Tricks to Improve Focus
Attention deficit/Hyperactivity (ADHD) seems to be epidemic these days. I am all for effectively treating it when the symptoms are moderate to severe given the detrimental impact it can have on one’s life, relationships and career and how much it can prevent a person from reaching their potential. However, I frequently try NOT to prescribe a stimulant when someone’s symptoms are mild. Stimulants can be regarded as a way of “flogging” the brain, trying to squeeze every bit of performance out of it which may not be the best thing for your brain health (whether to use medications or not should be the topic of a thorough risk/benefit discussion between the patient and the provider). A special concern of mine is people taking stimulants for performance enhancement, even worse, in order to suppress their natural need for sleep, which, long term, can be detrimental to one’s health.
For mild symptoms or for anyone trying to increase their focus, the following strategies have been shown to prove effective:
Meditation and mental traning: Compared to those with low meditation experience, people with have high meditation experience show increased attentional connectivity and increased connectivity between attentional regions and medial frontal regions, which may be involved in the development of cognitive skills such as maintaining attention and disengaging from distraction. Moreover, researchers also observed such increased connectivity even when the experienced meditators are at rest.
Steps of practicing mediation are as follows:
(a) settle in a comfortable position—having composed posture, erect back, eyes closed
(b) feel your body—feel the touch and where your body makes contact with the floor
(c) attend to your breath. There will be times when your mind wanders from your thought, which is normal. You will then acknowledge that mind wandering and direct it back to your breathing. You may continue to meditate for as long as you wish
Black tea: Black tea can improve accuracy on attention tests. People demonstrate better auditory and visual intersensory attention. It is a less drastic, more sustained effect than coffee.
Viewing nature: Natural views are associated with increased ability to pay attention. When one’s capacity to pay attention decreases, looking at nature can restore his/her attention. Easy isn’t it?
Viewing cute images: The positive emotion triggered by viewing cute images is associated with approach motivation and the tendency for systematic processing. In a research study, participants who view cute images of puppies and kittens show increased performance at both a motor dexterity task and a non-motor visual search task compared to subjects who view less cute images of dogs and cats.
Music: Subjects perform better at a task of focusing attention after listening to sedative music, but not stimulative music.
Doodling: Doodling increases participants’ concentration during an attention task—they can note down more names and remember more information than the non-doodling group
Food: Many kinds of food can boost the brain’s ability to concentrate. Below are a few of them:
Cinnamon: The smell of cinnamon, whether sensed by eating food that contains cinnamon or by directly sensing it [these are basically retronasally or orthonasally, but I don’t know how familiar patients and their families are with these terms], can increase performance during tasks that require attention. Cinnamon can be sprinkled into coffee or grilled fruit and added to oatmeal, whole grain cereals or soup.
Blackcurrant: Like cinnamon, blackcurrants can help improve attention.
Energy snack: Eating energy-rich snack in late afternoon increases performance in cognitive tasks that require sustained attention.
The importance of breakfast:
Improvement in auditory attention and short-term memory follows the consumption of oatmeal for breakfast. Oatmeal has also been found to be better for attention than ready-to-eat cereal or no breakfast.
However, a breakfast high in calories can decrease concentration.
Brain training websites and apps
Lumosity app
Brain HQ.com
