Concentration of attention. Training and development of concentration

Exercises for concentration help a person to work productively and solve problems with complete immersion in the task. Remember how schoolchildren sit at their desks when they are not interested. They spin around, constantly change position, look out the window, and distract other children. Their attention is scattered. They will not learn what the teacher said. Now remember how the same children listen to scary stories in the evenings around the fire? They don't even move.

In adult life, people have to solve issues that do not cause personal interest. And here you need to be able to concentrate your attention.

Reflective exercises to develop concentration

Reflection is the conscious management of your attention. Once you realize that you need to train your concentration , you can start exercising right away.

• Try to ask yourself more often, where is your attention directed? Are there attention scatterers, those objects that “steal” concentration?
• Reflective reading. While reading, try not to be distracted, and as soon as you feel distracted, re-read the passage on which you lost concentration again.
• Reflexive breathing - that is, deep breathing with concentration only on the process of air intake itself. This helps not only to concentrate attention, but also to saturate the brain cells with oxygen.
• Exercise “The surface of the lake” implies that you will imagine an absolutely serene lake with a mirror surface. Consider it in your imagination, concentrating on the smallest details.
• Exercise with rosary. The rosary puts thoughts in order, so many people use this item during negotiations, as well as at times when it is necessary to make an important decision.

Of course, these exercises give results, but do not forget that you need to do them every day, devoting about 10-20 minutes to self-development. And then the concentration of attention will increase in about 2 months.

Concentration - practice, exercise

Now, for three minutes, we will reflect, we will contemplate one idea, one law. It is proposed to start with thought, with the first law of consciousness: Thoughts have real power .

This is the very law according to which every thought has power. When you contemplate this law, try to focus only on the topic itself, on the subject of this law. Those. we allow into our consciousness only those thoughts that are associated with this law. But, if we suddenly get distracted and think about something else, then this no longer has anything to do with our law, and such thoughts must be driven away. And as soon as we notice that consciousness is slipping away, jumping to another object, we very gently pull it back and force it to contemplate this law.

In the process, we must ask questions related to the topic we are thinking about. For example: “What does it mean that a thought has real power? How does this show up in my life? We can approach this idea from different angles, we can ask additional questions. But the most important thing is not to deviate from the central theme of our reflection. To begin with, it is suggested to start with, for example, three minutes.

Let's go ... although, a couple more parting words:

Thought has real power . You can start by repeating, thought has real power... thought has real power... Then you can ask yourself, what is meant by this power? Electricity is also a force, maybe it is similar to electricity. After all, what is force? Force is something that performs an action, sets it in motion. What can my thoughts set in motion? And maybe here you will remember some examples from your life, any situations that are related to the operation of this law. Or maybe some example from your life will come to mind in which you could use your thought as power, as a source of strength.

And you can move in many different directions, but the most important thing is not to deviate from this main, fundamental theme. Those. do not allow your consciousness to stray too far from the main theme of contemplation.

You can close your eyes or keep them open, whatever suits you.

And so, now, within 3 minutes, you contemplate the first law that we talked about, according to which thought has real power.

You can start...

After you have finished, admit honestly to yourself who found it difficult to keep your mind on one topic during these 3 minutes. We can assume that most of you have had problems with thinking about one thing all the time. I can assume that your consciousness persistently contemplated this thought for several seconds, and then began to jump off and switch to something else. And you probably might have said to yourself, “There’s no way 3 minutes could have lasted that long.” Or suddenly, you could be distracted by some sound.

Consciousness is very lazy, and the first step in mastering the power of consciousness is to convince it that it is necessary to train. Nobody does anything for free, including your consciousness. Your consciousness needs to be interested in something, motivated by something, and you can motivate it only with one thing, force. You must tell your consciousness, if it trains hard, it will gain much greater power.

This is no exaggeration. You really have to convince and cajole your own consciousness. For example, if we don't feel physically well, we know it because it's easy to tell, we usually have something hurting or bothering us. This is all quite obvious. But we don’t even realize how out of order our own consciousness is. And it’s understandable why we don’t know anything about this; many have never trained their own consciousness.

But remember, when was the last time you did some special exercise to discipline your own consciousness? Most people, completely undisciplined and unorganized, think about just about anything. If you feel bad or unwell physically, or are in poor physical shape, you decide to do some exercise, start going to the gym, and train on special machines. And naturally, in the first days, your results are quite unimportant.

