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I want to get healthier. Close Health Alerts from Harvard Medical School Get helpful tips and guidance for everything from fighting inflammation to finding the best diets for weight loss Close Stay on top of latest health news from Harvard Medical School. Sign me up. This suggests that deliberately letting your mind off the hook now and again might pay dividends.
Giving yourself permission to think about anything but work not only takes the guilt out of mind wandering, it also helps tick a few things off the mental to-do list that caused the mind wandering in the first place. Credit: Alamy. Funny cat videos are often seen as the ultimate distraction for procrastinators, but some psychologists think that they might actually help put us in the right mental state to get on with work.
This is because, no matter how much you love your job, staying focused on something difficult requires willpower. According to a recent study, a good way to boost your reserves of willpower is to have a good laugh. In experiments, people who had watched a funny video tried longer and harder to complete an impossible puzzle than a control group of people who watched a video that was relaxing but not funny. To concentrate properly you must get rid of all external distractions, right?
Actually, according to one influential theory of attention, the opposite is true. It works because once all the perceptual slots have been taken up, the brain has to pour all its energies into focusing on the most important task. Distractions simply get screened out. The problem with putting this into practice, however, is finding the right kind of distraction and keeping it on the right side of being overwhelming. There are a few apps, such as ommwriter or focus will , that add visual or musical distractions to order, but so far none have been tested in scientific studies and may be no better than putting the radio on.
Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Staying on task can be difficult, but it can be particularly challenging when you are surrounded by constant distraction.
In today's always-connected world, diversions are nothing more than a click away. Even during quiet moments, distraction is literally at your fingertips as you find yourself checking your Instagram notifications or the latest news updates.
The ability to concentrate on something in your environment and direct mental effort toward it is critical for learning new things, achieving goals , and performing well across a wide variety of situations. Whether you are trying to finish a report at work or competing in a marathon, your ability to focus can mean the difference between success and failure.
Fortunately, focus is a lot like a mental muscle. The more you work on building it up, the stronger it gets. Improving your mental focus is achievable, but that doesn't mean that it's always quick and easy.
If it was simple, then we would all have the razor-sharp concentration of an elite athlete. It will take some real effort on your part and you may have to make some changes to some of your daily habits. Here are some tips and tricks from psychology that can help you develop laser-like mental focus and concentration. Before you start working toward improving your mental focus, you might want to begin by assessing just how strong your mental focus is at the present moment.
If the first set of statements seems more your style, then you probably already have fairly good concentration skills, but you could be even stronger with a little practice. If you identify more with the second set of statements, then you probably need to work on your mental focus quite a bit.
It might take some time, but practicing some good habits and being mindful of your distractibility can help. While it may sound obvious, people often underestimate just how many distractions prevent them from concentrating on the task at hand. Such intrusions might come in the form of a radio blaring in the background or perhaps an obnoxious co-worker who constantly drops by your cubicle to chat.
Minimizing these sources of distraction isn't always as easy as it sounds. While it might be as simple as turning off the television or radio, you might find it much more challenging to deal with an interrupting co-worker, spouse, child, or roommate.
One way to deal with this is to set aside a specific time and place and request to be left alone for that period of time. Another alternative is to seek out a calm location where you know you will be able to work undisturbed. Occasional sleep deprivation may not cause too many problems for you. Being too tired can even slow down your reflexes and affect your ability to drive or do other daily tasks. A demanding schedule, health issues, and other factors sometimes make it difficult to get enough sleep.
You can find more tips on healthy sleep habits here. Increased concentration is among the many benefits of regular exercise. Exercise benefits everyone. A study looking at fifth-graders found evidence to suggest daily physical activity could help improve both concentration and attention after just 4 weeks.
Other research looking at older adults suggests just a year of moderate aerobic physical activity can help stop or even reverse memory loss that occurs with brain atrophy related to age. Although aerobic exercise is recommended, doing what you can is better than doing nothing at all.
Depending on your personal fitness and weight goals, you may want to exercise more or less. Ask yourself:. If you can, try getting exercise right before you really need to focus or when taking a mental break. If you want to boost your concentration naturally, try to get outside every day, even for just 15 to 20 minutes. You might take a short walk through a park. Sitting in your garden or backyard can also help. Any natural environment has benefits.
Scientific evidence increasingly supports the positive impact of natural environments. Research from found evidence to suggest including plants in office spaces helped increase concentration and productivity, as well as workplace satisfaction and air quality. Try adding a plant or two to your workspace or home for a range of positive benefits. Children benefit from natural environments, too. Research published in followed over 1, children from birth to age 7.
The study hoped to determine how lifelong exposure to trees and greenery at home or in the neighborhood might affect attention in children. The study found evidence to suggest natural environments could benefit brain development and may also improve attention in children. Nature may have even more benefit for children with ADHD. A study that looked at 17 children with ADHD found evidence that a minute walk in the park could help improve concentration more than a walk of the same length in an urban setting.
Meditation and mindfulness practices can offer multiple benefits. Improved concentration is only one of these. A review of 23 studies found evidence to suggest mindfulness training that emphasizes attention focus could help increase attention and focus.
Mindfulness can also improve memory and other cognitive abilities. Yoga , deep breathing, and many other activities can help you meditate. How can taking a break from work or homework increase your concentration? This idea might seem counterintuitive, but experts say it really works.
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