Improving Attention

Add Structure to Improve Attention: A predictable routine, reduced decision fatigue, and clear priorities improve focus and attention.

Action Steps:

• Start your day with a consistent routine that includes stretching, meditation, or intentional activities to set a positive tone.

• Begin the day by planning specific tasks you'd like to accomplish. This will give your mind a clear focus. After you set a daily intention, develop reminders and cues to help you stay focused on what matters most.

• Try to maintain consistent and predictable routines. i.e., morning, dinnertime, homework, bedtime, etc.

• Create a daily schedule that allocates time for focused work and breaks.

• Focus on one task at a time instead of trying to do multiple things simultaneously to improve concentration and effectiveness.

• Have an accountability partner. Tell someone about something you hope to accomplish and ask them to check back with you to hold you accountable.

• Divide larger tasks into smaller, manageable parts to help maintain momentum and create small, easy-to-accomplish steps.

• When you think of something you need to do, you can stop and do it then (or make a note) instead of later. Reducing procrastination and the need to remember to do the task will reduce anxiety and stress in the future.

• Limit screen time or schedule quiet time, especially before bed, to help you settle down.

• Plan meals for the week to save time (and plan healthier meals)

Improving organization enhances attention by creating a structured environment, minimizing clutter, and prioritizing tasks. This clarity reduces mental overwhelm, allowing for sustained focus and better management of time and resources.

Action Steps:

• Keep A Daily To-do list to prioritize activities.

• To maintain focus, create a dedicated workspace and limit interruptions.

• Take regular breaks to reduce burnout; try 25 minutes of focused work followed by a 5-minute break.

• Use a labeling machine or print out labels, identifying places to store items you use frequently.

• Organize-clean one small area of your home office

• Organize (find a place for) one item that is commonly left lying around

• Make a basket or drawer with a pen, notepads or paper, stamps, and envelopes.

• Utilize lists, notes, charts, or diagrams to make information more engaging and easier to focus on. Make notes for multi-step projects to help you work through steps without getting sidetracked.

• Write down your thoughts and feelings to process your experiences and stay connected to your daily intentions.

• When you arrive home, put your keys, purse, wallet, and cell phone in a designated place.

• When you change clothes, fold them and put them away or put clothes in the hamper.

• Clean and organize your closet

• Label closet shelves so you have organized places to store clothes

• Encourage regular cleaning and organizing of their space to reduce distractions.

• Give children age-appropriate responsibilities to foster accountability for their belongings.

• Help children learn to keep toys and possessions organized

• Create consistent routines so that kids can anticipate

• Establish daily schedules for homework, chores, and leisure activities to foster consistency.

• Implement charts, calendars, or color-coded folders to help them visualize tasks and deadlines.

• Teach children to divide larger tasks into smaller, manageable steps.

• Create a quiet, organized space specifically for studying and homework.

• Use timers or alarms to help children manage their time effectively during tasks.

• Equip them with planners, lists, or apps to track assignments and responsibilities.

• Demonstrate organizational skills in your tasks to provide a practical example.

• Acknowledge and reward your child’s organizational efforts to motivate and reinforce positive habits.

3. Being present - Meditation: Being present in the moment enhances attention by reducing distractions, fostering deeper engagement, and increasing awareness of one's surroundings, which leads to improved focus and concentration.

Action Steps:

• Take a few minutes to practice different forms of Meditation each day. These skills can help you train your mind to stay present without judgment and avoid mental time-traveling or mind-wandering.

  • Practice Meditation through nature walks.

  • Use apps like 10% Happier, Calm, or Headspace to practice Meditation and enhance your awareness of the present.

  • Focus on your breath, bodily sensations, and thoughts that arise without judgment.

  • Practice breathing exercises to reduce stress and enhance focus. Inhale deeply through your nose, hold for a moment, and exhale slowly through your mouth.

  • Use your senses to connect with your surroundings. Notice what you can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. This practice can help anchor you in the current moment.

• Practice a Loving Kindness Meditation in which you send well-wishes toward yourself and others.

