Outsmart Distraction with Mindfulness
Mindfulness Tips To Stay Focused
Many clients with anxiety or issues around focus and concentration benefit hugely from incorporating mindfulness into their daily lives. Often they are surprised at how swiftly and effectively mindfulness and meditation helps cultivate their focus and attention. Things seem to get easier, energy increases and clients report feeling more ‘ on top’ on things That said, if you do live with anxiety it is probably a good idea to work with a psychologist whilst exploring and developing your mindfulness skills and practice. In my experience if you go in without understanding the rationale and objectives behind the practices you could’ miss the point’ and give up on a massive opportunity. In particular meditation can initially make you feel more anxious and with some clients I initially introduce bite sized practices which don’t exacerbate the anxiety.
So lets explore how meditation and mindfulness can help you build the kind of life-changing focus I’m talking about?
1. Cultivating A State Of Relaxed Focus
Meditation is the practice of training your attention. When you practice meditation you focus your attention on just one thing for example the breath. In no time you notice your mind prefers to wander which is simply what minds do! The skill is in noticing and gently escorting your awareness back to the breath again and again. keep bringing it back to the task at hand. That is, counting your breath.
This simple ( but difficult) practice lays down the pathways in your brain to become one-pointed. And being one-pointed puts you in a state of deep and relaxed focus. So that’s meditation in it’s simplest form, and it’s incredibly good for you. It stimulates your relaxation response, combats stress, and brings your nervous system into a state of balance and wellbeing.
2. Becoming Sensitive To Distraction
At the same time, you’re building sensitivity to distraction. You’re learning how to counteract the constant tendency towards distraction and lack of focus. This doesn’t all happen right away. Just like your muscles don’t get huge over night. It takes a little time.
But soon, through your practice, you’ll start to notice all the different ways that you get distracted in meditation. Becoming aware of that distraction is one of the core skills you’ll develop in meditation. And then, once you hop off the meditation cushion, you can learn how to bring that quality of focus to the rest of your life.
3. Practicing Mindful Awareness
In truth, most of us have a chorus of voices in our head that are aiding or abetting the forces of fear, doubt, and distraction. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have some variation of these voices in their head—a band of doubters, skeptics, critics and nay-sayers,.
This is where meditation training comes into play. Because you are consistently cultivating sensitivity to distraction, you become more aware of those voices. You begin to notice how they pull your attention away from your focus and purpose. Practicing mindful awareness allows you to ignore those voices and with time they become less frequent and soften. Becoming aware of those patterns of thought is important. Because often, if we don’t recognise them, they quietly consume our energy and attention and degrade our focus. Identifying those patterns of thought restores ones sense of purpose and direction and improves ones mood. That is the simple but staggering power of awareness.