How to increase concentration?

You open the book, or the file. You reread the same line for the third time. Your back slides down the chair, the phone is a hand's breadth from your hand, your breathing has become shallow without you noticing.

And you tell yourself: “Now I'll concentrate.”

How many times has that sentence really worked?

Why does forcing yourself to concentrate often not work?

When you tell yourself “I have to concentrate,” you ask your mind for an effort, without necessarily looking at the conditions in which you're asking it to make that effort.

In the Premium I suggest starting from an element we often overlook: the physiological state we're in.

Try thinking clearly when you're tired, tense, with your shoulders closed and your breathing hurried. It's not impossible. But you might notice that concentrating takes more effort.

And what if you weren't lacking the ability to concentrate, but were trying to use it in unfavorable conditions?

Increasing the effort isn't always what's needed. Sometimes it can be more useful to change something in the way you prepare.

What are the three physical switches of attention?

Even before looking for a new mental technique, you can work on three elements: posture, breathing and the rhythm of your movements.

Posture. How are you sitting right now? Notice where your shoulders are, where your gaze is directed, how firmly your feet rest on the floor.

Breathing. Without changing it, observe its rhythm. Is it slow or fast? Regular or irregular? Do you feel your chest or your abdomen moving more?

The rhythm of your movements. The foot tapping, the thumb scrolling the screen, the gaze jumping from one point to another. These movements too can give you information about the state you're in.

Try now.

Lengthen your back without stiffening, plant your feet firmly, relax your shoulders and bring your gaze to the height of the line you're reading.

What do you notice?

Don't necessarily look for a particular sensation. Notice whether something has changed.

You can explore the relationship between physiology and state in the page on physiology and mood management.

How do you use breathing to concentrate?

Breathing is one of the tools you always have available.

Among the techniques described in the Premium is square breathing. You can try it right now.

“I breathe in counting to four. I hold for four. I breathe out counting to four. I pause for four.”

Repeat for a few cycles, without forcing.

If the pauses make you uncomfortable, or give you air hunger or dizziness, stop them and go back to breathing normally. The exercise must remain comfortable.

The regular rhythm can help you bring your attention back to your breathing, especially when you notice you're distracted or agitated.

Then go back to the line you were reading.

Has anything changed? Even just a little?

If so, what exactly has changed?

And if you don't notice any difference, what can you try to change?

The goal isn't to get a required answer. It's to start recognizing which conditions help you concentrate.

What should you do when your mind wanders off halfway through the work?

Have you ever found yourself reading a page and realizing, at the end, that you don't remember anything?

Your eyes kept following the lines, but your attention was elsewhere.

Maybe you were thinking back over a conversation. Or imagining something you'll have to face tomorrow.

The mind can move between memories, worries, plans and possibilities. The body, instead, offers you sensations you can observe in the present moment.

What if you used those sensations as a point from which to bring your attention back?

Try a brief body scan.

Pause for fifteen or thirty seconds. Take one or two calm breaths. Bring your attention to your hands resting on the desk, to the contact with the chair or to the air entering your nostrils.

Notice what you perceive: pressure, temperature, tension, lightness.

You don't have to change anything.

You can also experiment with one sense at a time: observe the grain of the wood of your desk, listen to the sound of the computer, feel the warmth of the cup between your fingers.

Then go back to the activity.

You didn't have to fight against your thoughts. You simply chose where to direct your attention again.

Where had your attention gone? And what helped you bring it back here?

This is one of the ways you can learn to observe and regulate your internal state.

Why can a boring book help you study?

It sounds like a joke. And yet it's one of the centering experiments I suggest in the Premium.

Keep within reach a book you find particularly boring, or pick out an uninteresting activity.

When you notice you're drifting, interrupt for a few minutes what you're doing and devote yourself to that alternative.

Then go back to the book you have to study.

What do you notice?

By contrast, you might find that the initial activity seems less heavy than before. Maybe even more interesting.

It's not a guaranteed result. It's a possibility to experiment with.