4 Being Present - Mindwandering: When we engage in “time travel,” a specific brain network called the Default Mode Network (DMN) is involved. When this network is activated, we are less happy. Excessive activation of the DMN network can contribute to negative internal language, particularly if you remember and focus on past adverse events. A good way to balance this is to shift your attention to the present and focus on a specific task. This activates a different brain network, the Task Positive Network (TPN), which is active during attention-demanding tasks.

Action Steps: Practice Being Present In The Moment

• Practice open-awareness meditation, a receptive and broad type of meditation in which there is no object. You notice whatever comes up in your awareness and let thoughts, emotions, and sensations arise and pass away. This helps you orient to your priorities, letting distractions come and go.

• Take a moment to reflect on something you are grateful for. This can shift your focus to the present and enhance your overall well-being.

• Bring your attention to the present moment to fully experience the here and now; when you notice a thought, bring your attention back to the present, letting thoughts, emotions, and sensations arise and pass away.

• Attend to variability; we are naturally drawn to attend to pain or suffering. It is equally important to notice (draw attention to) when you are not in pain or that pain comes and goes and is not always everywhere

• Write down your thoughts and feelings to process your

Spending Time with Yourself and your Intentions. The Attitudes of Mindfulness cultivate present-moment awareness, enabling individuals to focus on tasks without distraction. This practice enhances cognitive flexibility, reduces stress, and improves emotional regulation, increasing attention span and improving mental performance.

Visualize goals while maintaining rhythmic breathing, adding affirmations related to focus and purpose. This practice synchronizes the task-positive network, fostering productive flow states and reducing default mode network activity.

• Spend time each day simply being with yourself; don’t try to fix, change, or do anything. Go for a walk and concentrate on the physical sensations of walking. Pay attention to how your feet touch the ground, the rhythm of your steps, and the environment around you. Focus on how your body feels as it moves,

• Before starting a daily activity, set an intention to stay present. Remind yourself to focus on the task and let go of distractions.

6 Detox from Toxic Distractions. Detoxing from distractions sharpens attention by reducing mental clutter, enhancing focus on tasks, and fostering a calm environment. This clarity promotes deeper engagement and improves overall productivity and cognitive function.

Action Steps:

• Designate one day a week as a "social media-free day" where you engage in offline activities.

• Single-tasking: Reduce distractions and stay focused on whatever you are doing.

• Unplug from technology to help you reconnect with yourself and your surroundings.

• Replace social media time with hobbies like reading, painting, or gardening.

• Check phone and email messages only at certain times or turn the phone on Do Not Disturb.

• Reduce distractions by turning off notifications on your devices,

• Create a clutter-free workspace,

• Decide only to watch a certain number of episodes or several hours of TV per week.

• Replace entertainment shows with documentaries or educational programming that enrich your knowledge.

• Use apps that limit your social media usage to a specific amount of time each day.

• Unfollow accounts that bring negativity or stress into your life, and mute notifications to reduce distraction.s

• Gradually reduce the time you spend with toxic people, opting for less frequent interactions.

Practicing Mindfulnes and Loving Attention:Mindfulness is being present at the moment, intentionally and without judgment. It is developing the ability to notice how things are without excessive emotional reactivity. Mindfulness allows us to acknowledge or ‘note’ thoughts or feelings and know that these thoughts, feelings, judgments, and self-criticisms will pass.

Mindfulness involves developing certain attitudes toward life. These attitudes can be cultivated with daily practice. They lead to presence without judgment, which reduces stress and negative self-talk. Jon Kabat-Zinn described these attitudes in a popular YouTube video titled "The Attitudes of Mindfulness."

Action Steps: Try to incorporate these attitudes into your thought patterns.

• Non-judging: Identify judgmental thinking as it arises. The goal is to notice, not to rid yourself of judging thoughts. By seeing that judgment is present, you can learn new ways to relate to it, choosing a conscious response rather than reacting unconsciously.

• Patience: Cultivate the ability to bear difficulty with calm and self-control and to recognize the urge to rush through one moment to get to the next. Patience requires a connection with your core, faith, and courage; acknowledges that things have a life cycle separate from your wants.

• Trust: Believing that you can see clearly what is happening to you. You learn to trust your knowledge and authority and do not need someone else to tell you what you feel or need.

