In this video, Daniel Goleman, author of Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, explores two studies about cognitive control, including the marshmallow test done at Stanford University. He says cognitive control has been found to predict future success. It may follow that mindfulness exercises for focus and attention are worth practicing.
Mindfulness and Focus
Mindfulness for focus rewards steady practice, since focus doesn’t build overnight from a single concentration meditation. Over time, regular practice may cultivate our capacity for focused attention. One 2018 study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (Norris and colleagues) found that a single 10-minute guided meditation helped some novice meditators perform better on attention tasks, with the effect depending partly on individual differences in neuroticism. The authors note it is not yet clear how these changes depend on long-term practice.
Mindfulness exercises for focus can include any practice that invites us to focus our attention on a single object. This might be the breath, a single point in the body (such as the heart or the third eye), or even on an external object (known as eye gazing). Mindfulness and focus go hand in hand so long as we are set on a single object of awareness.
Cultivating Focus in Five Minutes
A simple mindfulness for focus practice brings us away from our thoughts and into the breath. To practice, you might find a comfortable seated position where you will not be disturbed for five minutes. Setting a timer for this length of time gives you one less thing to think about.
You might straighten your spine, soften your shoulders and close your eyes when you are ready. Let your attention rest on the breath, watching the steady inward and outward movement for five full minutes. If the mind wanders, that is entirely okay. You can simply bring your attention back to the breath whenever you notice it has moved.
You might practice this once a day for a few weeks. Over time, as your capacity to focus grows, you might like to lengthen the meditation, though there is no need to worry about how long you are able to practice. Quality matters more than quantity.
