Struggle to Stay Present? How Language Learning Can Help
We all know mindfulness, the Pomodoro technique and short walks can help, but what else can we do to improve our ability to stay present?
Struggling to stay present means that you may suffer from anxiety or stress-induced symptoms. Don’t fret — we all do! But what can you do about it?
Of course there are many different solutions available online. You only need to google the topic, or search on YouTube to find various different meditation or concentration techniques.
But did you know that learning a language may help in your fight to stay present?
Here’s how language learning can help if you don’t feel like you can keep your concentration for longer than a few minutes…!
Better concentration skills
The thing about learning a language is that you have to dedicate your mind and body to the practice. Like yoga, you are so into the practice that all your concentration is needed to stay focused. The practice of learning a language will bring you back to now and enable your concentration skills to heighten.
Aids anxiety
Anxiety is very common. You could say that a side effect of anxiety is to not stay present and be entangled by past or future occurrences. It could be that you are in the present moment, but you are stuck by the overwhelming feeling that anxiety is putting you through. Therefore, language learning can help because it pulls you out of that rut and brings you:
Back to the moment
Presence awareness is something that mindfulness teaches us. When learning a language, you too can experience this awareness of now by bringing your attention to the practice. When learning a language, you must be in the present moment or you won’t be able to learn (and later, remember!) vocabulary as well as learning all the rules that come along with your new chosen language.
Last but not least, if you struggle to stay present, learning a language can help because it will:
Help you de-stress
As meditation does, learning a language too can help you de-stress.
As you also set time aside to meditate, most people usually do it in the morning or the evening, or even during your work breaks. You can follow the same steps for learning a language. All it takes is a few minutes at times or an hour for a 1-on-1 class or group class with Lingoda.
When you set this time aside, you are showing yourself love and letting everything else go. Of course, there may be times when you stress out naturally because a learning process always has its moments! However, for the most part, learning a language is healing and can hone in on your skills to be able to relax and release everything else in order for you to fully develop whatever language you may be learning.
So if you struggle to stay present, remember to not be so hard on yourself and let the pressure go.
Secondly, start learning a language and allow your concentration skills to heighten, your ability to stay aware in the moment increase, aid your anxiety and beat your stress. You can do it!
