Lack of Concentration 10 Tips to Improve It

In this article I will explain how to improve lack of concentration in children, adolescents, adults and the elderly. If you have concentration problems and practice them you will see good results.

Do you have concentration problems and it is difficult for you to keep your attention on the tasks you do? Possibly, this is because you do not follow the correct guidelines to be able to concentrate properly.

If you find it difficult to concentrate, it will surely not be due to lack of desire. It may be that you try to concentrate many times during the day but you are not quite able to do it and you are easily distracted.

This happens because concentrating is not an easy task. It is not enough to stick your elbows on the table and wait for concentration to come to us.

And it is that concentration should not be expected, it must be acquired little by little, and it requires certain guidelines and strategies to be effective..

Exercises to solve concentration problems

Energize your brain

The first and main advice you should follow if you want to be able to concentrate is to watch your diet so that your brain does not lack energy when it goes to work.

This does not mean that you have to follow "the diet of concentration" or that you have to eat only certain foods, but you do have to take certain aspects into consideration:

1. Your brain consumes a lot of energy, do not make it work fasting or having just had a coffee. If you do it, it will cost you much more to concentrate, since your brain will look for the necessary energy to do it and will not find it.
2. Try not to overeat before concentrating. If you eat a lot, your body will spend a lot of energy metabolizing food and digesting it, so there will be less left for your brain. 
3. Try to include foods such as: dairy, white meat, legumes, pasta, rice, fish, vegetables, fruit, and nuts in your usual diet.
4. Avoid consuming excessively foods that are detrimental to brain activity such as high doses of sugar, saturated fat, alcohol, and sugary sodas.
5. Have a full breakfast to start the day with energy: a glass of milk, a whole wheat toast with a slice of ham and a piece of fruit, and hydrate yourself well throughout the day.

In this article you have a list of foods good for the brain.

Give your brain a break

Just as important as giving your brain energy is giving it the necessary rest, and to do so, having slept well is essential. During sleep your nervous system acquires the necessary balance to be able to function properly.

If you don't get enough sleep, your brain will be tired, you may wake up in a bad mood, and have difficulty staying awake and attentive throughout the day, so concentrating will be practically impossible..

So, try to have a minimum of 7 hours of deep sleep a day and your brain will be fully prepared to get to work and you will concentrate more easily..

Train your concentration

If you have trouble concentrating, you shouldn't forget that concentration is like a muscle, and you can train and improve it through different exercises. Concentration is a mental capacity closely linked to your habits, so if you want to develop optimal concentration, you should exercise it often..

There are a wide variety of exercises that you can do daily or periodically to improve your concentration..

From mindfulness exercises to relaxation exercises, through conscious observation or mental imagery. In this article you can learn 10 exercises to improve your concentration.

Take a moment before concentrating

At times when you need a high level of concentration such as in an exam, when you study or before an important meeting, it is recommended that you spend a couple of minutes beforehand to activate your concentration.

To do this you can do this exercise:

1. Remember a time in your past when you experienced maximum concentration
2. Try to vividly remember all the details: what you saw, heard, felt, smelled, etc..
3. Close your eyes and imagine that you are reliving it, with all those details.
4. Do this exercise for about 4-5 minutes and you will be ready for your concentration to work properly..

Create your space

What usually hinders concentration are distractions, so the first step to being able to concentrate properly is that you are in an environment that allows you to avoid any stimulus that may distract you.

Where will you focus better, in a clean and organized space or in a place full of things? Will it be easier for you to concentrate having your mobile ringing by your side every two minutes or in a quiet and quiet environment?

I think the answer is clear to us in both questions, so before getting ready to carry out any activity that requires concentration, analyze your environment.

It is about being able to identify those elements that tend to distract you, and eliminate them from the place where you will go to work so that your work environment is optimal.

Separate your mind

Despite the fact that the prior art tends to greatly facilitate the ability to concentrate, we cannot always do it. Maybe your work table is next to that of your partner who does not stop calling you all day or you have a photocopier next to it that does not stop making noise.

In these cases in which you cannot eliminate the stimuli that distract you, a good exercise you can do is to imagine that you separate yourself from those stimuli and create your own environment..

For example: imagine that on each side of your table there are walls or curtains that separate you from the rest. Perhaps this practice seems ineffective because no matter how much you imagine, you will still have your partner talking on the phone and the copier making noise.

