The Key to Concentration

How you too can find the key to success.....without the help of DJ Khaled

 by: Brandon Black

Concentration is something that many people can't master or even control for more than 10 minutes of their day at a time.  Concentration is defined as "to cultivate a mind that is one-pointed. ‘Maintaining-evenness,’ neither too high nor too low, neither too excited nor too dull."  There's just obstacles that we as people can not escape.  One of those things are our minds, because no matter how disciplined you are, your mind always finds a way to travel one hundred miles an hour to a thought that has no relevance to what you're doing.  As an individual, I struggle with this same concept and find myself constantly in past memories or day dreaming about future happiness.  To me this is the hardest piece to achieve in the Eightfold Path, because it's a constant requirement throughout each layer.  As you go deeper into the Eightfold Path, it seems like the amount of Concentration becomes more crucial and difficult to attain.

Here's a couple of tricks that help give your mind a break from running miles through the millions of thoughts you may have:

1.  Meditation is a practice that almost forces you to focus on the sounds you hear and to be more in tuned with your mind. 

2.  Like meditation, yoga is something that helps you be more attentive toward the stretches you're doing and be more in tuned with your body.

3.  A third possible way to attain this concentration is to simply take a 10-15 minute nap just to allow your mind to rest from constant thought and focus.  

4.  Something else I think that would be useful is prayer. Prayer is something that allows people to be more at peace and serenity with themselves and their problems at hand to help better focus.

5.  Lastly, I think a skill that could help this concentration would be a half hour to an hour of some sort of exercise. Physical exercise is something that allows someone to channel and release their emotions and stress. If you pick something fun, the process doesn't even seem like work it's simply a relaxation period.

Looking back on all of these quirks, the most effective for me seemed to be tips 2,3 and 5.  What I noticed for myself though was one of two things.  I felt more concentrated and conscious of my thoughts when I was either waking up early in the morning or late at night.  This was why the early morning yoga sessions as well as the naps and night football practices seemed to work for me the most.  The other thing I did notice as well though was the reaction I had to activities I enjoyed versus activities I felt more as a requirement.  It's kind of like eating in a sense.  You can't really go on an effective smoothie diet if you don't like eating fruit and dairy in general.  Football and yoga exercises were something that I found a liking to and began losing myself in the workouts, instead of looking at the clock agonizing over when I can go back to my room.  Whether those specific activities or times of the day were the key, it seems as though you kind of just have to try things out and see how your mind and body react to find what's best for your concentration.