Fitness Training
11 focus exercises for improving concentration
When cliff diving champion Blake Aldridge walks up to the edge of a 90-foot platform, like at the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, he knows he needs to concentrate from the moment he jumps, until after he hits the water.
A dive from this height incurs 5Gs of force, which Aldridge says, "can feel like an uppercut from Mike Tyson." Athletes like Aldridge don't only have to be physically strong to handle the impact, they also need mental focus to ensure they won’t be distracted at the most crucial moment.
Non-athletes have moments like this too, whether it’s a significant negotiation, a job interview, or even a first date. A trained and controlled focus can be the difference between success and failure, or in the case of athletes, life and death.
Can you improve your focus? Scientists believe the attention span is like a muscle that can develop or atrophy based on use. Here are eleven exercises to help you build yours.
11 Focus Exercises for Improving Concentration
Richard Murray
© Kolesky
01
Segment Your Workday
Scientific research shows that the brain thrives on structure and routine. Whether you prefer to start your day with high energy, say by going on a run, or ease into the day with some meditation or journaling, having a schedule helps encourage focusing on your goals.
02
Follow a To-Do list
The first step of building your focus is getting rid of distractions. When you have dozens of tasks on your mind that are irrelevant to what you're trying to focus on, they are distractions. Writing a to-do list helps you stay on top of tasks while preventing things like your laundry from distracting you.
03
Read a Long Book
Reading of any kind is beneficial. Although almost all of us read in our daily lives, the average person consumes mostly easy-to-read short-form content. To develop focus, pick up something long and dense. Or simply finish a biography like “High Diver: My Life on the Edge” by Red Bull cliff diving champion Orlando Duque in an allotted period of time.
04
Focus on Minor Phenomenon
The more repetitive the task, the harder it will be to concentrate, and the more it will strengthen focus. Practicing everyday, repetitive tasks such as opening and closing your hand for five minutes will help train the mind to focus on command.
05
Practice Mindfulness
Active listening develops focus and is a vital tool in strengthening our relationships with others. While it's tempting to scroll on social media, or do work while listening to a podcast or an audiobook, sitting still and focusing entirely on audio content, whether it's a friend talking or a movie, will help hone that ability to focus.
06
Exercise, Physically
It's no coincidence that many people turn to fitness to calm their minds. Aside from the physical benefits of exercise, a workout routine helps cultivate discipline. Workout out even when you don't feel like it – it develops mental stamina.
Tess Wester
© Jarno Schurgers
07
Actively Follow Through on Tasks
If you don’t complete what you started, it’s easy to be distracted. Eliminating loose ends by completing tasks at once will help your ability to focus by ensuring that you only have to deal with one task at a time.
08
Practice Counting Backwards
Another easy exercise you can do when you have a few free moments is to simply choose a high number and count backward, shooting to get all the way to zero. Don’t let your mind wander when you do it.
09
Memorization
There is no activity more straightforward for cultivating focus than memorization. Unless you have a photographic memory, trying to recite a long poem or learning all the world's capitals will require discipline and concentration.
10
Cold Showers
The next step to training your focus is to cultivate willpower. Taking a cold shower, ice bath, or simply turning the faucet to cold for a portion of your shower will help train your brain to overpower your body when it doesn't want to do what your brain tells it to do. Studies and anecdotal evidence show cold showers improve focus because they improve willpower, and the two are linked.
11
Meditation
Focus is ultimately about controlling the brain. Meditation is another popular method for developing focus. Meditation trains the brain to resist a basic impulse–distraction. The effectiveness of meditation has led it to be one of the most common ways to both develop focus and relax–for everyone from athletes to parents.
Kickstart The Day With Meditation
© Colin Kerrigan / Red Bull Content Pool
12
The Benefits of Improving Focus
What does improving focus actually do for you? We see four common benefits resulting from focus training.
Efficiency
Despite how popular multi-tasking is, every time we break our focus, it takes extra time to return to the task. A focused person is more efficient at whatever task is at hand.
A Sense of Control
In sports, especially at the highest levels of competition, athletes have a limited amount of time to showcase their skills. For example, during the Red Bull Stratos Jump, Felix Baumgartner free-fell for almost four minutes (during which he was not connected to oxygen) before deploying his parachute. Despite all the physical training that went into this feat, his Red Bull team said that one of the most critical preparations was to make sure he could "practice being focused when things are not completely under his control."
Feeling Present
Living in the present moment is not only beneficial for individual performance, but it's a more fulfilling lifestyle. When you spend too much time regretting the past or being anxious about the future, it is impossible to appreciate the simple pleasures of everyday life.
Resisting Distractions
Inevitably you’re going to come up against distractions and hurdles. For Red Bull shooting coach Lethal Shooter, training his ability to focus helps him resist the distractions on the court at critical moments. He says, “When you go shoot in front of 17,000 people, and you have to hit a game-winner, you aren’t bothered that people in the stands are saying your mom is this or that. You have to learn to block things out. That way you understand that nobody can distract you from your greatness but you.”