Attention! Attention! I am a rare commodity today
His shoelaces are open, the blue colour shirt is not complementing his trouser. I am desperately hiding my constant yawn! I am really bored and dragging my attention to the training. Don’t know when will this end. Unfortunately, this was not the first time when my thoughts were wandering.
Many a time I am stuck on one page of the book or just reading the words but unable to grasp anything.
In retrospect, we end up blaming the book or training material and the quality of the author or trainer. That may be true sometimes, however, we don’t pay enough attention to our own “lack of attention”. Right there a buzz on my phone tells me about a great offer on Amazon on a Gizmo. Let me have a look, oh wait, Sorry, what was I saying? Oh, yea! I am writing about Attention, and I just lost my attention. Well, this is so common with students, working professionals, traders, etc.
Lacking attention is very common and widely spread, especially in our fast-paced life. We live in an era where we are everywhere but nowhere.
Attention is defined as a behavioural and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective while ignoring other perceivable information. To simplify, an act of applying focus and mind to anything is called Attention. It’s a process where the brain allocates action resources to execute a specific task.
Why should one care about Attention:
Lack of attention leads to:
- Loss of productivity
- Indecisiveness
- Creates more stress & anxiety
- Leads to restlessness
- Silly errors, sometimes leading to major losses
- Absent-mindedness
Types of Attention:
Let me share a real life example.
Suppose you are cooking a meal. You need full attention in all forms. When you start, you are high in energy and fully attentive to the process (that’s Arousal attention). During cooking when you put the ingredients you select each one of the ingredients by focus (Focused Attention). Any ingredients in disproportion can spoil the taste. Cooking is a long process hence one needs to be attentive (Sustained attention) until cooking ends. You use another burner to cook another dish in parallel (Alternating attention). You continue to ignore background noise from TV (Selective attention).
We need attention all the time and its role in our life is very important. We need attention in abundance, and we have it within us, yet it has become a rare commodity today. As a result, it affects our academics, parenting, work life, relationships, family life, social life, etc. Attention can be improved over time through conscious effort.
7 ways to improve attention:
- Physical movements: Make small physical movements to ensure proper blood circulation in the entire body. We tend to sit long hours without making physical movements, which leads to fatigue and affects attention.
2. Organize yourself: Planning always helps in organizing your daily schedule. Create a proper day schedule, including break timings and processes to unwind. This allows us to stay focused throughout the day.
A lack of planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine — Robert M. Carter.
3. Listen to music or read a book: Music can help you relax and unwind. Similarly, reading books build concentration through your visual attention.
4. Sleep well: Get proper sleep. Studies show sleep helps relax your mind. For quality sleep, maintain a regular time to bed, avoid heavy meals before bed, avoid watching TV, mobile, etc and give some rest to your eyes. Good sleep builds great attention.
5. Minimize distraction: Everyone is looking for your attention. Constant distractions from your phone, emails, and TV, are detrimental to your attention. Cognitive Load theory explains the need for working memory to gain attention. Working memory is filled with distractions and increases the cognitive load of the brain, resulting lack of attention.
6. Mindfulness: Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is a process of shifting our mind’s focus to experiences and thus directly influences our state of mind. This improves attention by registering moment-by-moment experiences in our minds.
7. Food: Eat healthy food. Avoid junk or caffeine, as it has instant stimulus but fizzes out quickly and drains you further.
In conclusion, Attention is vital in every aspect of our life. Students for their studies, professionals for their work, and family for building relationships. The importance of Attention is ever-growing. While we pass the buck to writers for not writing a page-turner book or a trainer for not engaging in training sessions, we can’t dismiss our role in destroying attention. Let’s regain our attention to improve the quality of our own life experiences.
