Broken streaks are demoralizing. This is why shooting for unbroken streaks leads so easily to feeling disappointed in ourselves and giving up on the whole project.
What can you do when you break your attentional fitness training streak?
Read More
Comparing mindfulness practice to what we already understand about physical fitness can help you adjust your expectations and increase the chances that you will stick with the exploration long enough to experience its numerous beneficial effects.
Read More
What keeps us holding out for these perfect, comfortable lives that we imagine? And how can training your attention help address these habits?
Read More
What makes it so difficult for us to pay attention at any given moment? It seems like it should be easy.
Read More“The trouble with explaining this work is that it is so simple that we don’t want to believe it."
~ Trudy Goodman
Read More
It seems like stepping outside for a walk should be enough to clear our minds, but when we head outdoors, our attention tends to stay anchored in our heads. What we need is a practical focus strategy and more realistic expectations about how our minds respond to such a challenge.
Read More
Meditation and mindfulness: the words conjure images of yoga retreats and Buddhist monks. But perhaps they should evoke a very different picture: a man in a deerstalker, puffing away at a curved pipe, Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself. The world’s greatest fictional detective is someone who knows the value of concentration, of “throwing his brain out of action,” as Dr. Watson puts it. He is the quintessential unitasker in a multitasking world.
Read More
Our attention is habitually drawn to problems. However, we can train ourselves to notice rest and relaxation hiding within our regular routine. Setting aside some time to get more acquainted with what rest feels like in the body can support this exploration.
Read More
Mindfulness practice involves tracking aspects of ordinary experience as precisely as possible while allowing these observations to come and go with less interference. The noting technique creates a structure for maintaining both of these qualities of attention. Using mental labels is a technique that supports noting.
Read More
"Paying attention, for long periods of time, is a form of endurance athleticism. Like running a marathon, it requires practice and training to get the most out of it. It is as much Twitter’s fault that you have a short attention span as it is your closet’s fault it doesn’t have any running shoes in it. If you want the ability to focus on things for a long period of time, you need attention fitness." ~ Clay Johnson
Read More