How to Focus Better: 19 Activities for Improved Concentration

One of the most prevalent complaints of modern lifestyles is a lack of concentration and focus in adults. As the world we live in grows more complex, so do our work and home life demands, and it has arguably never been more important to boost mind power. Yet, ironically, levels of concentration are at an all-time low. Individuals are concerned more than ever with how to focus better.

Concentration refers to the control of attention: the mental effort directed towards a certain task or activity. In addition to this, it refers to the exclusion of attention to any other subject matter apart from the task at hand.

One’s ability to concentrate may vary person to person for a number of reasons, such as age, lack of sleep or stress levels, or simply the ability to tune out distractions. Cognitive issues such as head injuries or concussions, as well as a handful of mental health conditions can also affect mind power and contribute to impaired concentration.

If you are wondering how to focus better, here are a number of strategies to consider.

Follow Your Focus Better

We all have a time of day where productivity is at its highest – and that time is different for everyone. You may find yourself reading the same passage of a book a few times over, or battling to concentrate during a morning meeting. If you want to understand how to focus better, start by making a mental note of concentration peaks and dips during the day, then try to structure tasks or activities that require focus around them.

Create a Focus-Friendly Environment

The ability to focus for extended lengths of time requires a supportive environment. While not all work environments are within our control, make adjustments where possible when addressing how to improve concentration and focus. Make sure your seat is comfortable, your back has ergonomic support to avoid slouching, your desk is at the right height and the lighting is appropriate to keep your eyes from straining. If possible, control the temperature to be moderately cool, and have water nearby so you don’t need to get up often. Continually working from the same spot can also be an effective strategy on how to focus better – conditioning your brain to switch into concentration gear whenever you return to that space.

Be Sensitive to Sound

Reduce distracting or particularly loud noises as best you can. Consider playing muted instrumental music or even ambient nature sounds (there is an abundance of playlists on platforms such as YouTube) to drown out background noise and help create a consistent environment that your mind associates with concentration. When considering how to improve concentration and focus, the general rule of thumb is to not play music that you particularly like or dislike, as you may find yourself tuning into the song rather than the task at hand.

Take a Tech Break

Notifications on our many electronic devices contribute to a lack of concentration and focus in adults, thanks to the sporadic and ongoing distractions they create. Consider putting your smartphone into airplane mode, or turning off email and app notifications while you are attempting to focus on a particular task. The same goes for your laptop or monitor: if you are implementing strategies on how to focus better, work offline to prevent on-screen notifications from pulling your attention. To better improve these effects, consider placing devices such as your smartphone out of eyesight while they are not needed.

Set a Social Media Limit

Along with tech restrictions, limiting your social media use can go a long way when addressing how to improve concentration and focus. The reward mechanism in the brain is activated when we engage with social media, which encourages us to use it more often. Smart phones allow you to set limits on your social media interaction, which can be helpful in restricting your use, particularly in the work day. Designating time to look through social media versus having access to it at any time can also help you to stay on task if you are exploring how to focus better.

Make a To-Do List

Not having a clear idea on what needs to be done next can contribute to a lack of concentration and focus in adults. Write down a to-do list of what you would like to achieve in the day, preferably the night before. Creating a reasonable to-do list not only helps you to prioritize what tasks need to be completed first, it can also help you keep track of incomplete errands that are weighing on your mind. Prioritizing helps relieve the mind of distracting anxiety, while accomplishing small tasks daily can wire the brain for success.

Feed Your Brain

It comes as no surprise that the fuel you put into your body influences the output. If you are exploring how to improve concentration and focus through diet, boost mind power by including more of the following foods into your daily nutrition: fatty fish (such as salmon and trout), eggs, berries and dark leafy greens, along with plenty of water – even mild dehydration can make it harder to focus or remember information. Breakfast meals that are low in sugar and high in protein and fiber will also sustain your energy levels throughout the day: examples include oats, yoghurt and fruit or whole-grain toast with eggs.

Supplement with Micronutrients

Micronutrients – vitamins, minerals and antioxidants – are an essential component of wellbeing and cognitive function, yet even the healthiest of diets don’t always manage to include the diversity of nutrients needed for excellent health. Supplementation helps us to pick up the nutritional slack by supplying essential micronutrients that we would battle to take in through food alone. Specific micronutrients thought to support cognitive function include omega-3s, resveratrol, ginkgo biloba and B vitamins.

Get Moving

Physical activity should form part of any strategy on how to focus better. Improved concentration is among the extensive benefits of exercising regularly. Exercise can enhance both attention and concentration within as little as four weeks, thanks to its ability to boost the brain’s dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin levels. Memory loss that occurs with age-related brain atrophy may also be stopped or even reversed after a year of moderate physical activity. In particular, exercising before or between periods of focus has proven to be the most beneficial for concentration.

Train Your Brain

Playing certain games can support better concentration by sharpening your focus. These could include Sudokus, crossword puzzles, chess, word searches, jigsaw puzzles and memory games. These will also not only improve concentration, but working and short-term memory as well, along with processing and problem-solving skills. These types of games have a positive effect on children who are struggling with concentration, and are particularly important for older adults, since concentration and memory tend to decline with age.

