Attention

My Experience

Can you guess the phrase every morning and evening my husband tells me? I hope you didn’t guess “I love you”. No, he doesn’t tell me that. He always tells me to be focused, attentive, and mindful whenever I ask “Can you please tell me my Gmail password, ATM PIN, Amazon prime password, Net banking password, etc”. That day he loudly shouted at me when I said “Can you please search my locker key, I lost it”. He did not help me at all. On top of that, he gave me hundreds of advice. He said, according to Swami Vivekananda “The difference between an ordinary person and a great person lies in the degree of concentration.” With the hope to be a great person, I started searching for ways to improve my concentration. 

Why should someone be attentive?

Here are some reasons why someone needs to be attentive:

1. To learn new things like languages, music notations, poetry recitation, dancing steps, programming languages, cooking new dishes one needs to be attentive.
2. To be concise and avoid irritating everyone.
3. Attended a lecture and couldn’t remember the key details by the time we got home. 
4. From the morning to night we are running to resolve our home’s need, management of our office problems, fulfill our responsibilities. With multitasking and inadequate focus at the end of the day, we are not getting the success we expected.

Definition of attention and inattention

According to modern psychologists, attention is a centralized process of the human mind. The human mind can be compared to one centralized two circles. The small circle is the conscious mind. The big circle is the subconscious mind. A person pays attention to the object that is in the center of the field of consciousness. Now, the problem is when the second object is coming into the center, within a second, he becomes attentive to the second object and inattentive to the first object. This process is happening continuously. That’s why we become inattentive frequently. This is greatly explained in the book titled “Child education and child psychology” by Sushil Roy.

How to be an attentive person?

Some recommended methods:

1. Training of our brain through playing games like sudoku, crossword puzzles, chess, jigsaw puzzles, word searches, and scrambles help us get better at concentrating. Results of a study in 2015, suggests spending 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, on brain training activities can have a big impact on concentration.                   
2. Experts say deep sleep of 7 to 8 hours easily improves concentration.
3. Exercise increases concentration.
4. Spend time in nature, even for just 15 to 20 minutes, boosts our concentration naturally
5. Meditation and mindfulness practices improve concentration.
6. Read books you like.
7. Listen to music
8. Spinach, blueberries, eggs, fatty fish like salmon and trout help to boost concentration.

What am I doing?

I am following most of the points in my way.

1. I am sleeping 8 hours or more.
2. Reading novels and spiritual books by Swami Vivekananda
3. I am doing a single work at a time and paying my hundred person attention to the work. When I eat, I don’t watch TV or do any other work.
4. Regularly sitting silently for some time and trying to understand what is going on in my mind. 
5. Throughout the day I write down the unnecessary thoughts on a paper and before sleeping I tore the paper.

Did I improve?

There is no shortcut way to achieve any good thing. I am on the way and I feel I am improving. Here are  the visible changes:

1. Now I can sit silently for a long time.
2. I can pay attention to each small or big piece of work.
3. My patience increased
4. I listen and give answers to each question of my 7 years old niece and 92 years old grandmother-in-law.
5. I now remember a few important passwords and PINs.

I know you are brilliant in something. Please discover it if not done already. Sharpen your saw daily and rise. Be focused, be confident.