focus.
Mental noting is a simple yet powerful tool in the mindfulness toolbox. Providing a structured approach to observing the mind can enhance self-awareness, reduce reactivity, and promote a greater sense of calm and clarity. Whether new to mindfulness or seeking to deepen your practice, consider incorporating mental noting into your routine to reap its many benefits.
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Mindful Noting by Gil Fronsdal
Thinking can be a powerful force of distraction, preventing us from being mindfully present in a useful way. During meditation, a simple method in which we use thinking to stay present rather than carrying us away is ‘mental noting’. This is the practice of using a simple “note” to calmly name – as a whisper in the mind – what we are experiencing. Though it can take a while to learn, and can be awkward at first, with practice, mental noting can become second nature.
Noting directs thinking into a simple, rudimentary form, rather than letting it wander off into distraction. “An idle mind will get in trouble” is a saying that describes how an insufficiently attentive mind can all too easily drift off into thought. Mental noting gives the thinking mind something to do which supports meditation rather than distracts from it. It can be a useful way to interrupt the incessant flow of discursive thoughts.
In contrast to most thinking, noting is not discursive. It does not involve analysis or judgment. Rather, we simply give our current experience a one-word label. For example, upon hearing a sound we note ‘hearing’ without thinking further about the sound. Other common mental notes are ‘seeing’, ‘touching’, ‘feeling’, and ‘thinking’.
Some experiences may be given more descriptive labels. For example, sensations may be noted as ‘warmth’, ‘coolness’, ‘pressure’, ‘tightness’, and so on. Emotions may be named: ‘happiness’, ‘sadness’, ‘excitement’, ‘fear’. Mental activity may be recognized as ‘wanting’, ‘planning’, ‘resisting’, and the like. With mindfulness of breathing a common note is ‘rising’ as the belly or chest lifts on the inhalation, and ‘falling’ as we exhale.
Usually, a specific note is repeated until the experience being noted disappears, is sufficiently acknowledged, or is no longer predominant.
Noting in meditation has many functions. The primary one is keeping the meditator present – sometimes it is called an ‘anchor’ to the present. The mind is less likely to wander off if one keeps up a steady stream of relaxed noting. If the mind does wander, the noting practice can make it easier to reestablish mindfulness.
Another function of noting is to better acknowledge or recognize what is occurring: the clearer one’s recognition, the more effective one’s mindfulness. Naming can strengthen recognition. Sometimes this can be a kind of truth-telling, when we are reluctant to admit something about ourselves or about what is happening.
A third function of noting is to help recognize patterns in one’s experience. A frequently-repeated note reveals a frequently-recurring experience. For example, persistent worriers may not realize it until they see how often they note ‘worry’.
And fourth, as described above, mental noting gives the thinking mind something to do rather than leaving it to its own devices.
A fifth function is disentangling us from being preoccupied or overly identified with experience. Noting can help us ‘step away’ so that we might see more clearly. For example, noting ‘wanting’ might pull us out of the preoccupation with something we want. This may not be immediate, but by repeatedly noting ‘wanting, wanting,’ one may be able to be aware of the wanting without being caught by it. As an antidote to drowning in strong emotion or obsessive thinking, mental noting is sometimes called a ‘life preserver’.
Noting can also help maintain a non-reactive form of attention. Calmly and equanimously noting what is happening, we are less likely to get caught up in emotional reactions. The stories of Mara, the god of temptation and distraction, visiting the Buddha illustrate this. The Buddha does not chase Mara away, nor does he give in. He simply looks at him directly and says, “Mara, I see you.” With this, Mara runs away. Similarly, noting ‘fear’ can be like saying, “Fear, I see you.” Noting helps us to see mindfully while remaining free of what we see.
The tone of the inner voice that notes may reveal less-than-equanimous reactions to what we are trying to be mindful of. The noting may sound harsh, bored, scared, hesitant, or excited, to name just a few possibilities. By noticing and adjusting the tone, we may become more balanced and equanimous.
Each person needs to find his or her own way of noting – it isn’t a fixed technique. And as circumstances change, how one notes may change. Sometimes, what is most useful is calmly noting everything one is being mindful of. Other times, noting may be useful when one is easily distracted but not when one is settled. Some people only use noting when being mindful of particular experiences, such as thinking or feeling emotions. Others limit their noting to naming only what is distracting. And some people find that it is never helpful to use mental noting; they prefer a more silent form of knowing.