Play Video Games

While children and adults are discouraged from overuse of video games, a limited time spent playing digital action games may prove helpful in certain levels of concentration. Individuals may be able to track multiple objects at the same time, switch tasks more effectively and even improve reading speeds.

Try a Concentration Workout

In line with using games to increase concentration, there are specific activities you can undertake if you want to learn how to focus better. The idea is to fully immerse yourself in a specific activity for a set period of time to encourage the ability to concentrate. Relevant activities could include spending a few minutes throwing a ball back and forth between you and another person, drawing or doodling for a few minutes, or reading a short story. Afterwards, reflect on how often you lost focus and needed to reassign your attention to the task at hand.

Get Quality Sleep

If you find yourself choosing between extra time focusing on a task or activity and a good night’s sleep, go with the latter. It may seem counterproductive, but when you’re well rested your performance improves. The occasional late night won’t have any major effects on your concentration, but regularly falling short on sleep will negatively affect your concentration (as well as your mood, emotions and general cognitive abilities).

Quality of sleep is as important as quantity when considering how to focus better; try stick to a sleep routine to cue your body for bed, keep the room cool and aim for a consistent bedtime.

Our electronic devices are amongst the biggest culprits when it comes to disrupting sleep. They usually emit blue light that stimulates the eyes much like daylight, preventing the secretion of the sleep hormone, melatonin. Use a filter or glasses that block blue light to minimize exposure, or try avoid electronic devices at least an hour before bed. Also avoid exercising too late in the day, which can keep the metabolism fired up and resistant to sleep.

Practice Mindfulness and Meditation

Mindfulness and meditation helps us rewire the brain to find better, more efficient ways to handle tasks – and therefore improve concentration. Practicing mindfulness includes deep breathing, meditation to improve focus, doing yoga or taking time to fully concentrate your attention on one item as you observe and savor it – this could be an object, a piece of music or art or even your next meal.

Meditating in particular helps the whole body to relax and the brain to become calmer; the focus on breath encourages resistance to mental distractions. With practice, it is possible to use the breath to bring the attention back to the task at hand, encouraging concentration even when interrupted.

Spend Time in Nature

If you are exploring how to improve concentration and focus naturally, consider spending more time outdoors. Getting outside each day, even for a brief amount of time, is thought to supply focus-boosting benefits, as well as generally support your physical and mental wellbeing. This could include a short walk through a park, sitting in your garden, or spending a few minutes in the sunshine with your eyes closed.

If you are unable to get outside, including plants in your working spaces may help boost mind power and productivity too. This also contributes to air quality and workplace satisfaction, which may indirectly improve your focus.

Don’t Multitask

While you may feel productive bouncing between tasks, the opposite is usually true. The brain is not designed to cope with doing more than one thing at a time, and trying to juggle activities simultaneously may mean you perform worse on each task overall.

Multitasking is not the same, however, as task switching, which may prove to be helpful when considering how to focus better. If you are stuck on a particular activity and your brain needs something fresh to focus on, switching tasks may help revive your mind power and promote you staying productive for longer.

Time blocking may also help you achieve working on a single task before moving on to the next one. Assigning time to certain activities allows you the mental space to ignore distractions, knowing that time has been allotted to address those at a later stage. Making a rule to complete any task that comes to mind immediately, provided it takes less than five minutes, is another simple strategy for how to focus better and help stop small distractions piling up.

Take a Time Out

If you are considering how to focus better on a lengthier task, you may benefit from taking breaks more often. This has less to do with improving your concentration and more to do with the renewal of focus. Given that concentration spans are short, it may serve you better to take short breaks between 15-minute slots of intense focus than to push through for a consecutive 30 minutes.

Address Your Mental Health

While there are a wealth of external stimuli that may disrupt concentration, there may be internal factors affecting your mind power too. If you are exploring how to increase concentration and focus but finding little success, you may need to turn inwards.

Underlying mental or physical health conditions can contribute to a lack of focus, such as ADHD, which is characterized by a persistent pattern of hyperactivity, inattention and impulsivity. Untreated mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety typically present with emotional symptoms, but can indirectly affect concentration and memory as well. Certain medications and their side-effects may contribute to impaired cognitive function, and alcohol consumption can influence your ability to think clearly.

Support Your Eyes

Sometimes farsightedness or other vision problems may contribute to concentration issues. Notice if you are struggling to focus when using certain visual stimuli and consider having your eyes checked if you recognize ongoing issues. Resting your eyes during periods of intense concentration is a helpful strategy when considering how to focus better. Just as other muscles in the body can become achy and stiff, your eyes can become tired when only focusing on one object. Give them a break by using the popular 20-20-20 rule: staring at an object 20 feet away for a total of 20 seconds, every 20 minutes. If you are looking for a 100% natural and drug-free strategy to enhance concentration and focus, explore Super Patch’s Flow Patch. The Flow Patch recruits vibrotactile technology, sending a unique neural signal to the brain to help improve your concentration, memory and endurance.