Guided Meditation for Focus

Try as we might, being able to stay focused in our connected word is becoming more and more challenging. And unfortunately, being focused is the key to productivity.

It’s impossible to get anything done at work or school until we’re able to sit down undistracted for a long period of time and get things done.

Of course, focus isn’t only useful at school and work. It’s useful when we’re trying to read, trying to be present, trying to spend time with friends and family. It’s useful at the gym, when making difficult decisions, and even when driving.

So what’s causing our lack of focus?

Effective concentration actually has less to do with trying to focus and more on being less distracted. The essential thing is learn to manage when trying to improve our focus are our distractions.

These don’t need to be external things either. Sure, the noise outside your window or annoying coworkers can interfere with our concentration.

However, how often have you spent too much of your energy, time and attention complaining about the noise outside or worrying about your colleagues interrupting you?

More so, many of the distractions that pull our attention away from personal tasks start from within our heads. Maybe they start as a desire, worry, or thought.

With meditation for focus, we can train our minds to not only be better at placing our attention on something for long periods of time, it can also train our minds to better identify distractions and quickly let them go, and return our attention to the task at hand.

In a study published in Moore and Malinowski in 2009, researchers found that after looking at the relationship between mindfulness and focus, participants’ ability to focus their attention was much higher than the group that didn’t meditate. In addition, the group that practiced meditation were also much better at blocking out distractions.

Using mindfulness meditation, we practice placing our attention on physical sensations that anchor us to the present. For example, our breathing and each inhale and exhale, or physical points of contact such as our weight or any tingling sensations.

As we do this, what you’ll inevitably see happen is our mind will start to wander. Sometimes, it wanders so much we forget we were even trying to meditate in the first place!

The important thing is that with enough practice, we can become aware of this quicker, and with further practice, get better and returning our attention to what we’re trying to focus on.