What Should We Pay Attention To To Increase Our Focus Time?
In our daily work, school and work performance, we may sometimes have difficulties in completing the tasks and assignments on time. It is as true as daylight that there are many things around us that can distract us. Insufficient or excessive sleep time, social media, our eating patterns and our anxiety level are the most important situations that affect our focus time.
It is of course possible to improve our work and school performance and be more productive. People who apply for the help of a psychologist on this issue most often come to us with the complaint of procrastination. In fact, other symptoms behind this procrastination lead us to it.
For a healthy and productive life, we must first protect our physical health. According to a large-scale study at Harvard University, insufficient sleep and rest costs the American economy $64 billion annually. The amount of sleep that the human body needs daily is between 7-9 hours. Sleeping more or less than this negatively affects our productivity. In addition, we need 30-60 minutes of sleep to replenish the energy needed in the middle of the day. If we pay attention to these, we will see that our work and school performance is getting better day by day.
On the other hand, we need to pay attention to our nutrition, which is as important as sleep. The brain occupies as little as 5% of the human body mass, but the energy it needs is equal to 25-30% of the energy we get daily. This means that providing the energy our brain needs will directly positively affect our work and school performance. We must pay attention to our diet. We should not eat too little or too much. The body, which takes a lot of energy, will need extra energy to digest these foods and will start to tire the brain extra.
The use of social media has started to reduce our focus times day by day. The brain, accustomed to paying attention to the content we see on Tiktok and Instagram for only 5-10 seconds, will learn that there is no need for a very long focus time. This will reduce our performance in jobs that require hours of focus. Controlling our use of social media will help us make it easier to deal with this situation. We should reduce watching Tiktok and Reels videos as much as possible so that we can increase our attention span in general.
Perhaps the most important distraction is our anxiety. Humans are anxious creatures. Anxiety is a very vital emotion that serves us. Its main purpose is to protect us from negative scenarios that may come our way. But of course, too much anxiety will affect our daily work very negatively. Thoughts that start with “too hard” and “I can’t do this because…” before starting a job seem small, in my professional opinion, it is the situation that hurts us the most. Controlling our anxiety will have a very positive impact on our work and school performance. But it’s easy to say. Each of us encounters some difficult-to-control events during the day or in our life in general, and these events lead us to worrying thoughts.
If we cannot control our daily stress and anxiety, please do not hesitate to seek the help of a psychologist. During the interviews with the psychologist, issues related to the origin and resolution of our anxieties are discussed. With some useful exercises about our perception and focus levels, this information is reinforced and our brain starts to take a much more moderate view of life over time. If you are witnessing the problem of anxiety disorder in your environment or yourself, seeking a psychologist who is an expert in the field may be the biggest and life-changing decision you can make.
PSYCHOLOGIST OGUZ DEMIR
