Ever found it difficult to stay focused at work, study for an important exam or stay on top of an important task? This might mean that your ability to concentrate is low.
Nowadays, we are all guilty of getting distracted easily. We are constantly surrounded by technology, meaning the amount of information available to us is only a click away and that our attention can be easily diverted to everything but our work.
In this article we will discuss the top ten tips you can do to help improve your concentration:
- Adapt To Healthier Eating Habits
- Take Supplements
- Reduce Multitasking
- Reduce Distractions
- Improve Sleep Habits
- Take Short Breaks
- Improve Exercise Habits
- Mindfulness
- Train Your Brain
- Listening to Music
Here’s everything you need to know.
Do I need to Improve My Concentration?
Trying to concentrate but your mind keeps wandering to something else?
Like the technology that slows down over the years, so does your brain. It is easy to get frustrated when you just can’t focus. However, you must remember that concentration is affected by both internal and external factors.
If this sounds familiar, keep on reading to find out how you can improve your concentration.
Reasons Why You Might Be Easily Distracted
Some people get more distracted than others. Age, mental health, head injuries, and lack of sleep are just a few reasons why. Let’s discuss a few:
Distraction
In today’s world of technology, you are constantly bombarded with a constant stream of information. With this constant bombardment, we are always assessing whether the information is useful, or useless; therefore, wasting time when we should be concentrating.
Lack of Sleep
Being deprived of sleep can easily impact your concentration, not to mention your attention and memory. It can also negatively impact your reflexes, mood, and performance throughout the day. It becomes difficult to focus your attention and your ability to complete a task is affected.
Poor Eating Habits
The foods you intake can impact your concentration. Processed foods, sugar and greasy foods can all reduce it.
Lack of Exercise
When you don’t involve yourself in physical activity, your muscles become tense and tight, which in turn shift on your focus.
Excessive Drinking
General intake of alcohol can affect the quality of your sleep or interrupt your sleep schedule which in turn affects your concentration levels throughout the day.
How To Improve Concentration
There are multiple ways that you can improve your concentration. Some might work well for you; however, some not so well. It might take a bit of time to find what works best for you, so don’t give up just because the first couple hasn’t worked out – keep trying. Here are ten different ways we suggest you can help improve your concentration.
Adapt To Healthier Eating Habits
What you eat and put into your body, contributes to how you feel throughout the day. Without the right nutrients, throughout the day your energy levels will decrease when your body isn’t digesting enough nutrients at a rate. Fatty fish, eggs, blueberries, and spinach are all examples of ‘brain foods' that can help improve your concentration. Ensure you are choosing foods that maintain your energy and fuel your brain.
Breakfast can also help boost your focus so make sure you are having it every morning.
Take Supplements
Some supplements can encourage concentration and improve your focus. For example, Myvitamins Concentration Capsules are an innovative formulation of vitamins, blended with vitamins B12 to support your energy-yielding metabolism (3). They also reduce tiredness and fatigue and contribute to your normal cognitive function (4).
Reduce Multitasking
The brain is not designed to cope with doing multiple tasks at once. As a result, you cannot give your full attention to any of those tasks. It is a recipe for lower productivity and reduced concentration. Try prioritising one task at a time and watch your standard of work increase.
Reduce Distractions
Reduce your chances of being distracted by putting time into your daily routine to block a certain time so that you can complete a specific task. During this time, make sure you are in a place where you are unlikely to be disturbed. Silence notifications or keep your phone hidden and make it your primary focus to complete the task at hand.
Improving Sleeping Habits
Put your screens away an hour away before bed, have a warm bath or read a book to relax the mind, go to bed around the same time each day and avoid working out before bed. Try to get the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep each night.
Take Short Breaks
When you focus on something for a long time, your focus tends to reduce. Taking short breaks when you feel yourself lacking, can allow your body and mind to refocus your attention and become more productive when you come back to the task.
Improve Exercise Habits
There is a direct link between exercise and cognitive ability, especially attention (1). When you exercise, you increase the ability to create new brain connections, reduce stress and improve sleep.
Even if you find it hard to exercise, doing twenty minutes a day, will increase your attention span.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness allows you to train the mind and body into focusing your attention on the present moment, rather than a million other things. Our brain becomes relaxed, and we learn to use our breath to bring our attention back to the task at hand. Yoga and deep breathing are just two examples of types of mindfulness that you can do to improve your concentration.
Train Your Brain
Playing certain types of games can help improve your concentration. For example, sudoku, chess and memory games can encourage your attention span, as well as improve your processing skills. A study shows that spending fifteen minutes a day can improve your concentration (2).
Listen To Music
Listening to music is dependent on the person. However, using nature sounds or white noise can help eliminate background noise, which in turn will encourage better concentration.
Take Home Message
Improving your concentration takes time and cannot be achieved in one day. However, when your focus and concentration is improved, you will find that you can accomplish more to a higher standard. Some of the above tips may work well for you and some may not – consider trying a few to see what helps.
Try Myvitamins range for energy & focus to try and improve your concentration this autumn.
- Tips to improve concentration – Harvard Health
- Enhancing Cognitive Abilities with Comprehensive Training: A Large, Online, Randomized, Active-Controlled Trial – PubMed (nih.gov)
- Vitamin B12, pantothenic acid and iron contribute to normal energy-yielding metabolism.
- Vitamin B12, zinc, magnesium, and iron contribute to normal cognitive function.