The principle is to observe how our evaluation of an experience changes when the point of comparison changes.

There is also a variant.

Sit down without your phone, without music, with nothing to look at. And do absolutely nothing.

Stay like that for a few minutes.

You might notice that the desire to do something starts to grow. The mind looks for an occupation, a movement, an alternative.

Maybe a sentence will come:

“Enough, I have to do something.”

If it happens, try to direct that drive toward the activity you had interrupted.

And if it doesn't? You can still choose to resume with a first step.

It's not about forcing yourself to feel something, but about discovering which strategies change the way you perceive an activity.

How do you prepare space and time before starting?

You've observed your body, experimented with your breathing and brought your attention back to the present.

Now look at what's around you.

Is the phone still a hand's breadth from your hand?

Are notifications on? How many tabs do you have open on your computer?

The environment too can facilitate or hinder concentration.

Put the phone in another room, close the unnecessary tabs, set up good lighting and keep within reach only what you need.

Then organize your time.

With the Pomodoro technique you can choose twenty-five minutes devoted to a single activity, followed by a five-minute break. After four cycles, allow yourself a longer break, of fifteen or thirty minutes.

Twenty-five minutes doesn't have to be the ideal length for everyone. You can adapt it to the task and to your ability to sustain attention.

The point is to decide in advance what you'll do and for how long.

When you continually alternate between messages, reading and other activities, each time you have to bring your attention back to the previous task.

You can reduce these switches by preparing a precise session:

“Tomorrow at nine, at the desk, with the phone in the kitchen, I'll open chapter three and study for twenty-five minutes.”

You've defined when, where, what to do and which distractions to keep away.

You can explore this way of building habits in the page on atomic habits.

What if your difficulty concentrating doesn't go away?

Not all concentration difficulties depend on the state you're in or on the environment you've prepared.

Insufficient sleep, stress, health conditions and other factors can affect attention.

Adequate rest, good nutrition and sufficient hydration remain important conditions that no technique can replace.

It's one thing to get distracted during a demanding day. It's another to have a persistent difficulty that compromises your studying, your work or your daily life.

In this case it's advisable to consult a qualified health professional to understand the possible causes.

If you're following a prescribed treatment, these exercises don't replace it and don't justify changes to medication.

A small exercise

At your next study or work session, try doing something different.

1. Observe your state. Before starting, notice your posture, breathing and rhythm of movements.

1. Change what you can. Plant your feet firmly, lengthen your back without stiffening and bring your gaze to the material you need to use.

1. Experiment with your breathing. If it's comfortable for you, try a few cycles of square breathing, without forcing the pauses.

1. Prepare your environment. Move the phone away, close the distractions and choose a single activity for the next twenty-five minutes, or for an interval better suited to you.

1. Bring your attention back. If your mind starts to wander, pause for fifteen seconds. Notice the contact of your hands or feet with a surface, then go back to the activity.

1. Check the result. At the end, ask yourself: “What did I do differently? What helped me? What could I repeat or change next time?”

It doesn't need to all work on the first try.

You're gathering information about how to prepare conditions more favorable to your attention.

And every time you recognize what works for you, you can choose to use it again.

Going deeper

The next time you notice you can't concentrate, try changing the question.

Instead of just asking yourself “Why do I keep getting distracted?”, ask yourself:

“What state am I in, and what can I change to support my concentration?”

It's an important distinction.

Because you can't control every thought that crosses your mind, but you can learn to recognize and change some of the conditions in which you try to direct your attention.

In the the Premium Edition of Strategic NLP – The Invisible Blade I explore other techniques of the method: diaphragmatic breathing and 4-7-8, sensory focusing, Alessandro Mora's sequential color visualization and the laws of atomic habits.

Not to add more exercises to those you already know, but to offer you different tools to try out and use in the situations where they can be useful to you.

Sometimes, to change what you're able to do, you can start from how you prepare to do it.

To explore further:

• Concentration techniques
• Mental focus
• The effective study method