Stay focused: Best Ways to Improve Concentration and Stay Focused.

Stay Focused: Factors that effect concentration

Lack of Sleep

One thing everyone needs to stay focused is to get an adequate amount of  sleep.  Without sleep the body is incapable of functioning properly.  A tired body also equals a tired mind.

Sleep deprivation impairs your ability to reason and reduces problem solving skills.  It also decreases the ability to retain information and decreases alertness.  Don’t allow brain fog to keep you from staying focused.  Get some sleep!

Read: How to become a better morning person: 7 ways to Improve your Mornings!

Lack of Comfort

It is extremely hard to stay focused when your environment is uncomfortable.  Find a comfortable spot while trying to concentrate.  Make sure that the details in your comfort levels are all met for optimal focus.

For instance,   the one thing that I can not do is focus when I am cold.  I can’t keep still and I’m focused on the time because I can’t wait to get out of the uncomfortable environment I’m in.

So,  if you need complete quiet,  a comfortable chair,  or even snacks,  make it happen.  Pick a spot that will provide you with a comfort level that is best for you.

Procrastination

Procrastination is a huge problem when trying to stay focused.   When we procrastinate we end up having to do more work in a shorter period of time.  The task becomes overwhelming and when we become overwhelmed we become stressed.  The minds response to stress is to find other things to relieve the discomfort of stress.

So,  we find other things to distract our minds from the discomfort were feeling from stress.  This leads to the next factor which effects concentration.

Distractions

Distractions are a huge problem when it comes to staying focused.  Funny thing about distractions is that they can be deliberate or unintentional.  Deliberate distractions are the ones that we create because of feeling stress or boredom.  Unintentional distractions are the ones we create when we’re trying to multitask.

Multitasking is horrible when we’re trying to stay focused.  Most of us think that we’re being more productive when we multitask,  but in reality we’re actually doing less.

People are more productive when focusing on one task at a time.

Boredom

Ok,  this is a big one.  The average person’s attention span has decreased over time due to social media.  Social media gives us instant gratification.  Social Media Addiction has caused most of us to have attention spans of only 5 minutes.

You can not read a book,  or think deeply about anything with an attention span of only five minutes.  So,  here’s what you can do to help the lack of focus.  Chop up your study time,  meditation,  task , etc,  into smaller time increments.

So,  instead of trying to complete your project all at once chop up the time that you spend on it.   For example,  if you have to study for a test only study for 30 minutes at a time and then take a short break.  This way you never become bored and your attention span or lack of an attention span won’t get in the way of you trying to stay focused.

We all love social media so I won’t say get rid of it,  but we can work around it.

So remember in order to improve your focus get plenty of sleep at night,   make sure you’re environment is comfortable when you need to focus,  and don’t procrastinate.  Also,  get rid of distractions.  Social media is a huge distraction and it also causes shorter attention spans.  So,  try to keep social media to a minimum while trying to focus  and work around short attention spans by chopping your focus times to smaller  timed increments.  By using these few techniques you will improve your concentration and stay focused.

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