How Running Improves Your Attention Span
The Power of Monotasking
I barely did cardio in my 20s. I was more of an I-lift-things-up-and-put-them-down kind of guy. I didn’t understand people who ran marathons. It seemed like a total waste of time. Did they enjoy torturing themselves? What was the point? Then, a few years ago, I started running. It finally clicked. Running doesn’t just train your body. It trains your mind.
Weaning Yourself Off Distraction
Deep Work is a nonfiction book about achieving deep concentration in order to boost productivity. According to the author, Cal Newport, the distraction economy has played a big role in eroding our attention spans:
“Efforts to deepen your focus will struggle if you don’t simultaneously wean your mind from a dependence on distraction.”
Limiting social media and other consumptive distractions is part of the solution, but you also have to retrain your brain to focus.
That’s where running comes in.
