Improving attention is the first step to concentrate on studies.
“Improving attention means training the mind to realize when and how attention wanders away and bring the attention back when it wanders away.”
Also, before knowing how to concentrate on studies; you have to ask yourself, why you lose concentration and list down your sources of distraction.
Nobody can find an exact solution unless he/she knows the exact reason for losing concentration or attention.
And when you find out the reasons for losing concentration on studies, list down the sources, make a plan to tackle those sources of distraction and try to make concentration a practice.
What you have to practice?
When your attention wanders away from studies, observe and response to it, bring the attention back to the study again; practice it and make it a habit.
Can you read the whole article?
If no, just focus on the above tips, this tips is also sufficient enough to improve your concentration.
Here, in this article, you can find a comprehensive guideline on how to concentrate on studies.
Quick Links
This post is packed with lots of detail, so to make it easier to navigate, I’ve added quick links which you can use to instantly navigate to a particular section of the post:
How to Prepare for Concentration in Studies
While preparing for concentration in studies; we have to prepare two things, one is the physical environment of the place of study, and the other is nothing but the mental state of the person, who wants to study.
Here you will find the description of both mental and physical environments.
Preparing the Physical Environment
While preparing the physical environment for study, ask these questions to yourself,
- When the last time I had the best concentration on studies?
- Where was I studying?
- Is that spot still suitable for me?
- Am I comfortable with noises while studying?
- Do I have all the stationary beforehand?
Here are few easy steps to concentrate and focus on studies in order to avoid physical distraction;
Identify a comfortable study area
Create a special place for study; the place should be away from all kinds of distraction. Creating a comfortable study area can maximize your concentration, analyze the place of you are still unable to concentrate, find out the reason for being distracted.
Get your books and stationary beforehand
You can be distracted if you have to search for books or stationary while studying, keep everything necessary within the identified study area.
Avoid surrounding noises
Noise may distract your concentration while studying; the identified spot should be less prone to be noise affected, you can get rid of the irritating noise by using earplug, earplug can filter out noises up to 25dB. You can buy earplug from nearby chemist shop or from an online marketplace
Play soft music
You can play soft music to avoid distraction from irritating noises, well, in this case, you have to focus on the study while playing music; don’t divert your attention to the music.
Drink water as much
Water helps us to avoid dehydration while studying you should keep water ready near to you.
Have something to eat nearby
Keep nutritious and healthy snacks nearby while studying, avoid junk food as much as possible
Sleep well
During sleep, our brain cells are recharged, so sleep well as you are going need more battery backup to focus on the study.
Avoid studying near to your bed
Someone may like to study in bed; they can even concentrate better, but if you are not of that kind, please do not study near to your bed as you may be distracted to take some rest.
Avoid electronic gadgets
Whether it is your smartphone, or it is your Xbox, these are the major sources of distraction.
Avoid using social media, these are some of the addictive applications that take away your precious time by hijacking your emotional intelligence. If you scroll a page of social media for five minutes, different pictures or videos having a different emotional call to action attacks your brain, and you are practicing distraction subconsciously.
Stay away from the TV
Don’t keep the TV in your study room, if you can, stop watching TV, watch whatever you want on Youtube or Vimeo.
Do you know why you should stop watching TV? You watch what they want you to watch on TV, but you can watch what you want on Youtube.
Preparing the Mental Environment
Don’t wait for physical circumstances to improve; change your mental circumstances. Physical circumstances are not in your control but if you are determined to do mentally; there is nobody to distract your focus.
You may have read or heard real success stories of people who had studied on street light or in a railway station. They were mentally prepared to study, they were determined to focus, and they were determined to give up everything to achieve their goal.
Here you will find few tricks and tips to focus on study;
Manage your time
Managing time is about setting priorities, planning a schedule and keeps yourself stick to the goal.
You can’t manage time until you don’t have a plan. So make a plan according to your goal, set target and follow what you want.
Motivate yourself
Have you ever daunted by your own sorrow? Have you ever grieved for your mistake?
It is a negative thought stored in your long-term memory through repeated actions or extreme emotion.
The negative thoughts have nothing to do with your success; these thoughts can derail you, haunt you, demoralize you and can waste your valuable time.
When the negative thought is attacking your mind, think the reverse, think positive; attack the negative thinking, destroy it with positive thinking, belief in yourself and never give up.
Pay attention to what you do
Concentration is a practice, practice it, make it a habit and you have to make it your habit.
Even if you are not studying; pay attention whenever you are talking to anybody, pay attention to whatever you do. Be conscious of the moment; when you can pay attention to anything you do, attention becomes your practice.
Avoid multitasking
People fail to understand what is multitasking; most of the people do many things at the same moment.
When you do many things at the same moment, you can’t concentrate in either, but the truth is multitasking is doing many things according to priorities or timeslots, but definitely not doing all the things at the same time.
Analyze yourself
You have to review your daily goals, weekly priorities, and the method of learning and level of practice. So, make a plan, set schedule and be accountable to yourself.
