One of the most famous experiments in social psychology took place on the Capilano Canyon suspension bridge, outside Vancouver, which is 70m high but only a few people-widths across, and sways vertiginously in the wind. ("Carry babies below railing height," the owners cheerily advise, in case you weren't already sufficiently freaked out.) In 1974, a female researcher stood halfway along, stopping male bridge-crossers and asking them to complete a questionnaire. Then she said she'd be happy to discuss the study further that evening and handed over her phone number. Half the Capilano men called her back, compared with one-eighth of those asked on a much more stable bridge. Subconsciously, the researchers suggested, the men had mistaken their sweaty palms, racing hearts and trembling legs for sexual chemistry. How many amorous liaisons might have flourished if London's joyless authorities hadn't fixed the Wobbly Bridge?
This phenomenon, now well-studied, is known as "the misattribution of arousal" and it reveals something curious about our inner lives: when we think we're straightforwardly "feeling an emotion", we're frequently – perhaps always – really engaging in a two-step process: experiencing a physiological sensation, then labelling it. This is one reason why savvy relationship experts suggest couples who want to "keep the spark alive" should pursue exciting new activities, not comfortingly familiar ones: the trick is to generate a spark – pretty much any spark – then misattribute it to your partner. I suspect it's also why, as a friend noted recently, I often rave about films I've watched on planes. Flights, especially turbulent ones, make me nervously excitable, apparently leading me to conclude even the later work of Judd Apatow is unfailingly hilarious and profound.
A more conscious form of "inner labelling", meanwhile, lies at the heart of a lesser-known variety of Buddhist meditation, in which I took several classes recently. These days, in the west, meditation has come to mean following your breath, or being "mindful", and strikes some people as frustratingly woolly. The Burmese approach, by contrast, involves rigorously labelling, internally or out loud, every passing thought or feeling. If you feel an itch, you note "itching"; if you have a thought about tomorrow's big meeting, you note "future thought"; if you feel anxious, you note "anxious". Anything goes: if you get bored of the undertaking, note "bored"; if your legs start to cramp, note "aching". Try it, aiming for a note every one or two seconds.
It's a mind-widening experience. The Capilano bridge experiment was all about which labels we give to inner phenomena. But in noting meditation, it's the mere act of labelling that's the point. Gradually, it forces you to realise that your thoughts and sensations aren't "you"; you are the one doing the labelling, rather than what's being labelled. (Serious Buddhists, I should add, would question the whole concept of "you" – but let's not go there today.) This dis-identification from your inner roilings is experienced as a kind of liberation. It turns out that perhaps – against your every instinct, and the urgings of self-help gurus – you don't actually need to try to manipulate what's going on in your mind. Just noticing it with precision may be enough. Unconvinced? Make a mental note: "Unconvinced."
• oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com
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