How to increase your attention span?
| By: RiseHow long can you concentrate on a particular task? The amount of time you can focus on a single task or activity is your attention span. It is affected by the way you do things. Short attention span is one of the major roadblocks in achievement of your goals. My attention span is less than half an hour but I want to increase it to atleast 45 minutes. From what I have read till now, it seems that there are many factors that affect our attention span. So to improve it means to improve on many other fronts, which basically help in overall personal development.
Sleep well:
Most of us fail to realize the importance of a good sleep. It is not just a form of rest. It helps our body to perform critical physiological functions. But it is difficult to determine how much sleep your body requires. Every individual has different needs. It doesn’t matter how many hours you sleep. What matters is whether your body is happy with that much amount of sleep or not. If I wake up by myself feeling energetic and enthusiastic for the day, I can say I had a good quality sleep.
Meditate:
Meditation is not a religious practice. It is important to be able to focus on only one thing at a time and meditation helps in doing that. It has spiritual relevance too but let’s not go into that now. I don’t meditate in traditional sense. For me, meditation means to focus on my body and my inner self without thinking of anything else. So, when I exercise all I concentrate on is my body rythm and breathing pattern and that’s meditation for me. Swimming is also an excellent option in which you have to concentrate on your body movements and breathing in order to swim well.
Healthy breakfast:
I read somewhere that the most brain damaging habit is not to have a breakfast. After the overnight fast and lack of glucose in the body, it is imperative to consume some protein and fiber rich food products. When I used to stay with my parents, there was not a single day that I missed my breakfast and all credit goes to my mother. But since I have been staying on my own, I have become more and more negligent. Running our body on low fuel till noon is not good. So, start having a healthy breakfast and get a good start for the day.
Limit TV:
Control your TV watching. If you observe your TV watching habits, you will realize that mostly it is waste of time. But that is not the only problem. All the programmes on TV show ads in every 15 minutes, so it breaks the continuity. Also, most likely you have a TV with a remote controller and your fingers are always playing with it skipping channels and surfing back-n-forth. This increases fidgetiness in your behaviour and it affects other aspects of your life too. I have reduced TV watching by restricting myself to 2 hours of TV per week. And when I want to watch more, I just rent a movie and watch it without a break.
Limit internet use:
This is easy to say but difficult to do. It depends on how much necessary it is for you to be online to get your work done. Most of the time, either I am searching for articles for my research or looking for some solution to software bugs. But now, I have made it a habit to print the article of my interest, leave my cubicle and read it somewhere where I don’t have access to net. But still many times I see myself using refresh button unnecessarily in the middle of some task. I am still looking for efficient ways to reduce the effect of this distraction.
Take time-outs:
Not just simple breaks but rewarding breaks. I reward myself with sunshine by going out for a walk after getting a task done in the lab. Breaks are generally distracting unless they are for a purpose. So, give a purpose to every break even if it is just talking to a colleague or checking your emails. You need to figure out what you need to do in your time-out to get a fulfilling break.
Read books:
Reading definitely increases your attention span. Read what interests you but try to avoid short stories. If I find some interesting novel/book to read, I find myself sitting for 5-6 hours straight without any breaks even if the TV is on.
Get close to nature:
This I accomplish by taking walks during my breaks, or taking a weekend off for some outdoor activity like camping. Attention span is mostly affected by stress, most of which comes from external sources. When you are with nature, you tend to go back into your natural state which is free from any kind of stress, worries or/and anxiety because that’s the way you were born.
Obviously, you can see how the same activities can help in other aspects of your life. We all already know these things but still don’t follow them. Why? Because we don’t assign a goal to them. Without a goal, we cannot measure our development. Here I am targeting to increase the attention span. You will notice the difference if you follow even some of the steps and it will motivate you further. Moreover, you will observe positive effects in other aspects of your personal development.
Want More?:
Somewhat Related Posts:
22 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
Interesting article and aptly written. I like your point on meditation and it’s awesome benefits. In fact I’ve written a ralated article on meditation and can be found at http://radicalhop.com/blog/2006/08/08/you-get-nothing-out-of-meditation/
Hope you like it
[…] How to increase your attention span What did you say? (tags: self_improvement) […]
Great post. Although some of the points are common sense it is easy how so many of us forget these things when we are wrapped up in our own little worlds.
Nice one!
@Rob: Common sense is not so common these days. Things that are common sense to you and/or I might not be for others and vice-versa. So, I would say these are ‘responsibilities’ of every person towards himself/herself. I figured that there are very few things that we need to take care of for our overall development but we are not able to do even that. We need reminders (like this post) for them.
I come back to read this post from time to time as a reminder to myself because I find I am not yet a responsible person I want to be.
Thanks,
I am trying to make a habit of reading a book every week, which is inspried by this article, as reading a book helps in other ways too.So, when I plan to read a book, I have this point too in mind that it will increase my attention plan.
@Naveen:
That’s really good to hear that I could write something that led to ‘action’ by someone
It is very important for us to not just read good stuff but apply them in our lives. ‘Action’ is something we have to work on a lot.
Do let us (I and EB readers) know how it goes.
Great points, especially that meditation doesn’t need to be religious (a point lots of people get hung up on). I’ve written a related article on meditation at http://trevsreviews.com/2006/12/27/secrets-of-meditation-review/
@Trev: True. People hesitate to meditate due to its mysterious link to religious practices. But everyone should realize its benefits towards our mental and physical health.
[…] Right on target John. Infact, these things do a lot more to improve the overall quality of life, for example improve your attention span ( read more in my post http://www.educatedbeing.com/2006/08/08/how-to-increase-your-attention-span/) […]
Great article. I print pages instead of using bookmarks on the internet. This allows me to save them. Sometimes you see something on the Web and then can’t ever find it again.
I have also found that quick thoughts or stories (2 paragaphs) provide a break and can get me thinking again.
That’s true Lewis. Even I face the same problem of not able to find the pages that I bookmarked. May be it is because of the accumulating habit we humans have. Instead of thinking over what we have found, we keep searching more and more.
5-6 hour reading a book? Man I remember those days.
You must not have kids.
Hi Rise,
Yes, I have started reading books…specially non-technical book, and my target is usually one book per week, on weekends.
Great Naveen, I would love to read your reviews/summary of those books. Give us some insight into them.
I agree with you, sleep is ever so important and vital to sustaining attention. See my site http://markspsychiatry.com/ for several posts on sleep.
@Tracey
Sleep has been always underestimated as an important aspect of life. With our ‘busy’ life where we are trying to squeeze as much time as we can to ‘get ahead’, sleep is the one that we compromise most. Your articles have a lot of good advice and I am sure others would also benefit from them.
Good site. I can’t sleep, and I like your advices. thx
Nice tips there. Like the one about Meditation. Definitely something for many people to consider.
Great tips…I think I’ll pass these on to my 8th grade students
Hi,
I agree that meditation can help your concentration and attention span. Also practices such as Reiki, a balanced diet and walking can help this also. I think a combination of lots of things the key to a good attention span.
Nice article, very good down to the point list
Werner
http://www.meditation-and-yoga.com
Wonderful well this reading. More Mr Sparkle send greeting at Japan. LOL