Develop self-discipline
You have to be answerable to yourself. If you want to see the discipline in your surroundings, and in your life; you must be the first one to take the lead.
Make it a ritual
A religious person never forgot to do his ritual; when you make the study a ritual, you will practice it, you will invest in yourself and that is the key to success.
Stop thinking about the result
When you think about the result, the fruit of your action, your focus from study goes away.
And the truth is that you are wasting time by thinking about something which never existed, which is in future, and if you really want to make your future perfect, you have to work today.
How to Focus on Studies for Long
There is no better way than practice to make concentration perfect. Here a few tips to improve your focus on studies for a longer period of time,
Practice Mindfulness
Whatever you do in your daily life, whether it is surfing the internet, whether it is texting someone or whether it is making your coffee, be conscious of what you do.
Pay attention to that moment, the more you practice, the more you become concentrated on what you do.
Meditate daily
You can meditate anywhere anytime, meditation means staying focused on what you do. You can also try a nice app called Headspace for practicing meditation.
Refresh yourself
Make a schedule; refresh yourself according to your schedule. You should take gap after 30 minutes of study, refreshing can help to boost your brain cell
Eat healthily
Eat what is good for your health, what is necessary to survive; don’t go for spicy or junk foods.
Junk food makes the heart beat faster; the faster heartbeat is one the reason of unnecessary thought flowing through your mind.
How to Make Concentration Easier
Write and remember
When you write down and remember, you can have better concentration.
Do you know why?
While in writing, you have to focus more than reading, because you have to use your mind, hand, and eye and when you have to focus more, there is a less chance of getting distracted by unwanted thought and you can remember easily.
Relate the topic
Humans can remember extreme emotion, divergent data or relational information easily. Remembering through repeated actions is time-consuming and tedious.
Our conscious mind (short-term memory) finds it difficult to pick up too much data from the subconscious mind (long-term memory), so sometimes we don’t remember what we have studied previously.
However, when you relate your topic to anything that you know already, it becomes easier to recall. For example, if you want to want to remember the spelling of “adrenocorticotrophic”, remember it as adren+o+corti+cotro+phic.
Readout loudly
When you read out loud, you have to engage your mouth also; that means you have to focus more on what you see and what you speak, and which in turn can prevent unwanted thought from distracting you.
Be the controller of your mind
You can’t control your mind until you engage your mind,
Even while you are not studying, engage your mind to what you do, do you know why?
The mind can be left empty only during sleep; the mind needs activity when you are awake.
If you don’t engage your mind, your mind will load any thought extracted from the subconscious mind (long-term memory) and eventually, you are letting your mind to control you subconsciously.
Natural and Technological Techniques to Improve Concentration
Improve your nervous system
Do you know deficiency of vitamin B6 and B12 can cause depression, anxiety, and weakness of our nervous system?
Don’t take drugs, eat healthy food, and don’t take food that has an excessive amount of vitamin or protein. Take eggs, beans, coffee, berry or peas, don’t eat too much of beef, mutton, or fish; they have a higher amount of vitamin B6 and too much of everything very bad.
Excise daily
You don’t need to excise for a long time every day, practice “Surya Namaskar” yoga daily. The yoga may take only 5 to10 minutes, and this yoga can stimulate blood flow throughout the body that makes you feel strong, energetic, and active.
Play games
Well don’t play games which can make you practice distraction; play games that demand your focus for a longer period of time.
I would suggest you play “SochGenie”, it is available in the play store as well as the app store, but keep in mind, don’t make it your addiction
Recommended Reading
Development of Cognitive Skills plays a vital role in improving concentration in studies; cognitive skills are the core skills of human brain used to process information, attention, memory, thinking, and reasoning.
Do you know? Most of the people fail to reach “Formal Operational Stage” of cognitive development; hypothetical thinking, deductive reasoning, and metacognition are developed during this stage, and these skills are necessary to utilize the real self of being a human.
If anybody in the world has achieved impossible in the universe, it is not because of their skills, not because they are born intelligent and definitely not because of their educational qualification.
Everyone in the universe is extraordinary and unique, but the saddest thing is that most of the people fail to identify their uniqueness.
So, how do human become extraordinary? Is any medication is necessary? Is any drug is necessary?
Do you know Albert Einstein had a secret system of concentration?
Do you know Nikola Tesla had once worked for 84 hours continuously?
If you have really read the whole article, you can concentrate easily.
You should focus on improving cognitive learning abilities for effective understanding, analysis, and interpretation of studies. And don’t forget to read & understand what are the cognitive skills.
And, in last I would like to suggest you to practice only one thing, that is ‘attention’. Remember, long-term concentration on studies is a consequence of improved attention.
Ashim, the Founder of MindWiper, loves to learn, share, and educate various dimensions of life skills development. After graduating with an engineering degree, he worked with major ICT industries in India and finally he followed his dream to integrate technology for Cognitive Skills & Life Skills Development.