Removing table labels from table-of-contents?

[E.T.Smith]

How do I tell the ToC formatter not to include the headings from in-document tables?

For instance I have a chapter that includes a reference table with several columns labelled by year in the first row, and each of those years is showing up as a sub-heading in the ToC, which is an unsightly mess. I can roughly address this by turning back the number of outline steps the ToC includes, but this cuts out other content I’d like be included. Am I missing a straight-forward “ignore tables” option in the formatter?

[mikekaganski]

Have you used a Heading N style for your reference table content, which would be the reason for that (and of course, doing that is wrong conceptually, because table content is not chapter headings)?

[E.T.Smith]

I’m using the default set-up for ToC, barring some font and spacing choices. I’ve seen other answers on similar subjects refer to “Heading N style” but I don’t understand what that means or where it can be altered.