The noting practice has a number of pitfalls. It can become rote or mechanical. When one notices this, it’s often useful to pause and relax before starting again. Another hazard is focusing too much on noting at the expense of being mindful. One version of this is the ‘check-list approach’ to mindfulness – one believes it is enough to simply note an experience. Noting is mostly a slight nudge to encourage mindfulness, so that attentiveness to the felt experience increases. Another pitfall is that noting may become an attempt to control or drive one’s experience instead of simply recognizing it. Or it may be used to create an artificial distance from experience: naming becomes a substitute for feeling. Relaxing and allowing the mindfulness to become more receptive can help with this.
Noting can become a hindrance to meditation if one starts thinking about what word to use. Sometimes beginners to mental noting are too concerned with the ‘right’ note. The most obvious label is good enough. If a vague note like “here” or “this” helps one stay present, it has fulfilled its primary function. While precision in noting can sometimes sharpen mindfulness and help with insight, there is no need to analyze one’s way to greater precision.
Some people find that as the mind becomes more peaceful in meditation they may need to adjust the relative ‘loudness’ or ‘intensity’ of the noting to keep it in harmony with the meditative stillness. As the mind becomes quieter, so should the mental noting. It can become a softer and softer whisper. At times words are no longer needed – a soft “hmm” may suffice.
A basic principle for the practice of mental noting is to use it when it is helpful and to avoid it when it is not. Mindfulness practice aims to cultivate awareness, insight and liberation. It can be quite satisfying when noting supports these aims. It can be a reminder that all of one’s faculties can be used in the service of freedom, including our cognitive functions such as naming our experience.
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Advanced Mindful Noting
Mental noting (also called, labelling or naming) can be incorporated into our formal and informal mindfulness practice as a tool to keep awareness on track. It’s a gentle acknowledgement of our moment-to-moment experience, helping us to stay present and tease out aspects of our inner experience, whether body sensations, thoughts, or emotions.
When noting, we use one word to name what’s happening; for example, we might say: “This is anger,” “Anxiety is arising,” or “Frustration or restlessness is present.” Doing this is an opportunity to acknowledge and witness to what we are experiencing and can help us to disentangle or unstick from challenging emotions, thoughts, moods or mind states. When we do this, we usually feel some space or emotional freedom.
General: “hearing,” “thinking,” “feeling,” “seeing,” or “in/out” for the breath. It can be more specific such as:
Sensations: “tension,” “tightness,” “contracted,” “ease,” “openness,” “heat,” “sharpness,” “racing,” “stabbing.”
Emotions: “restlessness,” “calm,” “anxiety,” “joy,” “irritation,” “anticipation,” “sadness.”
Thoughts: “thinking,” “judging,” “remembering,” “planning,” “criticizing,” “analyzing,” “imagining,” “rumination.”
Feeling tone: “pleasant,” “unpleasant,” “neutral.”
I have included a word chart below to support more verbal fluency so that noting flows more easily.
Notably, noting requires a light touch; just 5% is on the label (one word), and 95% is on awareness of the experience itself. The key is not to spend too much time thinking about the “perfect note.” The most obvious note is the best one for you in the moment, so no straining is necessary. The label’s tone is also important and should be soft, almost like a whisper or a gentle nudge to encourage mindfulness so that attention is on the felt experience.
Here are some of the pros and cons of mental noting:
Pros
- it keeps us present.
- Judson Brewer points out that it can create an “observer effect” — by noting thoughts or emotions, for example, we become less identified with them.
- put another way, it helps us maintain non-reactive attention –recognizing and noting change as it occurs makes us less likely to get caught up in emotional reactions. In fact, research by David Creswell and colleagues (2007) found that when we label difficult emotions, the amygdala, the alarm bell of the brain, becomes less active and less likely to trigger a stress reaction in the body.
- It gives the mind something to do rather than leaving it to its own devices – “an idle mind can get into trouble,” so mental noting can be a way to interrupt the incessant flow of discursive thinking.
- it can also help to recognize patterns in our experience (i.e., a frequently repeated “worry” note might reveal persistent worry thought patterns that may not have been seen before.)
- it may lead to “truth-telling” when we’re reluctant to admit something about ourselves or what is happening.
Cons
- it can become mechanical.
- some may get too focused on finding the perfect note rather than being mindful.
- may create an artificial distance from the experience when naming becomes a substitute for feeling.
Comments
Mental noting is an optional mindfulness tool many find helpful, while others may prefer not to use it. Mental noting isn’t fixed, so feel free to experiment and find your own way!
I love to use noting, especially for short check-ins or difficult emotions, to the extent that it has become a constant companion!
Here’s a noting practice for you to try!
Anxiety Reduction
You can use the 333 rule for anxiety in the moment something triggers you. Just look around to identify 3 objects and 3 sounds, then move 3 body parts. Many people find this strategy helps focus and ground them when anxiety seems overwhelming. The 333 rule is a common and informal technique for coping with anxiety.