How To Improve Your Concentration Levels
Concentration levels are the reasons we dip in performance while performing daily activities, be it writing, reading, playing, listening, in fact, any human activity requires concentration. You might not realize it or even know it, but the key to maintaining your concentration levels is:
AN ACTIVE BRAIN. You will know when this occurs. Your brain will feel supercharged up. You will feel the juices flowing. Once it does, there is almost nothing but divine power that can stop you. The confidence you gain from a super active brain is unparalleled. The power is relatively endless. You will even feel physically charged up. All tiredness will go away. All forms of lethargy in your body will disappear. But how do you achieve this state of consciousness? How exactly do you make your brain active?
I gathered some experience while completing my MBA on maintaining my concentration level, and I will gladly share it with you folks. Let’s learn to supercharge your brain!
Physical Activity Does the Trick!
This is something you might not know, but physical activity is better than coffee or tea, or both combined. Yes! Working your body out, even literally punching the air for a few seconds in sheer madness, will charge up your brain to the point where you will literally not feel sleepy anymore! The adrenaline rush that your brain receives is literally better and the motivation you will suddenly gain will keep you awake for an hour or two if you’re planning to work at a stretch. I find that 10 minutes of cardio like running, and some strength training like pull-ups adds a certain level of energy that is unprecedented in your body during work hours. It is like your brain suddenly wakes up!
Starting reading an entirely different topic
Your brain might thirst for knowledge on random stuffs from time to time. These sudden ‘cravings’ might occur right during your work sessions or study hours. How do you make it stop? Start reading those topics! You will see that the more you read the, the more refreshed your brain starts to feel. Suppose you are studying a topic on finance, getting bored. Suddenly your brain craves for the latest news on Donald Trump’s idiosyncratic campaign speeches. Without hesitation, search up Mr. Trump’s lovely moments and proceed to start devouring the information. Distracting as it might sound, quench your brain’s thirst for knowledge on something entirely different, and you will feel completely reinvigorated. Do this for maximum 10 minutes. You will feel refreshed.
Sitting Posture
Sit straight. Your back arch and your posture is important to connecting your body to the brain. If you relax and take a laid back body posture, you are done for the night because the tiredness that will set in the next 20 minutes will warrant bed rest. Keep one hand distance from you to your workstation. If you are writing, close-on into your paper so that your eyes really do not focus on anything else. Whatever chair you are sitting in, sit straight.
What you SAY, is what you DO
This might sound cliched, but you literally need to tell your brain inside your mind to wake up. PUSH through it! Your state of lethargy and lack of brain activity is as a result of your brain unable to process your desire to finish a task, due to inadequate practice, exercise or motivation. If you feel sleepy, read through a certain sentence. Understand it. Focus on the words. Put up a finger and point at every word you read if you have to. Make sure you understand it. Make sure you get the meaning behind the words. Once you understand one sentence, you will see that your brain is slowly starting to wake up. Move on to the next one.
Take a break, and then resume
20 minutes. I find 20 minutes of sitting on my seat to be more than enough time to be working on a table and a chair. Plus, you will warrant health issues if you do not get up for a walk. Relax, stretch. Make the most of your achievement and feel proud of what you have done so far. But then immediately bring yourself back to Earth and realize you have a long way to go. When you do, your brain will switch right back on again. When it does, get to work!
Enough sleep
Cannot stress the important of this, but 6-8 hours of sleep for adults is mandatory if you want to have a healthy, active brain. I realize it is hard to fall asleep for some people with a super active brain, but this is when you need to start counting sheep, daydream, lose yourself in your thoughts, literally anything that will tire your mind and help you fall asleep. When you wake up, you will feel super energized again!
There are always more than one way to improve and maintain concentration levels. But all of them revolve around activating your brain cells to work. No one will tell you that the rest of their body is the source of their work ethic. It is always the brain. Even for football players. Maintaining concentration is for anticipating a tackle. A lose ball. A pass. A potential run. A potential shot. If you anticipate well enough in advance, you win. If you do not, you lose out. Your brain is the key to your concentration levels and you I hope in time if you utilize these methods, realize that keeping an active brain is key to concentrating on your job. Seeing is believing, try it for yourself and see the difference.