10 minutes to change your life: How to increase focus & concentration

10 minutes to change your life:

How to increase focus & concentration*

INCLUDES A FREE PDF & MINDFULNESS VIDEOS*

What do CEOs in Fortune 500 companies, F1 world champion team leaders, athletes and scientists all have in common?

Meditation

Science is catching up on what monks have been practicing for hundreds of years and here’s why.

My personal journey

For many people, including myself, you get to a point where you become bogged down with life’s daily tasks. The mundane becomes a chore and the thrill lay in the adventure that soon becomes sporadic. The hours at work now become a clock watching activity or you become so inundated with things to do the days fly by!

I noticed when my energy became drained and my ability to focus on tasks became a daily grind. I was suffering both physically and mentally and I was falling into a black hole relying on afternoon caffeine and sugary sweets for the remedy and boost to keep me alert and attentive. As soon as I got home, I fell into an exhaustive state, as soon as my head hit the pillow, I’d be asleep. Usually a great sleeper, the first thing I noticed when I became more anxious and stressed was the difficulty in getting quality sleep. The tension and anxiety in my waking life began to take its toll. As half the world slows down, I lay in the dark wide awake with no distractions. I would lay awake at ungodly hours, thinking about what I could have done differently at work that day. I would contemplate what I needed to do for the day, or weeks that ahead. This chatter constantly ebbed and flowed like ocean waves during the early hours. My brain was sending rescue flame signals to my body, and I wasn’t able to figure out a solution, until it was too late.

I was suffering from lack of focus, attention, and extreme exhaustion during the day but nothing changed until I reached a breaking point when I simply couldn’t function. No matter how little I did during the weekends it didn’t provide me with enough time to replenish my resources. I tried many things and failed, but THE ONE thing I hadn’t tried was meditation.

I began putting on some calming music before bed, it was an aim to distract my constant flow of thoughts in attempt to slow down before bed. The intention was that when I would awake during the early hours, the music would still be playing. This was specifically orchestrated so that when I would wake up, I tried to mimic the same feeling before I had gone to bed the night before. This became the catalyst to my night-time routine. The music, in combination with the deliberate intention to focus on slowing down my breath and lengthening my exhales, would eventually lull me back to sleep. Overtime, the gap between the hours I lay awake reduced. My overall state of tension, stress and anxiety reduced overtime too. During this new habit formation, I began to notice the side effects of mediation. Not only was I able to be more present in my daily life, but I also observed the ways in which I would deal with real life scenarios. I began being deliberate in the present moments and my responses would be intentional rather than my previous reactive actions. The quality of sleep began to improve as did my attention, focus, and memory too! So was it down to the quality of sleep or was it the meditation?

What’s the evidence?

A study from students in New York found 10-15 minutes of meditation can boost the brain’s ability to concentrate on tasks. Binghamton University found a change in brain patterns including the brain’s ability to switch faster between states of consciousness (where the mind wanders) and the state in which it is focused.

Concentration is a fundamental principle for self-growth.

In a Harvard study, an 8-week mindfulness course made measurable changes in the brain. Particularly those areas associated with memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress.

Mediation also supports the brain

overcome depression and anxiety.

In fact, mediation produces changes to the brain’s gray-matter. Meditation brings a sense of calmness and peacefulness, but it also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist days and weeks after! The reduction in stress can be seen in the decreased gray-matter density around the amygdala. This is an important area as it plays a significant role in anxiety and stress. Not only do we improve the brain’s plasticity, but the threat centre also (where the amygdala sits) reduces in volume. Therefore, we will function and feel better! Our concentration, mood and memory increases and we are overall much healthier 😊

 

Improving quality of life, really is a no-brainer! Science has validated those who work in corporate environments have shown to increase focus and reduce the mind wandering by 14 per cent!

Improving quality of life, really is a no-brainer!

For ways to improve your focus, concentrate and attention follow the links below to practice mindfulness and enhance your performance throughout your day.

Back to Basics – Mindfulness 1 : Breath

Back to Basics – Mindfulness 2: Focused Attention

Back to Basics – Mindfulness 3: Intention

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References:

Son, J. V., Nyklicek, I., Pop, V. J., Blonk, M. C., Erdtsieck, R. J., Spooren, P. F., . . . Pouwer, F. (2012). The Effects of a Mindfulness-Based Intervention on Emotional Distress, Quality of Life, and HbA1c in Outpatients With Diabetes (DiaMind): A randomized controlled trial. Diabetes Care,36(4), 823-830. doi:10.2337/dc12-1477

Levy, D. M., Wobbrock, J. O., Kaszniak, A. W., & Ostergren, M. (2012, May). The effects of mindfulness meditation training on multitasking in a high-stress information environment.

In Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2012 (pp. 45-52). Canadian Information Processing Society.

Psychiatric Neuroimaging Division (massgeneral.org)

Justus Liebig University Giessen (uni-giessen.de)