I always considered myself a person with a high focus but I am never satisfied with the amount of work I did that day. I became obsessed with finding the reasons for this. The number one reason that I found was lack of focus. After reading more about focus, I realized every time I sat to work, I often got distracted by my thoughts, and my environment, and worst of all I checked my phone for messages and notifications. These small distractions add up and result in less productivity.

Focus is like an arrow, the more pointed it is the deeper it pierces through the target compared to a blunt or broad tip. Similarly the more focused the more results you can achieve compared to a distracted or less focused state of mind for the same amount of time.

Just like focusing the sun's light causes a fire in paper with the magnifying glass, similarly with 90 minutes of deep focus on just one task you can achieve what you may have taken a complete day to achieve. That's how powerful focus is.

7 ways to build focus.

1) Cold Bath:

Stress is always considered bad for our health but can be beneficial when induced in the right way. One of the ways is using a cold bath. Cold baths can induce stress in the body which increases focus and concentration.

1-5 minutes of cold bath or shower can increase focus for about an hour.

Cold bath increases the secretion of the hormones that are responsible for focus and concentration.

2) Sound:

Discoveries of specific sounds that are considered to increase focus like Binaural 40Hz beats, white noise, brown noise, and pink noise.

You can use it for 5-10 minutes before focusing on work or for a complete duration if you have a noisy environment.

Listening to these beats increases the secretion of hormones like dopamine and acetylcholine which are responsible for focus and concentration.

3) Meditation:

The biggest distraction for you is your thoughts. Thoughts are like a chain reaction, one thought leads to another, and so on. Meditation can help you achieve awareness of the thoughts and stop the chain reaction.

You can close your eyes and focus on your breathing for 10-15 minutes. During the process, you will have thoughts but your aim should be to bring back your focus on breathing.

Meditation avoids internal distractions by making you aware of them and thus you can focus more on your work.

4) Diet:

Diet is one of the most important factors in increasing focus and concentration yet often ignored.

To increase focus you need food with a specific amino acid called tyrosine. They are found in chicken, turkey, fish, peanuts, almonds, avocados, bananas, milk, cheese, yogurt etc.

You can also include supplements such as caffeine, omega-3 fatty acids, and creatine to increase focus and concentration.

By focusing on your diet you provide nutrients valuable for the brain to remain focused and concentrated for longer durations.

5) Environment:

The people around you, gadgets around you, and your complete surroundings can either act as a catalyst in increasing the focus or a blocker by making you distracted.

Here is how to create an environment for deep focus and concentration:

• Turn on airplane mode and keep your phone in a different room.

• Invest in good noise-cancelling headphones.

• Remove all apps from the home screen of your mobile, or desktop (if you use them for work), which causes distraction.

Just by creating an environment of zero distraction, you can do 2x amount of work compared to with distraction.

6) Sleep:

Your body needs to regain the energy it spends on focusing and it does by sleep. That's why good sleep becomes very important for regaining energy.

Here is how you can have a good sleep:

• Establish a fixed and consistent sleeping cycle.

• Avoid Caffeine 6 hours before sleep.

• Avoid focusing on screens (mobiles, laptops, etc) 2 hours before sleep.

By following these steps your body gains a consistent circadian rhythm by which your brain regains the energy for focus and concentration.

7) Exercise:

Mental focus comes from visual focus. By narrowing down your sight at a point you want to focus on, your brain starts observing the details of that point. Just like any other muscle you need to exercise to get good at it.

You can Focus on a point or object. (Don't do it on any screen) for 30 sec-3 minutes before starting a focusing session for work. Start with 30 seconds and gradually increase over time to 3 minutes.

By exercising your visual focus you will increase your mental focus and concentration.

These were the 7 ways to increase your focus and concentration.

It is important to defocus after focusing on your work. This doesn't have to be done by watching your phone, movies, or any process where you have to focus a lot. You just need to relax your body and mind which can be done by talking to friends and family, walking, exercising, listening to music, or relaxing by listening to Yoga Nidra.

Defocusing your mind helps you to keep focus again.