You try to do pull-ups, push-ups, and after ten times, you are no longer able to do anything else, you sit on an exercise bike, and after 3 minutes, you can no longer move your leg. But if you exercise every day, or at least every other day, then very quickly your results will improve. You will be able to do push-ups 30-40 times, and spend about 20 minutes on an exercise bike, and not 3 minutes as at the beginning. And this is absolutely understandable.

But the same thing happens with consciousness. And probably, those results with contemplation that you have demonstrated for yourself are not the best that you are capable of, but this is your worst possible result. Now your indicators were the worst. This is how contemplation goes if it is not preceded by training. But with training, your mind will become more disciplined and capable of much better performance. Just like what happens to the physical body after playing sports.

The best side and aspect of mastering the power of consciousness, this is not a theory, and this is not a philosophy , it is practice .

Any area of ​​life in which you train and practice allows you to get results. But of course, while you cannot fully understand all this, for you now it is just information. But if you learn to exercise in accordance with the individual program that you create for yourself, you will quickly notice significant results.

Physical training of attention

Absent-mindedness is very clearly visible to the naked eye. Remember the image of the “absent-minded man from Basseynaya Street”, the hero was constantly unlucky, and all because he could not concentrate. Now imagine the conductor of a symphony orchestra. His movements are refined and unfussy, he is focused on his activity.

Pay attention to your behavior - do you have unnecessary habits that negatively affect the properties of attention? It could be a slouched back, tense muscles, even the habit of scratching your head or other parts of the body can become a distraction that interferes with concentration. To improve concentration, remove distractions, set yourself comfortable conditions and start working only when you are completely relaxed and not distracted by other factors.

Emotional concentration training

Very often, the lack of necessary concentration is explained by the lack of stimulus. It is impossible to force yourself to concentrate on what is not interesting. What if you try to cheat and negotiate with your attention? For example, set yourself the condition that if you concentrate on work on Friday evening, you can go to the cinema on the weekend.

Try to mix interest even in those things that seem boring. Pay attention to curious details, be inspired by even simple everyday tasks, do them with enthusiasm and your concentration will increase, you will find new features of your usual actions that you had not paid attention to before.

Impaired concentration

We talk about impaired concentration when a person cannot focus his attention on one thing for a long time without being distracted. How symptoms of such a disorder can be observed

• increased excitability;
• unreasonably frequent changes in activities;
• lack of concentration on one thing;
• forgetfulness.

Poor concentration is called absent-mindedness. It is not congenital and can occur for various reasons, including:

• an unconscious desire not to do one thing or another that should be focused on;
• accumulated fatigue;
• insomnia;
• headache;
• monotonous activity;
• organic brain lesions;
• depression, anxiety disorder and other mental illnesses;
• age-related decline of functions.

To prevent problems with concentration, methods aimed at developing and training this property are used. Do not doubt, your capabilities are in your hands!

We wish you success in self-development!

Techniques for quickly capturing attention

It often happens that it is difficult for a person to concentrate, but it must be done. If so, try these exercises.

• Divide the action into cycles. For example, you need to sort documents according to a certain criterion. Tell yourself mentally “start”, pick up the document, look at it carefully and decide which pile to send it to. Next, say “stop.” This focus will help you avoid mistakes, and you will quickly concentrate on the task at hand.
• Reception of photographer Sasaki. Creative people tend to have their head in the clouds. Photographer Chris Sasaki decided that every time he noticed that he was distracted, he would say “Attention!” in his mind, look around and be clearly aware of what was happening around him and what he was doing.
• Do you feel like your attention is slipping away? This happens during long lectures or tedious seminars. Quickly change your facial expression or posture, so that distraction and drowsiness will disappear.
• Clearly state the purpose for which you need concentration. It's impossible to find something unless you know what you're looking for. Thus, if you need to concentrate on searching for information on the Internet, formulate your request as clearly as possible. You can also break the question into several subtasks.

Ways to concentrate that work

There are many exercises that help you keep a topic in your head and completely immerse yourself in it.
If a person is not distracted by other actions and thoughts, devoting all his attention to one issue, he will solve it faster and the decision will be chosen correctly. The human brain is like a muscle that needs to be exercised. Let's consider several effective psychological techniques and exercises for concentration.

Free observation

This technique of concentration will teach you to free yourself from constant analysis and the second stream of thoughts:

1. Sit in a comfortable position, become an observer.
2. Don't think, don't analyze what's happening to you at the moment.
3. Your job is to feel.
4. Let thoughts come and go, observe without dwelling on them.

