We all regularly observe situations when someone, because of his carelessness, falls into an unpleasant story. Although, then dissemble? Not only we become witnesses, but ourselves, from time to time, turn out to be inattentive. Why it happens? Is it possible to deal with this? How to develop attentiveness? How hard is it? Are there any special attention exercises? How much time should be devoted to this? What is mindfulness training? If you carefully read this article, you will find all the answers.
What is attentiveness?
Mindfulness is the ability to concentrate on the performance of a particular activity, to focus on a particular object or phenomenon. Accordingly, the training of mindfulness consists in developing the ability of a person to focus his attention, and not to disperse it around.
More often, external stimuli prevent us from concentrating, or detached thoughts. For example, it is difficult for a student to concentrate on fulfilling a written task, when a neighbor on a desk interferes with conducting a lesson and pesters him. Even if this student is alone in his room, but in his head all thoughts will be devoted to playing football with friends, he also will not be able to be attentive.
It turns out that when trying to figure out how to develop mindfulness, it is first of all necessary to understand how we can learn to focus and chase away all extraneous thoughts.
How to develop attentiveness?
In addition to the development of this quality, not less time should be devoted to the ability to recognize distractions and fight them. In Time Management, there is the concept of chronophages, which literally “devour” our time and efforts. The same can be said with respect to attentiveness, which can also suffer because of similar "chronophages". So that they do no harm, it is necessary to understand what dispels our attention and steals time.
For example, someone wants to focus on important work, but he is distracted by the noise on the street, or by thoughts about yesterday evening. Until a person gets rid of these factors, he cannot fully devote himself to the task. What to do? With street sounds easier to understand. You can close the window or use headphones with light melodic music, preferably without words. Thoughts to overcome more difficult. Only willpower will help here. If the head is full of "mess", then it is better to take a short pause, drink a cup of tea or coffee, during which time trying to think about everything that I wanted.
How to train mindfulness?
The training of mindfulness consists in developing the skills to concentrate and concentrate. There are a variety of attentiveness exercises that can be done without any additional devices, or with the help of online services that are freely available on the Internet.
How to improve attentiveness? How long can it take? - The question is rhetorical and does not imply a clear answer. The fact is that each individual case is individual. It all depends on the abilities of the person, his age and the amount of free time that he can devote to training. Someone will feel the results for a week, and another will need several months or even more. But they all share one thing. Both those, and others need to take the "first step", otherwise from the "zero mark" does not move.
The effective techniques for developing attentiveness include:
- The account of certain objects or objects;
- Memorization of parts;
- Memory diary;
- Games to find differences;
- Mobile applications;
The first three methods do not require additional devices, and the fourth and fifth method, most often, need access to the Internet.
Counting certain objects or items
A good way to develop mindfulness is to count any items during a walk. For example, if you go around the city, you can count cars of a certain color, specific store signs or lampposts. In the case of a walk through a forest or a field, plants, insects or birds will become an alternative. How many times have you met birch, squirrel, ladybug, etc.
Memorization of parts
The development of mindfulness is associated with the ability to concentrate. Take a certain object in your hand and try to remember as much of its details as possible. It is desirable that this thing was a little more diverse ball or pyramid. You can do this with people, only it is desirable to warn them in advance about it. It is unlikely that someone will like that during a conversation they inspect it from head to toe. Next, you need to try to reproduce in memory as much detail as possible. This exercise helps in the development of memory and attentiveness.
Memory diary
This is not necessarily a diary in the truest sense of the word. You can do without writing thoughts on paper. It is enough just to walk in the nearest park or square in the evening, remembering everything that happened during the day. For example, whom they met, what they were wearing, what they were talking about, etc. This exercise, in addition to the development of care, contributes to the improvement of memory, as well as the health of the brain as a whole.
Search for differences
Old popular game in which you need to find the differences between several similar pictures. Very well trained attentiveness and perseverance. Similar games are presented in large numbers on the Internet. There are also on the pages of printed publications. You can play it in real life by asking a friend or relative to help. While the player leaves the room or closes his eyes, the helper should hide something. What exactly? It is worth finding out. For example, how many cups were in the service? Is everyone missing? And maybe there are fewer newspapers on the coffee table? A couple of workouts and the development of care provided.
Mobile applications
In addition to the waste of time watching social networks and video games, smartphones can be really useful. Especially if you install them on developing applications. There are many specialized programs to improve the work of the brain, including to increase attentiveness. They can be found if you register a request in a search engine. By installing at least one such application, you can use it at any convenient time, performing daily tasks, or going through a series of increasing levels of complexity.
We are sure that after reading this article, it became obvious how to develop attentiveness. This process is not one day or week. By training mindfulness should be approached responsibly and patiently. The main thing is to alternate between different exercises for attention, otherwise they can get bored and turn into a routine. The more varied the approach to development, the greater the chances for its successful implementation and the quick achievement of the tasks set.