• Action Steps:

  • Beginners Mind: Be open to experiencing each moment as if meeting it for the first time. Remember and imagine your childhood experience—the first smell of a flower, the first drop of rain, the first taste of an apple.

  • Non-Striving: We spend much time “doing” and trying to change things, wanting things to be different, to go somewhere else, or do something else. Wants and desires make us think we aren’t the way we “should” be; they pressure striving to change rather than accept.

  • Honesty: Willingness to see things exactly as they are rather than how you think they should be or how you want things to be

  • Non-Craving: Our likes and dislikes and our judgments drive clinging. It is essential to let your experience be what it is, moment by moment. Letting be is a way of letting go. You have a better chance to let go by not interfering and letting things be as they are.

  • Gratitude: The more you practice counting your blessings, the more aware you become of them, and the more you notice the good things you experience

  • Generosity: Being generous and willing to share or help someone will make you and the other person happy. Generosity shows that you care about someone other than yourself. It is a way of reaching out, letting others know they are important, and helping you form positive connections that strengthen meaning and purpose in life.

8. Attention and Self-Care: Caring for yourself improves attention by boosting energy levels, reducing stress, and promoting mental clarity. Prioritizing self-care fosters a healthier mindset, enabling better focus and sustained task engagement.

Action Steps for Week 8:

• Focus on self-care activities that promote relaxation, improved attention, and positivity (yoga or meditation)

• Surround yourself with positive and uplifting friends and family who support your well-being.

• Challenge yourself to do something new and different every day. This helps you develop a sense of purpose. Also, pursuing things you do not have will increase dopamine release, brain activity, happiness, and well-being.

• Practicing a Love and Kindness Meditation- Strengthens well wishes toward self and others.

• Use calming Strategies like deep breathing or focusing on beauty and awe

• Strengthen Mind-Body Connection through Yoga and Meditations to calm the body and quieten the mind

• Look for requests/expectations/commitments you can let go

• Try Neurofeedback and Working-memory Training to strengthen attention

• Practice Forgiveness daily

• Practice Self-Compassion to help when you fail

9. Explore Natural Ways to Boost Dopamine. Increased dopamine levels boost motivation and enhance focus by facilitating better communication between neurons in the brain. This neuromodulator plays a critical role in attention regulation, improving cognitive performance and overall mental clarity.

ction Steps: Boost Dopamine By:

Physical contact, like a big hug.

Listening to music

Spending 30 minutes a day in the sunshine

Physical Activity: Exercise will be different depending on how much you enjoy it – if you enjoy exercise, it will increase dopamine 2x above baseline.

Chocolate will increase dopamine by 1.5x

Close social connections that release oxytocin also trigger dopamine release, improving attention.

Take a cold shower. A cold plunge (the water temperature will depend on cold adaptation) can boost dopamine up to 2.5x above baseline and is sustained for up to three hours post-exposure!

Reframe things you need to do into things you want to do

Drink green tea

Deep breathing

Meditation

Create art by painting, writing, photography, or cooking

Eat fruit to increase tyrosine

Do something new and interesting

10. Attention and Health: Attention and physical health work together, and improving either helps other physical activities like yoga, tai chi, or martial arts strengthen attention and improve physical health. These practices, together with mindfulness, improve concentration and foster mental clarity. This leads to better decision-making, increased physical activity, and reduced stress, ultimately promoting overall health and well-being.

Action Steps: Practice physical activities to enhance attention:

• Drink plenty of water throughout the day. Dehydration can lead to decreased concentration.

• Get Enough Sleep: Aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep each night to ensure your brain is well-rested.

• Reduce junk food and sugary drinks—add more nutritious meals.

• Plan a time each week to work on gradually increasing exercise.

• Try Yoga, Tai Chi, Mindful Movements, and Mindful Walking to calm your system.

• Spend more time outdoors vs. video games or watching TV. Walking or exercising can be a great alternative to screen time and strengthen physical health.

• Manage stress, mood, and threats, three conditions that are known to degrade attention and adversely impact health.

• Use short bursts of exercise during the day to help improve attention and health.

• Recharge your emotional batteries with rest from emotional struggles.