But it's not like that! This technique can be effective if you purposely imagine for a few minutes each day.

And it is that our attention is like a flashlight, it is directed towards where we want. Thus, if we accustom our attention to never turning to those stimuli that annoy you, imagining that you are separated from them, in the end you will get used to ignoring them..

Write by hand

Today we are very used to working with computers or other devices, which are usually more efficient and faster than manual writing..

However, the exercise of writing with our own hands on paper contributes better to our concentration. Therefore, to increase your concentration, it is often helpful if you take some time and write down those most important things on a piece of paper..

If you do, it is possible that you slow down your work speed a bit but at the same time your concentration will appreciate it, since you will be making a greater mental approach to the task.

Taking into account that as we have seen before, when we get distracted while doing an activity it takes between 20 and 25 minutes to re-concentrate, it may be more useful to work in a slower but more concentrated way.

So, if you are easily distracted, I recommend that you do not forget the pen and paper, and write by hand the most important things, build work diagrams and make lists of the things you have to do.

just relax

The worst enemy of concentration is nervousness.

If you try to concentrate when you are nervous or agitated, your attention will go from one place to another receiving a multitude of stimuli, you will focus excessively on the thoughts that cause the state of nervousness and it will be very difficult to focus on a task.

However, it is already part of our lives to have to work with stress, quickly, nervous or worrying about not being able to finish tasks.

Therefore, you must be prepared for stress to appear when you are doing activities that require concentration, and be able to manage it so that it does not prevent you from focusing your attention on work..

So, when you notice that anxiety or stress is taking over you when you are performing a task, you can perform the following breathing exercise to regain the calm necessary to concentrate.

1. Sit, settle, and place your right hand on your abdomen.
2. Take a slow breath in through your nose for 5 seconds, hold the air for 5 more seconds and exhale even more slowly (10 seconds) for
   nose or mouth.
3. As you slowly breathe out, imagine that the tension escapes through the air you release..
4. Do this process 3 times in a row.
5. Once done, continue taking a slow breath, inhaling through the nose for about 3 seconds and exhaling for 3 more seconds but without holding the air.

Mark your times

Concentration involves a high energy expenditure and sometimes what precipitates our distraction is fatigue or the desire to rest and disconnect. To turn this problem into an advantage you must do a very simple thing: organize yourself and mark your work tempos.

For example: at 5:00 p.m. I will take a break or when I have completed the first 3 tasks I will rest.

By doing this, you will increase your motivation for work, since you will know that after a certain time you will have a reward. In this way, you will work harder, more concentrated and you will not even realize that your moment of rest has already arrived..

During the break you can take the opportunity to have a coffee or carry out activities of your interest. But remember, you must do it for a short period of time, so that when you return to work your concentration remains intact..

Fix your gaze

Many times it happens that even though we may have a good capacity for concentration when we do things on our own, it is difficult for us to maintain our attention when we have to listen to someone in classes or conferences..

To overcome this problem you can perform the following exercise:

1. First of all try to sit in the center of the classroom.
2. When you notice that you have a hard time keeping your attention, take a reference point right in front of you (in the middle of the screen or blackboard) and keep your gaze fixed for about 40 seconds.
3. After 40 seconds, relax your gaze (without stopping looking at that point) and you see how your peripheral gaze expands and you get to see the entire screen / board.
4. Your attention will return to the teaching material and you will be able to focus again on the class.

The importance of concentrating properly

Our brain consumes a large amount of energy. In fact, it is estimated that it uses 20% of our body's energy, being the part of our body that consumes the most.

This happens because any action we take with any part of our body makes our brain work. So, one thing is clear: your brain, like mine and anyone's, consumes a lot of energy.

In addition, when we carry out cognitive activities (we work, think, study, etc.) our brain still needs much more energy to function. And this is where the “quit” of the question comes in: Concentration!!

When we do mental activities that require concentration, we expend much more energy. But what if we try to do these activities without being able to concentrate? Well, energy expenditure is skyrocketing!

It is estimated that when we are doing a task and we get distracted, it takes us between 20 and 25 minutes on average to refocus. This means that we spend much more time and much more energy to carry out the task, since we force our brain to make the effort of concentration again.

If we get used to working without concentration, we will expend much more energy, we will tire more easily, our efficiency will decrease and it will cost us a lot to be a productive person.