Increasing Concentration
In today’s time, when there are so many things to do and so many responsibilities to take care of, it has become difficult to fasten our mind to one particular task for long. It might be due to the lack of concentration and wandering mind. Concentration is all about paying attention and giving your hundred percent to whatever you do. How often are we completely involved in one particular task before we divert our thinking to a different direction completely? Not very often. It is absolutely essential to exercise our mind to improve the concentration levels. Whether it is memorizing new facts, recalling old experiences and being involved in a task with the aim of completing it—low concentration levels can prove to be a great hindrance. So invest your time in sharpening your mind and find out other useful ways of improving concentration and productivity. Discussed below are some ways in which you can achieve this.
How To Improve Concentration And Focus
Your concentration levels are influenced by the power of your brain along with the kind of surroundings you are in. Working on both enhancing your mind and the environment can help in being a more attentive person.
Meditation
Meditation is not just about sitting there and doing nothing. The old custom has actually proven to improve the strength of the mind. Mindfulness meditation helps improve the insight and awareness of a person. A few minutes in the morning and a few minutes before going to bed everyday should really help in improving the focus and memory. Not only indulged into by Buddhist monks, meditation has become popular because of its advantages like these.
Sleep And Adequate Rest
If you think you can afford to cut down on the sleep and rest to avoid wasting time, then your putting the quality of your work at stake. I’m sure at some point or other you would have experienced a bad examination or test because you didn’t sleep well. Or you would have been in a different world where unicorns existed because you spent the night trying to get some sleep on a crummy mattress, but in vain. Being mentally focused not only becomes difficult but becomes impossible when one is sleep deprived. So pay attention to your sleep and catch up on some hours when you really need to be fresh and focused.
Mind Powering Games
There are many games that help enhance the memory and help improve concentration. Brain games like memory tiles help the person stay alert, and many others like checkers and chess for instance ensure that a person’s complete attention is drawn towards a particular direction. Along with being fun, brain games are a good exercise to improve the concentration. So toss those concentration levels higher with some interesting brain games.
Food And Supplements
As the saying goes “You are what you eat”. Brain food which release a lot of antioxidants are good for the mind. Bananas, blueberries, salmon, milk, almonds, flax seed, eggs are among those foods that help enhance the concentration powers. Multivitamins consumed everyday also work towards boosting those brain powers and drinking lots of water and staying hydrated helps elevate the performance levels. So keep a close watch on what you eat, as this makes a lot of difference.
Do One Thing At A Time
Doing one thing at a time helps focus your energies towards that task completely. This does not mean if you are studying physics you do not look at sociology for the next one week. Studying physics, listening to Beatles while chatting with your best friend is what we are talking about. You won’t be doing justice to any of the tasks, and physics might just become history!
Jot Down The Distractions
Many a times little but important chores pop up in our mind amidst important tasks. You might remember to collect your laundry, pay your phone bill, or pay the library fines while you are praying: a time when the most amount of concentration is needed. So jotting down these timely errands wards the mind of and helps us focus on what we are doing at that moment.
Set Goals For Yourself
By setting goals for yourself and promising rewards you are likely to vigilantly concentrate in order to achieve the target. It can be anything. Tell yourself you won’t have another bar of galaxy or play another game of hangman until you review the next five papers. These kinds of self rewards always prove to be very motivating.
Switch Between Tasks
Concentrating on a heavy duty task and then shifting to another intensive piece of work can really tire the mind. So, if you’re working on your research paper for a few hours you can shift to reviewing your spelling later on for a while. This will most likely play fair on your brains.
Get Rid Of The Nuisances
If there are some deliberate nuisances that are just not allowing you to concentrate then get rid of them before you start doing anything. Switch of the ringer of your phone. Wear earphones or a headset, as this gives the idea that you are on the phone and you are less likely to be disturbed by the annoying colleagues. Log out of facebook and twitter and turn off that background radio too.
Improving concentration is the first step towards improving memory hence making utmost use of your brain. Greater concentration gives us greater inner strength and a feeling of being strong and powerful. So indulge into working your way to focus better.
