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How To Increase Focus And Energy

Ameliorate your focus and concentration: 15 ways to build your skills

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What is concentration?

Factors affecting concentration

Conditions related to concentration

15 Means to better your concentration

We've all been there: sitting at your desk-bound with an urgent deadline and a wandering mind. Despite your best efforts, things are not progressing.  You demand to focus on the task in front end of you. You're motivated to do it. Just you just can't concentrate.

In this digital globe, we are easily distracted. Information is everywhere and nosotros feel the demand to deal with increasing and multiple forms of information. It drags on our time and our attention.

The disability to concentrate on the task at hand is one of the maladies of our time--everyone wants to know how to focus better, how to concentrate. Yet, the benefits of improving concentration and focus brand it an effect worth addressing.

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What is concentration?

In Volition Power & Cocky Subject area, Remez Sasson wrote that concentration is the ability to direct 1'south attention following one'due south volition. Concentration means control of attending. Information technology is the ability to focus the heed on one subject, object, or thought, and at the aforementioned time exclude from the mind every other unrelated thought, ideas, feelings, and sensations.

That last part is the catchy office for most of united states of america. To concentrate is to exclude, or not pay attending to, every other unrelated idea, idea, feeling, or awareness. To non pay attention to the numbers, beeps, and other indicators that we accept a new message, a new update, a new "like," a new follower!

Our daily routine is dominated by switching in and out of our mobile phones and computer. We go a constant influx of messages from WhatsApp, email, Telegram, and the half-dozen other apps that are somehow critical to our job. We constantly search for data to help solve our daily problems or become our work done.

Frequent distractions bear upon productivity. It takes longer to cease a chore. We don't heed as well. We don't cover things equally well, whether with our partner or with colleagues, and end up in misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and conflict. Information technology affects retention. Nosotros forget things or can't call back information promptly which affects our personal life and professional image.

Factors affecting concentration

Some days it seems similar our concentration is under assail from all sides. In fact, concentration is affected past both internal and external or ecology factors. If you want to learn how to improve focus and retentivity, it helps to sympathize what's getting in the way now.

  • Lark. We are bombarded past a constant flow of information, whether new or sometime,  during the process of doing something. Researchers have found that our brains are so primed for this distraction that just seeing our smartphone impairs our ability to concentrate. We constantly assess whether the information is useful, sufficient, or meaningless. The sheer quantity coming in muddles our cess of whether we really need more information to brand decisions.
  • Bereft slumber. Scientists accept constitute that lack of sleep can lead to lower alertness, slower thought processes, and reduced concentration. You will have more than difficulty focusing your attention and may become confused. As a result, your ability to perform tasks especially relating to reasoning or logic can be seriously afflicted. Chronically poor slumber further affects your concentration and memory. Dr. Allison T. Siebern from the Stanford University Slumber Medicine Centre notes that if you cannot concentrate on what is at hand, it is unlikely to make it to either your short- or long-term memory.
  • Insufficient concrete action. Accept y'all ever noticed how vigorous exercise leaves you feeling more relaxed and energetic throughout the day? When y'all don't do physical activity, your muscles tin can become tense. You may feel tightness in your neck, shoulder, and chest and such persistent, depression-level discomfort can affect your concentration.
  • Eating habits. What we eat contributes to how we feel, including our mental sharpness and clarity, throughout the day. If we don't fuel our brains with the proper nutrients, we start to experience symptoms like memory loss, fatigue, and lack of concentration. Low-fat diets can ruin focus considering the encephalon needs certain essential fatty acids. Other restrictive diets may negatively bear upon concentration by not providing the nutrients the encephalon needs or by creating hunger, cravings, or feeling of unwellness in the body that are themselves distracting.
  • Surroundings. Depending on what you are doing, the surround tin touch your focus. Manifestly, a dissonance level that is also loud is a problem, but many people also have difficulty concentrating when it is too quiet. Information technology isn't just the overall noise level but the type of noise that matters: the high-free energy, anonymous hum of a coffee shop might bring focus while the overheard conversation of ii co-workers derails information technology. A favorite song quickly has you singing along, happily distracted, while less distinct instrumentals might keep y'all attuned to the task. Lighting that is too bright or too dim can affect your vision. A room that is too hot or too cold creates discomfort.

All of these elements can bear upon your concentration. Happily, they are as well all addressable.

Weather related to concentration

If y'all ofttimes can't focus your thoughts and are experiencing ongoing concentration difficulties, it may indicate a cerebral, medical, psychological, lifestyle, or environmental cause. Depending on the cause, you may take to temporarily accept that your concentration is low and learn a few tricks to reduce the impact or have the dips as they come. If you demand help with concentration and think your difficulties go beyond the list above, consult with a professional.

