Improving Mental Concentration Means Breaking Down Both Real And Imaginary Mental Barriers!
When training your brain to concentrate more effectively, the main obstacle you will immediately encounter one or more forms of mental resistance to the extended effort of holding your attention steady. Just as your arm would eventually become weary and unable to continue lifting a heavy weight held out in front of your body, your brain burns a major amount of energy when working to maintain a consistent ’signal’ of attention targeted onto a single task. Your ability to keep your attention fixed on a targeted task may last from as little as a few seconds to a few minutes (varying from person to person), but rarely more than that before it is interrupted by at least one of four very familiar culprits:
- Wandering Thoughts - indicating that your mind isn’t relaxed and calm, so thoughts keep rising up or you find yourself engaging in a conversation in your head.
- Impulsivity - means your body isn’t relaxed and calm enough to prevent impatient fidgeting and moving around.
- Outside Interruptions - when your mind keeps trying to attend to external events such as distracting noises.
- Mental Fatigue - happens as your brain simply gets tired from the intense expenditure of energy, just as your body gets weary when you sprint in a race.
Reaching the limit of your ability to hold your attention onto a single thing is like “hitting a wall” where you can’t go any further and feel the need to rest your brain for a minute before trying again to concentrate. Getting to that point is actually good for your brain training progress because:
A) You can biologically sculpt your brain into a healthier state of physical and mental condition by the habit of consistent practice at concentrating on knocking against that wall repeatedly until it comes crumbling down.
B) When you practice going just a little bit past the limits of that wall, you benefit from increased confidence, mental control, and endurance. At the same time, you’ll find that your creativity, problem-solving ability, intuition, and other mental talents are more generously available to you.
C) In the moment you hit the wall, it means you are actually able to control your attention long enough to reach your endurance limit, rather than be distracted by interfering thoughts, impulsiveness, or outside interruptions. Anytime you hit your wall, congratulate yourself on your level of mental management.
Consistently overcoming mental resistance (’MENTAL RESISTANCE TRAINING’) when learning how to concentrate effectively is key. Do not become frustrated when you hit your mental wall, but use the fact that you’ve run into it to write down how long it takes you to do so. Then, give yourself a minute to refresh, and begin again, exerting yourself a bit more as you approach your limit so that you can go just slightly past it, and then note that time. Continue to use this progressive approach and you shall soon find yourself filled with new confidence in your ability to trust and command your own mind for greater mental control.
T. Lavon Lawrence
Author, NEURO-SCULPTING!© Certified Mental Fitness Trainer
The NEURO-SCULPTING!© Mental Fitness Training Studio
www.neuro-sculpting.com
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
