Guidelines For Concentration And Memory Improvement
Lack of a good memory can be very troublesome, particularly when it means poor productivity at work or not being able to recall things like passwords or important dates.
What most people don’t realize is that there are many easy ways to improve memory function. In fact, the smallest changes like focusing your attention more actively or simply concentrating a little harder can make a huge difference in helping your memory improve.
Did you know that experts say it takes a full eight seconds of concentration to successfully store information in your long-term memory? Anything less and whatever you’re hoping to remember probably hasn’t gotten past your short-term memory. This means that all too often you forget things simply because they never really made it into your memory in the first place.
You’ve no doubt experienced the frustration of lost time spent searching for personal items that you just can’t seem to figure out where you left. Why? Because you were not paying any attention to what you were doing when you put them down somewhere!
Try consciously thinking about every action you perform right as you’re doing it. Focus your attention even when completing even the littlest task, saying aloud exactly what it is. For example, saying, “I’m leaving my wallet on the dresser,” is one of the best strategies for the memory that will help you avoid running around frantically searching for your money later on.
Another great tip is to minimize distractions such as text messages, videos, or radio while doing important activities. This especially will help you to study better if you are a student.
Just keeping your mind in the moment can greatly enhance your chances of remembering new names and faces. When you’re introduced to someone new you may be too preoccupied with your appearance or what the other person thinks of you, and this takes valuable attention away from what is actually being said.
An excellent way to practice focusing is to read a piece of writing in your favourite journal or other publication, and then try to summarize it. This will give a good indication of whether or not you were truly concentrating on the material. This is an especially good practice tool because written material has been shown to be one of the hardest types of information for our brains to store. But you can just as easily practice with other mediums.
The next time you enjoy a television program, try to remember what colour shirt or what kind of pants each actor was wearing at different times throughout the episode. Keep it up, and you will find yourself remembering more and more details.
A lot of popular memory tricks tell you to come up with your own visualizations or funny sayings to make things more memorable. But none of these will do you any good if you weren’t truly focused on the information you were trying to memorize at the time you created them. You might be someone who jots down important numbers or short phrases as memory aids, but none of this will help you if you never concentrated enough to be able to remember why you needed the information you wrote down.
There are a multitude of ways you come across information in everyday life and information you need to remember may come in many different forms. But, in every case, if you just make sure to pay a little more attention, you can make your memory the envy of all your friends and co-workers and your life much less stressful.
How To Improve Memory And Concentration
The brain does not work like that. We know now that it is flexible and highly adaptable which means that it can be moulded and improved. You can compare the brain with any muscle in the human body. By training and lifting weights a muscle can be strengthened and sculpted.
If this premise is true about every single muscle in our bodies, than why it should not be true for the brain, too? Science has proved that it is true and that the more you use it, the stronger and more flexible the brain becomes.
If physical exercise can improve brain power and improve memory capacity, than regular mental exercise can do much more.
You need to try new things which are outside of your comfort zone. You need to perform mental tasks that are challenging. You need to interact with people. And lastly, these activities have to be fun.
However, the choice is yours. You are the only one who can decide whether you are ready to start your brain training and the first step towards new and better life. If you are already determined to improve your brain power, increase memory power and improve concentration.
Let Concentration Improve Memory and Enrich Your Life
The inability to remember something can be discouraging as well as unsettling. When you forget things like telephone numbers and important deadlines or you forget to do vital things you set out to do it can be disheartening in addition to creating problems to your already complicated life.
But, memory improvement experts embrace the notion that problems with memory can be overcome by merely giving more attention to the things you want to remember, promoting the idea that by simply focusing more you can improve both concentration and memory.
They suggest that in most cases you are not able to remember something for the simple reason that the thing you want to remember has not been sufficiently impressed upon your thinking. The process of storing long-term memories requires that there be a copying of short-term memories into the cerebral area that stores memories for the long term.
But to copy that information into the long-term memory area there must be uninterrupted attention given for 8 to 10 seconds or even longer, based on the individual. You can enhance your concentration and memory just by practicing the technique of sustained focused attention which allows a deeper impression to be made in the area where long-term memory resides.
Many have experienced the phenomenon of walking into the kitchen or the bedroom and then failing to recall why, or leaving the house to run errands and not being able to remember if the door was locked or the stove turned off.
In the first instance, you thought about something that required you to go to another room, but when you arrived the thought was no longer in your mind. In the other instance you weren’t paying attention when you went out the door and then couldn’t recall if you locked it. You were not using your concentration to improve memory in either instance.
