Focus refers to your ability to concentrate and direct your attention towards something. The more focused you are on something, the greater your chances of succeeding at it. Focus is an essential part of life, be it in school, work, business, etc. Unfortunately, focusing on something can be difficult considering the hustle and bustle of everyday life causing all sorts of distractions.

 

 

It’s been said that an average human has a concentration span of eight seconds. This is a scary statistic, but all is not lost. Here are some ways you could sharpen your focus:

1. Try Supplements

Healthy supplements such as and similar products could help improve your brain functions and sharpen your concentration. However, you should remember to consult a health care expert before taking new supplements. This will help you to avoid possible issues such as allergies or overdosage.

 Train Your Brain: 8 Ways to Sharpen Your Focus

2. Do One Thing At A Time

Just like with anything else, practice makes perfect. If you want to sharpen your mind, you have to practice your concentration by doing one thing at a time. To do this, you have to harness your awareness and keep it on the thing you’ve set out to focus on.

For example: if you’re talking to someone, you have to concentrate on what they are saying. If you’re working on something at the moment, you might miss parts of the conversation because you are trying to divide your attention between the person you’re talking to and the task you’re working on.

While multi-tasking is good, you should try to concentrate on one thing at a time, especially if attention to detail is important. Performing too many tasks at the same time requires practice, and until then, you’d want to start out with a few simultaneous activities as possible.

 

3. Practice Pre-Commitment

When you pre-commit to something, you decide to undertake a commitment or a task. Once you have resolved to do it, you can set a deadline to complete the task. One simple way of practicing pre-commitment is by writing down what you intend to do and the time you want to complete the task.

Try and focus on that one task by bringing all your attention to it. Don’t allow anything else to occupy your mind during this time. Again, because practice makes perfect, you’ll have trained your brain to commit to whatever you set out to do.

 

4. Sharpen Your Focus Gradually

When you go to the gym, you don’t start by lifting the heaviest weights. Instead, you gradually increase the weights and reps as you go. Likewise, when you’re practicing how to sharpen your focus, you have to do it slowly; otherwise, you may end up failing too soon and getting discouraged. Some recommend starting out by focusing for five minutes at a time, then adding five more minutes the next time around. This could efficiently increase the amount of time you can focus on things.

Train Your Brain: 8 Ways to Sharpen Your Focus

5. Avoid Potential Distractions 

Before you concentrate on something, think about all the possible distractions you could face and find different ways of minimizing these distractions. For example, if you think your phone might distract you when you’re working on something, you could switch it off or limit the notifications to all but the most important messages or calls. If, on the other hand, you think people might distract you, you could avoid them by looking for a quiet place to work. If you think you’re easily distracted by background noises, then you could use noise cancellation headphones. In any situation, find ways of dealing with possible distractions before they take your focus from the task at hand.

 

6. Meditate 

Meditation has been shown to help with sharpening concentration. It’s believed that people who meditate are usually better at controlling their minds when focusing on something. If you don’t know how to meditate, you could check out some online videos before you get started. Alternatively, you could employ the services of a professional.

 

7. Take Regular Breaks

It’s been said that your cognitive abilities could begin to fail after focusing on the same task for a while. This is why you should take a break every few hours by doing something else or focusing on a different task to avoid monotony. This will help ‘keep you on your toes so to speak, and you are less likely to get bored or exhausted.

Other ways of taking a break include:

  • Moving about: this is believed to help improve your blood flow to clear your mind.
  • Doing some yoga pauses: this is believed to help calm your mind.
  • Drinking some water: it’s has been said that dehydration may cause loss of concentration.
  • Making a cup of coffee: caffeine is said to help boost your brain energy.

Try any of these and see how it goes.

Train Your Brain: 8 Ways to Sharpen Your Focus

8. Get Enough Sleep

Getting enough sleep has been said to help the brain process information more effectively. This is why it’s highly recommended to make sure you sleep about seven to eight hours every day. On the other hand, not getting enough sleep prevents the brain from getting enough rest, resulting in poorer cognitive abilities and higher chances of getting distracted when performing tasks.

 

 

Conclusion

If you can’t focus properly, you won’t be able to achieve your full potential. On the other hand, working on improving your concentration allows you to perform tasks more effectively and even allows more room for personal growth. Follow the seven tips mentioned above and you won’t regret it.

 

What are your tips for training your brain? 

Share your thoughts and comments with us.

 

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