You set a key task during the day and forgot it before noon. When you sleep at night, you find that you are not doing the important things you should do. This is also a sign of inattention. This situation is called "insufficient focus of the target", or out of focus.
If you are often absent-minded at work, you can't always realize that you are absent-minded, which is also a sign of insufficient concentration. This kind of performance is called lack of "meta-attention", that is, lack of ability to pay attention to "attention" itself, that is, lack of ability to find yourself absent-minded.
If you are not aware of the changes around you, it is also inattention, which is called lack of "attention distribution"
If you can stay focused for a short time, this situation is called lack of "alert attention"
So you will find that if you are not focused enough, there will be many problems. So how can we improve our concentration scientifically and effectively? If you want to improve your concentration, first look at the state of your concentration. Richard Davison is a neurologist and psychologist at the University of Wisconsin and the founder of emotional neuroscience. He designed the question 10, which can help us know whether we belong to attention deficit.
Concentration test
Answer the following questions with "Yes" or "No".
* First, when the environment is disturbed, you can still keep your attention.
Second, when there are many sensory stimuli around you and people come and go, you won't have many ideas and forget where you are.
Third, when you want to focus on one thing, you can usually do it.
Fourth, if you work from home, all kinds of interference at home can easily distract you.
The fifth question, how do you sit still for a few minutes, all kinds of ideas will appear one after another, and you feel that your brain is completely out of control.
Sixth, if you are interrupted by unexpected things, you can quickly draw your attention back to what you are doing.
Seventh, in a relatively quiet environment, such as queuing to buy things, you can notice many other things around you.
Eighth question, if you have to do something and need to keep 100% concentration, you will choose to find the quietest place to do it.
Ninth, your attention is easily captured by the chores in the environment. Once you are distracted, it is difficult for you to regain your attention.
Tenth, in a crowded environment, such as a party, you can communicate with one person without difficulty and ignore other people's voices. If you pay a little attention, you can hear what others are saying. *
Scoring: For questions 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 10, the answer is "1" and the answer is "No". For questions 4, 5, 8 and 9, the answer is 0 and the answer is 1.
If your score exceeds 8, you are a determined person. If the score is below 3, you are a distracted person.
Neurological explanation of attention concentration
Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist and founder of affective neuroscience, said in his Emotional Life of the Brain: "The prefrontal cortex plays an important role in the control of selective attention. It can enhance the signals you want to pay attention to (such as what the person you are communicating with said) and weaken the signals you want to ignore (such as other people's voices)."
Davidson found through experiments that when people are in a state of concentration, the electrical signal from the prefrontal lobe is more synchronous with the signal from the testing equipment, which is called "phase locking". When there is "phase locking", it shows that the concentration is strong.
Davidson used another test method called "p300 event-related potential" to test people's "attention blink" phenomenon. "Attention blink" refers to the phenomenon of ignoring some objects that need attention. This phenomenon will make you unable to see clearly what is in front of you. This phenomenon is called "attention blink". For people with concentration, the test shows that p300 signal will be moderate, and they can see everything they should see, while for people with distraction, their p300 signal is either too strong or too weak. In other words, people with poor concentration will ignore some changes around them.
Scientific experiment of concentration
Richard Davison found through experiments that people who practiced meditation for three months, by comparing their attention before and after practice, found that through meditation practice, their selective attention was improved. He wrote this experiment in his paper "Psychological Training Enhances Attention Stability: Neurological and Behavioral Evidence". In other words, through meditation practice, you can improve your ability to focus on one goal, that is, improve your concentration.
The research team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology used the magnetic field electroencephalogram (MEG) test method to test the subjects who practiced meditation for three weeks and found that their attention was improved. This conclusion was published in the paper "The Effect of Mindfulness Training on Primary Somatosensory Cortex's aversion to α modulation".
Dutch scientists have found that the ability to distract attention can be improved by practicing OMM (Open Monitoring Meditation), and this conclusion is published in the paper "State Prediction Attention Control Induced by Meditation over Time".
Davidson said: "No matter which specific form is adopted, most meditation needs to re-cultivate attention."
How to improve concentration scientifically
Therefore, we can say that in order to improve our concentration scientifically and effectively, we must practice mindfulness meditation. So how should we practice mindfulness meditation? Richard Davison gave a path of practice. Start with body scanning and breathing meditation. When you can master it skillfully, you can practice karmic meditation, which is called concentration meditation practice. This kind of practice is simply to take any object around you as the object of practice, which can be a pen or a little thing you wish. Keep your eyes and mind focused on this object, and come back if you are distracted. You can start practicing in a short time, say 5 minutes. Slowly increase. When you are proficient in this exercise, you can practice mindless meditation. Is to stay open without any focus. When an idea enters your mind, keep an observing attitude. This exercise also starts in a short time, say 5 minutes.
In daily life, you can practice concentration at any time. The specific method is to do one thing at a time, whether it is eating, taking a bath, listening to music, cleaning the room, or even walking. Improve your concentration through this kind of concentrated exercise anytime and anywhere.
References:
The Emotional Science of the Brain, Richard Davison.
New EQ, Richard Davison and Daniel Gorman.
Psychological Training Enhances Attention Stability: Neurological and Behavioral Evidence, Richard Davison et al. The address of the paper is/science/article/ABS/PII/S036192301001.
Predictive attention control of meditation-induced states over time. Address: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.congog.2015.08.006.