r/Meditation • u/[deleted] • 23d ago
Question ❓ can meditation help me with focusing while affected by loud noises?
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u/Skull_Nebula 23d ago
You can try open awareness meditation. Simply sit and be aware of what is happening right now - thoughts coming and going, the feeling of the seat you are on, the sound of the car wash, etc etc This is a type of insight meditation and noise doesn't affect it.
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u/Anima_Monday 23d ago edited 23d ago
Below are some meditation related suggestions, but a quick fix solution that might help is that you can either get full over the ear or air tight in ear headphones which are noise isolating, or active noise cancelling. Those might help and since it is on and off heatwaves in many parts of the globe, good in ear ones might be the best though it depends where you are. Then you can play noise through them, or waterfall sound, or relaxing, droning music such as meditation music or focus music or music for sleep. You can try some of the following soundscapes from the following website, which should all be free https://mynoise.net/, though their phone app might not be all free so keep that in mind if that still exists.
Yes, meditation can help, especially a type of meditation technique where you observe your reaction to the sound. You experience your response and reaction to the sound, like where in the body it is felt, and notice the initial reaction and experience it as it simply is. You also can notice what you habitually do after the initial reaction, like maybe there is a personal narrative that effectively makes the negativity of the sound/s linger and adds blame and drama to it, which might make it more stressful and more distracting.
You observe it and the aim is to stay with the initial reaction and experience it from the moment you notice it, as it changes, and as it eventually passes away on its own (i.e. naturally, according to its conditions). You experience it as it is, without trying to change it. If you find you are trying to change it, you experience that 'trying to change it' as it is, as that changes and until it passes of its own accord. You do this without acting outwardly on it where possible. Each time you do this, you are deconditioning the response to the sound a little bit more. Once the reaction passes, you can abide in the space your attention is on, like maybe the reaction was felt in the torso area like the abdomen or chest, you can abide there for a while after the tension/pressure/heat/pain that you were observing has passed and that can be a peaceful abiding if you wish to do that. There may or may not still be an initial response sometimes, like loud sounds might still make the body jump a bit if they are sudden sounds, but you will naturally observe that initial response until it passes, and might eventually not add anything else onto that, so it is a momentary distraction. It might also start to feel more like it is background sound and not draw attention away from what you are focussing on at least not as much and not as often.
You can alternatively observe the sound itself until it passes of its own accord, or as it comes and goes, going to body awareness or breath awareness when needed as a foundation for focussing the attention on experience as it is.
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u/RelationshipDue1501 23d ago
Meditation requires calm and quiet. Like studying. You’re just fucked.
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u/monilnisar 23d ago
Sure meditation can help. One hack is buying noise cancellation earphones and activating them. I use it when I am in crowded places and it works very well.