Six Ways on How To Boost Your Concentration And Attention Span?
Every day, there are more and more distractions. According to data acquired from over 50,000 users, consumers check their email or SMS every six minutes on average during working hours. Each audible notification from a phone has been shown in studies to increase the release of cortisol (the stress hormone) in our bodies. The cumulative effect of these micro-doses degrades our health, causing us to function under great internal strain and with attentional impairments.
Instead of focusing on new ways to improve our performance in the short term, consider essential habits that will help you improve your performance over time by making intentional judgments about where to focus your attention and concentration. There are six alternative approaches you can take.
Keep your attention on a single task.
In the 1990s, Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris conducted an experiment called “The Monkey Business Illusion,” which found that more than half of those counting the number of passes between players failed to see the figure of the gorilla moving between the players. The experiment was repeated several times later using a similar mechanism, with similar results. This means that we eliminate other parts of the environment by determining what is significant to us. We can boost our effectiveness by reducing distractions by intentionally exploiting this brain characteristic.
Observe the activity-rest intervals.
Ernest L. Rossi gives an intriguing model of the activity-rest cycle in his book The 20-Minute Break. It turns out that working in intervals yields the best results: 90 minutes of intellectual effort followed by 20 minutes of rest. Of course, it’s important to realize that each of us has unique tastes and options for shaping our day’s activities. As a result, rather than keeping rigidly to the 90-20 model, it’s important altering the times to your working manner while retaining the activity-rest cycle philosophy.
Turn off your computer.
In a study done at the University of California, Irvine, researchers tracked employees’ productivity and looked at the impact of taking breaks on job quality. Breaks connected to the work turned out to have a positive impact on the final performance. Breaks that were not related to the task, on the other hand, necessitated a shift in thinking, leaving one task and entering another. Another change is returning to the job at hand. After a break, the average time to return to the same level of task involvement was over 23 minutes in the study group. This means that if we are interrupted three times while working on a conceptual project, we may lose more than an hour.
As a result, going offline when conducting conceptual work by switching the phone to airplane mode, turning off email and other notifications on the laptop, and spending as much attention as possible on the subject at hand is one of the most often suggested strategies to boost personal efficiency.
Apply a timer to keep track of your progress.
When faced with a difficult assignment, we procrastinate instead of completing it. We clean up our desks and take care of lesser priority duties, telling ourselves that we’re making a place for what’s important while diverting our attention away from what’s vital. A timer is an excellent tool for developing the habit of self-discipline and active self-regulation at work. It allows us to put a time limit on the work at hand and keep track of how much time has passed. It acts as an external watchdog, ensuring that our attention does not wander for too long and that we return to our current priority.
Meditation is a good thing to do.
Anyone should be able to find one minute to take a break. A minute spent practicing mindfulness, on the other hand, can provide numerous advantages, ranging from improved attention to speedier relaxation. Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson explore the long-term impacts of meditation on our body and mind in their book Altered Traits. It turns out that regular meditation practice can permanently alter brain regions connected with traits like attention, anxiety, melancholy, fear, and rage, as well as the body’s ability to heal itself. To get started, you don’t need much. Simply sit in silence, close your eyes, and focus on the sensations in your body linked with inhalation and expiration for one minute. You can lessen tension, think logically, and increase the emotional distance from unpredictable occurrences through systematic practice.
You can also go with various resources on meditation online to start applying how to boost your focus and attention span.
Take a walk.
When we are feeling overwhelmed by our thoughts, one of the nicest things we can do is go for a stroll. Many experiments have demonstrated that people perform better on memory and attention tests after or during exercise, even relatively mild activity, according to Ferris Jabr’s article in the New Yorker. Walking regularly promotes the formation of new connections between brain cells, slows the aging of brain tissue, increases the volume of the hippocampus (a memory-enhancing region of the brain), and raises levels of molecules that both stimulate the growth of new neurons and transmit messages between them. As a result, if you want to order your thoughts, go for a stroll, remembering that if you want to speed up, slow down for a bit.
Don’t neglect the replenishment of your body’s mental and energetic resources through exercise, deep sleep, and active rest when addressing focus. A high level of emotional self-awareness and self-control in managing your daily decisions can help you re-energize internal resources and stay focused despite the daily distractions.
Passionate Writer, Blogger and Amazon Affiliate Expert since 2014.
