Simple ways to improve your Concentration

Ever wondered that the prayers you do can help with improving concentration!?!

This is a post that will not give you the piece of suggestion on improving concentration, rather it will help you to recognize the acts you do on a regular basis that actually helps you in improving your focusing ability unconsciously.

Just remembering the traditional ways or systematic suggestions on improving concentration would be like “Train your Brain”, “Take a break”, “Eliminate distraction” and so on. Those phrases might be difficult in practical scenario yet could be successful, if followed strictly. So here are the ways that you do in day to day life that help on improving your ability to focus.

Firstly, the opposite of concentration is distraction. Right from the morning, you are engaged with self care activities such as brushing, bathing and grooming. All these are habits that partially need your attention to do it, else would be a disaster.

If you have the habit of worshiping God, reciting any slogans is a form of activity that helps your concentration ability. Engaging in any kind of physical workout such as walking, jogging or exercising also play a part in improving your concentration apart from the other benefits.

If you are listening to a music album and you are able to identify the instruments used in that song, understanding the lyrics and also tapping your hand or leg or moving your head according to the rythm, then you are already in the activity of improving the concentration.

Hey, did you talk with your friend recently? Or had a chat with your heart out? Then I guess you would have felt relaxed that automatically helped on focusing.

Have you ever tried cooking with distraction?? Because you cannot do it without concentration though you master it!!! Cooking is something that need all your senses (eyes, nose, ear, taste, movements) to be in a single track to have delicious result. If you are cooking or making any dishes that is tasty then you may not need a activity to improve your Concentration!!

How many of us going to shop without the grocery list?! Even for 5 to 7 items?? If you don’t need the list and can buy everything then it’s a sign of good attention/ focusing.

To put it simple, everything that we are able to do without any mess are a sign of Good attention skill which helps to concentrate. Being mindful on the activities that we do helps to improve our concentration ability. For example, the kid in your home listening to the story you tell him or her and able to answer the questions regarding the story gives you the result on their attention power.

There are games that are of culturally enriched, Games like snake and ladder, ludo, kabadi, anktachari, pallankuzhi and many other games that are proven to improve concentration power and cognitive abilities. Each culture have their own heritage on games and following that also helps. Apart from that universally drawing, gardening, painting and other hobbies accounts to improve the concentration ability.

So start listening to “Yourself”, be aware of what you do and do it with dedication even it is not important to you. The phrase ” Do what you Love and Love what you Do”, beautifully binds here:) And do not forget to comment your favorite way of improving attention skills!!!

Doodle & Psychology

Have you ever drew roughly in your margin or in the corner of the page or in the last page of your notebook during lectures?! Yes, that is what we going to talk about, “Doodle“.

We doodle, because we want to escape from the boredom or we do it out of boredom, or to self emphasize our creativity during leisure hours. The fact behind your fine motor skills is that, Brain may be highly Creative, makes you engaged or it can give you a state of Relaxation else just be an art of Entertainment.

Though Doodling are spontaneous, unconscious, self-soothing and satisfying, studies shows that Dooddling is helpful in Memory retention and Mindful(Andrade, 2009).

Doodling helps you to reduce Daydreaming since almost of the cognitive resources are pulled into the activity. Also Doodling would maintain the autonomic arousal at an optimal level by keeping people awake and boosts the level of Concentration(Andrade, 2009).

As most of the doodlers experienced, it reduces the Anxiety at various situations (like waiting for an interview) as it is an activity of “Here and Now”.

Going much deeper on what our Doodle trying to say or what it say about us is interesting.

Doodling is way of letting out your emotions, feelings and it helps in problem solving by refreshing your thinking patterns. At times, just make you Laugh Out Loud while seeing what you actually doodled ( funny face of the teacher/ boss ).

Most of us would be stick to a pattern of doodle and we do it again and again. From the Graphology perspective(M.Farouk Radwan), we may come to know about our personality type and may guess for others too…Lets look into it:

Doodles Interpretations :

Triangles, squares , geometrical shapes: Rational and logical way of thinking, Good planner and ambitious.

Arrows, ladders: looking forward to some achievements and Goal oriented.

Doodling Good Looking Faces: Good looking faces may indicate that the person is social, people loving and optimistic.

Doodling Funny faces: Funny faces may indicate that the person has a good sense of humor

Doodling Ugly Faces ugly faces may indicate that the person is not a social person,lacking self confidence, skeptic, bad tempered or even aggressive.

Doodling Stars: Stars may indicate optimism and hopefulness.

Doodling Houses: May indicate that the person is missing his home, wanting a family, or wanting to settle down.

Doodling Flowers and plants May indicate that the person is sensitive, warm and kind

Doodling hearts :  in need of a relation

Doodling 3D shapes: Shows the presence of the ability to see the full picture and all aspects of an issue or at least the desire to do so

Doodling underlined names: underlining a name with one or two lines may indicate that this person is important (whose name is underlined)

Doodling Food: May indicate real hunger or emotional hunger

Doodling Animals love for animals or sensitivity

Doodling cars, plans, trains: Shows a desire for traveling ,freedom or the need for a holiday

Doodling Weapons: Guns, pistols and swords may indicate competitiveness and the presence of a warrior’s spirit.

Individuals current mood, their personality type and various psychological parameters may affect the results of the interpretation.

Refernces:

1. Andrade, J. (2009). What does doodling do? Applied Cognitive Psychology