Possible broader conditions include:

Cerebral. Your concentration may decrease if you find yourself forgetting things easily. Your retentiveness sometimes fails you, you misplace articles, and take difficulty remembering things that occurred a short time ago. Another way your concentration may be cognitively dumb is if yous find that your mind is overactive constantly thinking of multiple things due to concerns or important events. When thoughts and issues intrude in your mind, enervating attention, it prevents constructive concentration.

Psychological. When you lot are depressed and feeling down, it is difficult to focus. Similarly, when yous are recovering from the loss of a loved one during bereavement or are experiencing anxiety, you lot may have difficulty focusing on a single chore.

Medical. Medical conditions similar diabetes, hormonal imbalances, and low reddish blood cell count tin can touch on our concentration. Some medication as well makes you drowsy or bleary and severely impair concentration.

Environs. Poor working conditions, shared spaces, and intense or negative work dynamics may as well contribute to a lack of concentration. When we are experiencing exhaustion or stress from piece of work or personal life, we will find it difficult to concentrate due to emotional burnout. Similarly, the environment tin can create discomfort to our trunk with furnishings that we're aware of (oestrus, light, noise) and others that don't fully annals (tension, negativity, monitoring)..

Lifestyle. Fatigue, hunger, and dehydration can derail concentration. Lifestyles that involve likewise many missed meals, rich foods, or excessive alcohol consumption can challenge our memory and power to concentrate and focus.

fifteen Ways to improve your concentration

Now y'all know why you lot need aid with concentration. What tin help you to focus amend? There's no one answer for how to meliorate focus, but the post-obit tips can aid.

  1. Eliminate distractions. How practice nosotros focus improve if we are e'er bombarded with information? Make a practice to block time in your schedule to exercise a specific task or activity. During this time, request that you be left alone or get to a identify where others are unlikely to disturb you: a library, a coffee store, a individual room.

    Shut social media and other apps, silence notifications, and keep your phone hidden from sight in a handbag or backpack. Equally described in HBR, researchers found that cognitive capacity was significantly ameliorate when the phone was out of sight, not just turned off. Keep Your primary focus is to complete what you lot need to do. Shutting off both internal and external disturbances tin aid you to concentrate.

  2. Reduce multitasking. Attempting to perform multiple activities at the same time makes us experience productive. It's besides a recipe for lower focus, poor concentration, and lower productivity. And lower productivity tin can lead to exhaustion. Examples of multitasking include listening to a podcast while responding to an email or talking to someone over the telephone while writing your report. Such multitasking not simply hampers your ability to focus but compromises your work quality.

  3. Practice mindfulness and meditation. Meditating or practicing mindfulness activities can strengthen well-being and mental fettle and better focus. During the meditation process, our encephalon becomes calmer and our whole body becomes more than relaxed. Nosotros focus on our breath during the process and so that we will not be distracted past our minds. With practice, we tin learn to use our breath to bring our attention dorsum to a particular task and so that information technology can exist done well even if we become interrupted.

  4. Get more sleep. Many factors affect your sleep. I of the most common is reading from an electronic device like a computer, telephone, or tablet or watching your favorite flick or TV show on an LED TV but earlier bedtime. Enquiry has shown that such devices emit lite towards the blue end of the spectrum. Such light will stimulate your middle retina and prevent the secretion of melatonin that promotes sleep anticipation in the encephalon. Utilise a filter or "blue lite" spectacles to minimize such bluish calorie-free or avoid all electronic devices before bed. Other ways to improve sleep include avoiding exercise late in the mean solar day, staying hydrated throughout the solar day, using journaling or animate exercises to repose the mind, and creating a predictable bedtime routine and schedule.

  5. Choose to focus on the moment. It might experience counterintuitive when you feel unable to concentrate, merely remember that you choose where you focus. It's tough to concentrate when your listen is always in the past and worrying about the future. While it isn't easy, make an endeavour to let go of past events. Acknowledge the impact, what you felt, and what you learned from it, then let information technology become. Similarly, acknowledge your concerns near the futurity, consider how you are experiencing that anxiety in your body, and so cull to let it get. We want to train our mental resources to focus on the details of what matters at the moment. Our minds go in the direction we choose to focus.

  6. Take a short suspension. This also might seem counterintuitive, but when you focus on something for a long fourth dimension, your focus may brainstorm to die downwardly. Yous may feel more and more than difficulty devoting your attention to the task.

    Researchers have found that our brains tend to ignore sources of abiding stimulation. Taking very pocket-size breaks by refocusing your attention elsewhere tin dramatically improve mental concentration afterward that. The next time y'all are working on a projection, take a pause when you begin to feel stuck. Move around, talk to someone, or even switch to a different type of task. You will come back with a more focused mind to continue your operation high.

