Your brain is very good at time travel. At any given moment, it might be replaying what already happened or rehearsing what could go wrong next. How do you snap back fast to reality? Try “active noticing,” an easy way to reclaim your thoughts from wherever they’ve wandered off to.
“It’s just coming back to the present moment, and being fully there,” says Arati Patel, a mindfulness-based psychotherapist in Ventura, Calif. “When you’re present, you can’t really be anxious—you can’t be thinking about the future or preoccupied with things that happened in the past, or super down and in a funk. You can actually experience the joy of being in that moment.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]The best news: Active noticing takes just a minute of your day.
Why you should do it
Active noticing helps your nervous system realize it doesn’t have to be on high alert. When you’re in a calm place and your attention is grounded in the present moment, your brain receives cues of safety and stability. “It can really regulate the nervous system, because when you bring all your senses in, you’re like, ‘Oh, I actually get to experience being here instead of being projected in the future, or what’s going to happen tomorrow or what’s going to happen 10 years from now,’” Patel says.
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Research suggests that regular mindfulness practices like active noticing can reduce anxiety and overthinking, increase emotional resilience, and improve the ability to respond rather than react. Active noticing also builds awareness of subtle stress signals before they escalate, Patel says. You’ll become a more engaged citizen of the world, rather than a passive observer.
How to do it
People put different spins on active noticing. Patel like this simple, repeatable practice:
- Pause and take one slow breath, extending the exhale.
- Notice three things you can see, without labeling them as good or bad.
- Notice two physical sensations in your body (such as your feet on the floor or the weight of your body in a chair).
- Notice one sound, near or far.
- End with a grounding statement: “This is what’s here right now.” Or: “This is what I notice right now.”
The exercise takes under a minute and works best when practiced often, she says. To make it a habit, Patel suggests pairing it with your existing routines, like when you’re waiting for your coffee to brew, washing your hands, or transitioning between tasks.
What’s particularly nice, she adds, is that you can do it anywhere, any time you start to feel stressed—and no one will even know. “You can do it in a meeting or in the car,” she says. “You can actually be present driving and getting to where you need to go, instead of just being on autopilot.”