In fact, your lack of focus on the moment worked against your ability to recall. Memory failures of these kinds can be minimized by focusing on what’s going on moment by moment, thus greatly improving the ability to recall. As we leave the house we can ask a mental question, “Did I lock the door?” and then answer “No, but I’m locking it right now.” By using these kinds of habits we force ourselves to pay attention to what’s going on and it makes a solid impression in our mind, to help improve your concentration as well as your memory retention.
If you desire to improve your attention level, you should do whatever it takes to get rid of unnecessary distractions such as attention-draining phone calls and excess environmental noise. If you have a clear idea of what you’re trying to accomplish you can move directly toward it.
Unfortunately, routine daily distractions have a way of leading you down unintended paths and can many times take you away from the straight line of your goals. And as your focus on the moment is diminished your ability to remember things decreases proportionally.
Techniques of focusing attention have been utilized in research over the last several decades to help in the learning foreign languages. These techniques assist in improving the concentration of the subject, thus enhancing the memory.
The subject, or that is the student, is seated in a comfortable relaxed position and slow-tempo classical music is played in the background to help in the relaxation process.
Breathing exercises are used to increase the calmness and the concentration of the subject, at which point words and their meanings are presented. It is claimed that languages can be learned four to five times faster with focused attention than would otherwise be typical.
If you develop the habit focusing your attention; it will enhance your recall of such things as the name of a person you’ve just met. It helps to discipline yourself to put away your own self-awareness and the concern about what you’re saying and give your attention to the other person.
Not only does this help your ability to remember, it also makes you a great listener. Visualizing what is being said as the person speaks and then responding with something that lets them know you’re listening is a good way to do this.
And it requires that you pay close attention, which equates to a certain amount of work. But paying attention gives you greater recall of the conversation. The added focus improves your memory.
To develop a sharply focused mind requires daily determination and practice. This can be done when reading by going through each sentence more slowly focusing on what’s being said. Your mind in reality thinks in pictures and so using imagination to visualize what’s being said is helpful to develop greater retention.
Words are only symbolic and they are not the final destination in our effort to comprehend. Words are containers for things we can picture. In fact if the picture doesn’t exist in your mind then a particular word has no meaning for you.
Give life to what’s being said by letting your imagination create it in your mind with pictures, and a stronger impression will be made in your mind, thus enhancing memory. Give enough attention to make a solid impression. This will improve your concentration and enhance your memory. Practicing the technique of heightened attention on a daily basis will enhance your ability to remember and add new meaning to your life.
7 Exercises to Improve Concentration
If you want to build muscles in your body, what do you do? You start exercising, hitting the weights and doing targeted exercises to improve your strength.
Well, if you are trying to improve your concentration, exercises to improve concentration and work the brain can help build up strength and increase your concentration abilities, just like other exercises work on developing your body.
Focus and concentration can be developed and strengthened, but like the rest of your body, you’ll have to do the right exercises to accomplish this. If you are ready to start building your brain and improving your concentration, here are seven fun and easy exercises you can add to your everyday life to help out.
Exercise #1 – Work on Crossword Puzzles
One of the exercises to improve concentration is to work on crossword puzzles. You can find them in the daily paper, print off free options online, or buy books full of fun crossword puzzles.
You’ll find that these puzzles are a whole lot of fun, which means you can enjoy yourself while working to make your concentration skills better. These puzzles can help you to increase concentration because they require you to solve questions and rely on long-term memory.
Take about 10-15 minutes a day to work on these puzzles. If you have a few free moments, keep some crossword puzzles with you so you can work on them in your spare time. You’ll find that you quickly increase your concentration levels when you constantly exercise your brain in this manner.
Exercise #2 – Try Doing Sudoku Puzzles
Another great option to try if you want to do exercises that help improve your concentration is Sudoku puzzles. This is a great exercise that really works on the brain and they take focus and concentration. These puzzles are logic puzzles that have to deal with number placement.
Many people find these puzzles to be very challenging. You can find them online, in books, and in the newspaper. Try solving one of these Sudoku puzzles every day. No doubt you’ll soon see a big difference in your focus and concentration in other areas of your life.
Exercise #3 – Word Counting
Something, as simple as word counting can be a great exercise to give your concentration skills a boost. How do you do this? Take a paragraph, whether it’s in the newspaper, an article online, a magazine, or even a book, then take the time to count the number of works that are in that paragraph. Once you count the first time, count again.
Make sure that you counted right the first time. When you start finding that counting the words in just one paragraph is becoming easier for you, start counting words within a couple of paragraphs at a time. Then move on until you can count the words in an entire page.