  7. Connect with nature. Research has found that fifty-fifty having plants in office spaces can help increase concentration and productivity, too every bit workplace satisfaction and better air quality. Finding fourth dimension to take a walk in the park or appreciating the plants or flowers in your garden can heave your concentration and help you lot experience refreshed.

  8. Train your brain. Scientific enquiry is starting to amass show on the power of brain training activities to enhance cognitive abilities, including concentration, in adults. Such brain training games tin as well aid yous develop your working and short-term memory, also as your processing and problem-solving skills. Examples of such games include jigsaw puzzles, sudoku, chess, and brain-stimulating video games.

  9. Practise. Start your twenty-four hour period with simple exercise and get your torso moving. According to the May 2022 upshot of the Harvard Men'south Health Watch, regular exercise releases chemicals key for memory, concentration, and mental sharpness. Other enquiry found that practice can boost the encephalon'due south dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin levels and all these volition affect focus and attending. Individuals who practice some grade of exercise or sports perform better on cognitive tasks when compared with those who have poor concrete wellness. Physical movement helps relax the muscles and relieve tension in the body. Since the body and mind are so closely linked, when your body feels better then, likewise, will your mind.

  10. Heed to music. Music has been shown to accept therapeutic effects on our brains. Calorie-free music may help you to concentrate better, but some music may distract you. Experts more often than not agree that classical music and nature sounds, such as h2o flowing, are expert choices for concentration while music with lyrics and man voices may be distracting. Multiple apps and services offer background music and soundscapes designed for different types of focus and work needs.

  11. Swallow well. Choose foods that moderate blood sugar, maintain free energy, and fuel the brain. Fruits, vegetables, and high-cobweb foods tin keep your claret sugar levels fifty-fifty.  Reduce sugary foods and drinks that cause spikes and dips in your sugar levels make you feel giddy or drowsy.

    Your brain needs lots of good fatty to role properly. Basics, berries, avocados, and coconut oil are all great ways to go healthy fats into your nutrition and help your brain run more smoothly. The science on Inquiry has found that foods like blueberries can boost concentration and retention for upwards to five hours later on consumption due to an enzyme that stimulates the period of oxygen and blood to the brain, helping with memory as well as our power to focus and learn new information. Leafy green vegetables such as spinach contain potassium which accelerates the connections between neurons and can make our encephalon more responsive.

  12. Set up a daily priority. Write down what you desire to attain each day, ideally the night earlier, and identify a unmarried priority that yous commit to accomplishing. This volition help focus your brain on what matters, tackling the big jobs first and leaving the small stuff till later. Break large tasks into smaller bytes so that you will not be overwhelmed. Identifying true priorities tin can help salve distracting anxiety, and achieving small daily goals can wire your brain to attain success.

  13. Create space for work. Create a at-home, dedicated space for work, if possible. Not everyone tin accept a well-appointed office, only desk organizers, dissonance-canceling headphones, an adjustable monitor, and adjustable lighting can help. Clear clutter out of sight, brand it equally ergonomic and comfy as possible, and try to continue your space groovy and ventilated.

  14. Use a timer. Railroad train your encephalon to hyper-focus on a job by using a timer or telephone alarm. First, decide what task yous want to consummate. Set your timer for 20 minutes (more often than not not more than xxx minutes) and concentrate on the task. When the alarm rings take a short break for v minutes. You can either take a walk and practice some stretching practice, then reset the timer and start once again. This technique has shown to be constructive to amend your concentration.

  15. Switch tasks. While we may desire to concentrate on a particular task, sometimes we get stuck and our brain needs something fresh to focus on. Try switching to other tasks or something you love to do. Switching tasks tin can help you lot stay warning and productive for a longer period.

Learning how to better concentration is non something you can reach overnight. Professional person athletes like golfers, sprinters, gymnasts take plenty of time to practice (and usually have a charabanc) so that they can concentrate and become the right move at the right moment to achieve excellence.

The commencement footstep to strengthen your concentration is to recognize how it is affecting your life. If y'all are struggling to come across commitments, constantly sidetracked past the unimportant, or not moving toward your aspirations, information technology is time to get help with concentration and so that you can focus on what matters most to y'all.

Learning how to concentrate at piece of work is essential for succeeding in your career and life. Past improving your concentration, you lot will find that you can accomplish more of what you value and feel improve doing it. It'southward not just about accomplishing tasks but most making time for joy and happiness so that you can achieve a meaningful and satisfying life.

strengthen well-being - coaching for individuals

Published February 3, 2022

Sam Chia

BetterUp Fellow Coach, PCC, MBA, FCCA, FCA

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Source: https://www.betterup.com/blog/15-ways-to-improve-your-focus-and-concentration-skills

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