Mindfulness practice for focus
Attention control is an essential element for time management and productivity. And, of course, being able to power through your to-do list in record time is a great stress reliever. To stay focused, you need to avoid letting distractions derail your goals.
Mindfulness meditation can be a valuable technique for focusing your attention. Mindfulness is a state of full awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and experiences as they happen. Research has found improvement in attention, memory, mood, and emotional regulation after just eight weeks of relatively short daily mindfulness sessions.
Focused attention (FA) meditation
This meditation style involves keeping your attention focused on a particular object or sensation, such as the sensation of air flowing in and out of your nostrils as you breathe. To sustain this focus, you must constantly monitor the quality of your attention. If your mind begins to wander, identify the source of the distraction, then return your attention to your focal point. For example, if you note that your attention has shifted from your breathing to a pain in your knee, "release" the distraction from your thoughts and return to the awareness of your breathing.
As you hone your FA meditation skills, it becomes easier to detect distractions and quickly return to your object of focus. Eventually, maintaining concentration becomes virtually effortless. In everyday life, this translates into an improved ability to direct your attention to information relevant to your goals and maintain this focus even when faced with competing input. It also helps you switch between tasks without becoming distracted.
Open monitoring (OM) meditation
This is a more advanced meditation practice in which you allow your attention to flow from moment to moment without focusing on any particular object or sensation. The process helps you to disengage from distractions and immerse yourself instead of observing an ongoing stream of experience.
The goal of OM is to gain a clear awareness of the aspects of your mental life that are usually hidden. By training your brain in this way, you can better observe and modify your thinking patterns and emotional habits. As a result, you're able to act intentionally rather than reactively.
For more information on conquering distractions and finding focus, check out Improving Concentration and Focus , an online guide from Harvard Medical School.
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