Do not use your fingers – just use your eyes as you do the counting. You’ll be surprised how much concentration this takes, and as you move up in difficulty, you’ll be building up good skills in concentration and focus.
Exercise #4 – 5 Minutes with No Thoughts
Another of the best exercises to improve concentration includes you going for five minutes without thinking a thing. Take five minutes, set a timer if you have to, and focus on not thinking anything. This is difficult, but you can work up to it. If you have a hard time with five minutes, start out with only one minute at a time.
As it becomes easier, work your way up to five minutes. It will take some time to accomplish this goal, but working to go for a period of time without thinking a thing can help you to improve concentration. It’s tough at first, so don’t give up.
Exercise #5 – Counting Backwards
Counting backwards can be an excellent exercise that works on boosting your concentration skills too. Start at 100 and then count backwards, all the way until you get back to one. At first this will be pretty tough for you. However, once this gets easy, then works on counting backwards from 100, but do it by threes.
For example, start with 100, then 97, then 94, then 91, and so on. It gets more complicated when you try doing it by threes. You’ll be slow at first, but as you continue using this exercise, you’ll get faster and your concentration will get even better.
Exercise #6 – Change Up Your Routine
Simply, changing up your routine can be a great exercise to improve your concentration. Often you get used to doing things a certain way and you are not really paying attention.
Change the routine on a regular basis and do something that isn’t within your regular comfort zone. This helps to increase your ability to solve problems and it can help make you concentrate more as well. One simple way to do this is by simply taking another way to work on a regular basis.
Exercise #7 – Begin a New Hobby
Last, if you are looking for exercises to improve concentration, try beginning a new hobby. This allows you to expand the interests that you have and it also makes your brain have to learn something that is totally new to you.
It expands the way that your brain thinks and challenges the brain, increasing the concentration skills that you have. While it helps you improve your concentration, it also will be a whole lot of fun as well.
These are just a few exercises to improve concentration that you can begin using in your daily life. Of course, take it fairly slow in the beginning. It may be difficult when you start out, so do your best. Don’t expect to do these exercises perfect at first. Build up the brain and you’ll soon find your concentration skills improving.
Eastern Techniques to Improve Concentration Power
Having a high degree of concentration isn’t something that most people are born with. In fact, it’s more natural for various priorities to constantly compete for mental attention, resulting in a good deal of distraction at any given time.
Eastern religion and traditions, however, have spent centuries training followers to become more focused. In general, this is thought to be a spiritual issue, as it’s hard to be in tune with deity without clearing the mind. However, even those who have no religious tradition, or one quite different than a Hindu or Buddhist faith, can benefit from the eastern techniques to improve concentration power.
1. Yoga
Most people utilize the discipline as yoga as a form of exercise. It is, in fact, a very effective way to work your body. Yoga is a mind-body type of movement, providing a strong mental focus, coupled with challenging physical expression. As a result, concentration is necessary to properly perform yoga moves. To those looking on, yoga seems ridiculously easy; it isn’t until you attempt the moves yourself that you begin to realize how challenging the art is.
Yoga brings balance to the physical and mental aspects of your concentration, increasing focus and training your brain to balance the mental and physical. You might be surprised at how well this translates into better memory and concentration power.
2. Meditate on It
Think of any eastern culture and one picture will certainly come to the front of your mind: someone sitting cross-legged, holding their fingers together, with their eyes closed. Meditation is a major part of eastern health. Meditation is designed to clear the mind and bring a hyper-awareness to the present moment.
Concentration is a huge part of the meditation process, so it makes sense that practicing this discipline would train your mind for targeted focus. Meditation is an art that is closely connected with eastern spirituality. It is integrated into worship and self-awareness rituals of eastern faiths.
As someone who resides in the west, you can gain many of the same benefits, even if you don’t share the faith behind the practice. Two types of mediation are particularly useful for improving concentration power.
The first is a type of meditation that focuses on breathing. This draws your concentration to an internal point-of-focus, bringing clarity of thought. Proponents claim that meditating on breathing helps with self-discovery.
Another common meditation technique focuses on an object or environment to hone in concentration. This also helps the brain become more aware of a single thought or object, increasing the capacity for concentration.
3. Oriental Herbology
As a complementary health discipline, herbs have always been integrated into eastern culture. In fact, many of the most effective herbs come from oriental cultures. This includes well-known plants such as gingko biloba and ginseng.
Surprisingly, both of these substances have been studied in relation to brain function, memory and concentration. While few medical doctors will openly admit that these are effective for concentration, you might be surprised at how many professionals use herbs themselves to gain a boost.
