Concentration

[Hardik jain]

I know that concentration is freaking important. So can you please give me a list of things that -

a) build concentration. (Things I gotta do to build my concentration skills)

b) destroy concentration. (Things I gotta stop doing so that I don't lose my already weak concentration skills)

[Christian]

What you can do: 

Read books and take notes.

Work within a time frame without any distractions and take short breaks in between work sessions. 

Develop a concentration practice. For instance: choose an object, maybe a lamp,  and focus on it for 5 minutes straight. If you lose focus, don't beat yourself up; simply refocus your attention on the object.  Do that everyday until you feel comfortable, then increases the time. 

Eat healthy

 

What you should not do: 

Multitask 

Use social media

Communicate with toxic people 

Eat junkfood/drink alcohol

Sleep too little. Aim for 7-8 hours per night. 

Listen to the news 

Gossip

Remember there are probably 100's of ways you can build concentration; if any of my techniques do not ressonate with you, be creative and keep searching for techniques that work for you. But once you find one that really works, stick with it and develop habits. 

[Salaam]

Train your focus/concentration amidst different degrees and intensities of pressure. Train it with different degrees of tension.

What does that mean, practice concentrating on things while under pressure, like amidst the shock of cold water, or under a major time crunch, or under the pressure of outcome dependence. Concentrate when your not motivated,  or tired, or in pain. Concentrate when it's hard. Concentrate on things that bother you, that you want to avoid or run away from, concentrate on things that make your brain ache to hold all at once. The things you want to reject or discard or automatically discount as not worth your time.

Concentrate for duration and amidst resistance. Concentrate slowly, when everything inside you wants to rush ahead. Each and every example I've given you has a purpose and benefit once trained with and adapted to that will help you in real life.

... I used to focus on a thing and push it so hard that the eventual resistance would get so hard it would pare away everything in my mind but my actual reason for concentrating in the first place. It was like a comet hitting the earth's atmosphere and everything being burned away but the core (my intent).

Now a days I can focus on a thing and hold that focus constantly for the whole day if need be. Like when I'd be focus on monitoring threshold level changes in my body that were incredibly subtle and easy to lose track of.

To be honest, my level of focus is so deep it hurts me if I let it go to it's full potential... I've had to spend time instead developing my flow so it's "currents" could handle the inherent "drag" of deep focus and maintain immersion when my brain transitions from one reality to the next.

 

Edited May 31, 2017 by Salaam