Every time we get distracted, look at social networks or check email, our brain needs 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus.
According to a study from the University of California, every time we get distracted, look at social networks or check email, our brain needs 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus. But it is that our environment does not make it easy for us: an alert on the phone or the assault of thoughts about the tasks that we have pending or different emotions about past or future situations make focusing on an activity a daunting task.
Teo Luna, co-founder of Sukha Mindfulness and collaborator of the Petit BamBou meditation app tells us that “if our attention is not trained, it is easy for any event to capture it and take us away from what we want to be or feel.” But in addition, he adds ”that our attention is not a mistake, in fact, it is an adaptive process that the mind carries out to protect us and keep us alert. The difficulty arises when this process is too recurrent because it is subject to numerous stimuli so that intentionally being in the present or focusing on a specific activity or experience becomes a difficult task”.
MULTITASKING: A MYTH
Has it ever happened to you to be looking at your mobile at the same time as the TV and have to go back because you have missed a part? The brain is not prepared to do two things at the same time, although, as the expert says, ”this ”movement” from one task to another can be so fast that a sensation is created that we are at the same time in different experiences, although we really only focus on one of them”.
When we are with our attention fixed on a certain experience, the mind is unified in that event and the rest is outside that field
Overexertion for our brain that, far from making us more productive, makes us feel exhausted and agitated. “The practice of mindfulness is based precisely on that, on being attentive to one thing at a time, whenever possible, so that our mind stabilizes and calms down in the present moment,” says Teo Luna.
FOCUS: TRAIN ATTENTION
Concentration is sustained attention. “When we are with our attention fixed on a certain experience, the mind is unified in that event and the rest is outside that field.” To achieve this, Teo Luna gives us some tips.
-Take breaks during the day. If we do not take a break that allows us to recover our attention and calm, we will be entering an escalation towards agitation and dispersion, which will be very difficult to diminish at the end of the day. Stopping for a walk or exercising are activities that will help us focus our minds.
– Meditate with attention to the breath. It is one of the activities that most help us to cultivate states of attention and concentration. A daily formal practice of about 10-15 minutes, which can then be extended, will strengthen our attention, making our minds calmer and more balanced.
– Bring attention to daily activities. Eating, showering, talking, walking, putting on the dishwasher… Even those that seem more routine to us, will make our attention exercise.
-Avoid mental overload. Filling our heads with “I have to’s” can overwhelm us and distract us from our present activity. To avoid this, write your list of tasks, plan them and organize them into mini-actions with which it will be easier to achieve small achievements. An example? Instead of fixing the car: call the workshop, take it, approve the estimate and pick it up.