This concentration exercise should be performed every day, for 5-10 minutes. You can do this on the street, at work or at home. Try to look at the space around you without the prism of your emotions and memories. It’s as if you are seeing everything for the first time. You will be able to get new impressions from old, familiar things by adjusting your concentration and managing your associations.

Exercise "line"

A good exercise for concentration in adults. You will need a pen and paper. The point is that a person begins to draw a line by hand. The hand should lie on the table in a comfortable position. As soon as the pen touches the paper, all thoughts should turn off. At this moment, you no longer analyze or think about anything. You draw a line. The remaining processes do not exist.

If you notice that you are distracted by something, draw a peak, like on a cardiogram line. After this, the exercise continues. Completion time: 3-4 minutes. The line can be continued below if the sheet runs out. But try to draw it so slowly that there is enough space for all three minutes. This is one of the most effective exercises.

A result in which there will not be a single peak on the sheet can be considered a success.

Why is it difficult to concentrate?

Most often, a person has difficulty concentrating on several objects. That is, concentrating on one event, there are usually no problems; if you complicate the task and add several more objects, the person will have difficulties. It's all about the capacity of short-term memory. Typically it can hold 5 to 7 items at a time.

Psychologist William James concluded that attention is not voluntarily held on any object for more than a couple of seconds. That is, everything that we mean by concentration is an attempt to return thoughts to a specific topic. From this we can conclude that the established rhythm of thinking helps to better concentrate on any objects, and concentration training will not be complete without exercises to develop thinking.

Where does absent-mindedness come from?

At the very moment when you are intently reading this article, the lion's share of your attention may be wasted, for example:

• periodically you fall into your thoughts, deep into yourself and lose the thread of meaning;
• your thoughts go in circles, replaying for the hundredth time some situation where you looked ridiculous, you were ashamed or offended;
• thoughts fluctuate, jump from one topic to another, and it is impossible to keep attention on the necessary information;
• concentration is lost when suddenly your heart treacherously pierces, and once again the emotions that you once experienced come flooding back.

It is obvious that a huge share of attention is spent on some unconscious processes, and it is not very possible to manage this flow. What to do?

Let's discard the unnecessary: ​​what methods of increasing concentration do not work and why

On the Internet you can find a variety of recommendations on how to improve concentration. In general, they can be divided into three large blocks:

1. Logic puzzles, crosswords, puzzles.
   They are designed to provide some scope for comprehension and help a person through constant brain training. This method may be partly useful for older people who, due to age, have lost their social fulfillment and have nowhere else to apply their abilities. But even in this situation, it is clear that at least partial implementation in society will bring much more benefit. We see many famous personalities who maintain a clear mind into old age - and they are all socially active. A real field for concentrating the mind is always much more effective than a fictional one.

   If you are young and able to work, such “brain exercises” will do nothing at all. The problem is not that there is nothing to think about (there are a lot of options: study, work, creative projects), but that it is impossible to concentrate.

2. Medicines or folk remedies to increase concentration.
   There are times when consultation with doctors is necessary. Sometimes a problem with concentration is simply one of the symptoms of some disease. Therefore, if there are other accompanying complaints (nausea, headaches, loss of strength, etc.), you should contact a competent specialist. It is especially important to do this if you have suffered a traumatic brain injury or have problems with the central nervous system.

   To exclude possible pathology, it is better to undergo an examination.

   But if no objective health problems are found in you, then the problem of decreased attention is most likely psychological. In this case, attempts to take herbs or medications to improve concentration usually do not work. Because they do not eliminate the cause of the problem.

3. Meditation and other ways to control the flow of thoughts.

Those who guessed that the main obstacle to concentration is our “thought stirrer” or “thought phone”, offer another way. Try to control your consciousness, manage it. There are also a huge number of exercises offered here, in which you either need to not think about anything at all (completely clear your mind) or concentrate on something specific (a flower, a stone, any object).

The problem with all these methods is one thing: the lack of results. Even if you manage to follow the rules for the duration of the exercise, then in a real situation everything again goes as before. Either we “fall into ourselves”, or what is spinning in our heads is not what we need.

Why is that? For a visual illustration, imagine that your tooth hurts like hell. Will you be able to really concentrate at such a moment, watch or listen with interest? Hardly. But in our case, the person’s soul hurts. Whining, whining, whining about something of his own. Or simply craves peace and quiet. So much so that she doesn’t care about any other information.

There is only one working way to increase concentration in this case: to free yourself from those psychological problems that do not allow you to live and constantly occupy your thoughts. Then a huge resource of energy is released, which can be directed in the right direction.