Eastern techniques have been used for centuries to improve concentration power. While each person is different, there are many people who find herbs, yoga and meditation to be a huge help in boosting their ability to function daily. As someone who needs a bit of a pick-up, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try these eastern techniques to boost concentration power.
To Improve Concentration Try These Tips Now
Nobody likes to feel out of his or her element. It’s much more pleasant to walk into any situation and own the day. However, having that happen all the time is a bit unrealistic. Sometimes, things just don’t go your way and you don’t feel like you are at your best.
The good news is that doesn’t have to be the case all the time. You can become more prepared; improve your concentration with practice. By following these five tips to improve concentration, you will find that you are more prepared and less nervous, regardless of what your day entails.
#1 Go the Extra Mile
It’s not always those who know the most or are more skilled than others that end up on top. Rather, it’s the ones who keep going when everyone else throws in the towel. If you find yourself frustrated, lacking focus and ready to give up, tell yourself that you will do just a little bit more and try just a bit harder.
This tip will improve your concentration and give you the boost that you need to get over the hump. Just like when exercising, doing just a little bit more at any given time can add up to a big mental boost.
#2 Compartmentalize Your Brain
We each have habits that either lead to positive or negative results in our life. When it comes to concentration, bad habits can really harm your efforts. Most people find themselves distracted by worries and concerns that spill over from all areas of their day. While at work, you can be experiencing stress and concern about bills or other household responsibilities. This interferes with your ability to perform at your best.
Give yourself strict instructions to separate the various things that are vying for your attention. If you can’t do anything about your bills right now, shut the door on that worry until a more appropriate time. Mentally tuck things away that are getting in the way of your best concentration.
#3 Should You Procrastinate or Not?
Procrastination is the death-knell to concentration. It can knock down an otherwise productive day faster than almost anything else. Of course, procrastination is nothing more than putting off until later what you could easily accomplish right now.
While it can be hard to get going, it’s a well-known fact for productivity and concentration snowball. In most instances, once you get going, the momentum will carry you well beyond what you thought you had in you.
#4 Develop Mental Cues
The brain is an amazing tool. In fact, that is so much the case that scientists barely grasp your full capabilities. What is known, however, is that your brain can be trained?
When you find yourself in a situation where you need more focus and concentration, develop a cue that will kick yourself into high gear. This may be something as simple as going through a routine, such as opening your laptop and getting a cup of coffee. This cues your mind that it’s work time, shutting out all other distractions.
Be aware, however, that you can also train your brain in the opposite direction. If you find yourself winding down on a social networking site, for example, your brain may be trained to turn off concentration when that happens. Be aware and use these cues in your favour.
Improve Your Brain Cognitive Power
There are many instances that makes you feel bad for a bad brain health, like, you reach to your car, and forgot to bring keys with you, you enter into the kitchen, but don’t remember why etc. So, let’s talk about the health as the most important and at the same time most neglected body part ‘brain health’.
First, we will be discussing about the basic reasons that weaken your mind and then we will talk about the solution.
Causes that Weaken Your Brain
Family and children – Taking too much of stress about their care and needs, sometimes affects your brain badly, and causes forgetfulness, stress etc.
Difficulties in a relationship – This again causes so much of the stress and impacts your brain performances.
Work or being too busy – Lack of attention given to your health keeps impacting your brain function.
Financial problems – It makes you always worried about the future and causes a fear that in case you need some financial help, how would you manage.
Unrealistic expectations – Unrealistic targets only bothers your mind and do nothing, and hence, always be practical with your expectation with yourself as well as others.
Negative self talk – Thinking positive plays a great role in keeping your brain active and mind healthy. So, avoid thinking too much negative.
How to Improve Brain Health For Concentration?
Exercise your brain – Puzzles, brain games, meditation are the best examples of brain exercises that works to create the association within different parts of the brain; which helps to make your brain sharp.
Vary activities – Not just the brain exercises, but physical activities also play a great role in keeping your brain sharp, fresh and healthy, while making you feel fresh is the most important help extended in this way.
Eat brain food – Nutrients are essential for a better brain performance. So have a lot of food containing high Omega 3 fatty acids EPA and DHA that will help you improve your focus and memory.
Try new things in life – Apart from exercising and healthy diet, exploring new things adds a plus point to your brain health. When you feel fresh you learn and adopt good things, which further aids to brain health and function.
Conclusion: Brain is the most complex body part that needs special attention to be paid, in order to keep it healthy and fresh. So, eat healthy stuffs, exercise well and do some meditation to take care of your brain health in the most natural way, so that it never needs any medical support to improve functioning.