I am noticing when my focus is ruptured, which feels new. After three days, I start to notice when I am being pulled away from trying to focus on something (reading is trickiest for me). ‘We need our phones to rescue us from our phones.’ Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardianįrom the beginning, this flashlight image is one of the most useful mindfulness tools I’ve used. The point is noticing when the “flashlight” moves, then moving it back. Direct your focus here like a beam and notice when thoughts or sensations pull it away: a memory bubbling up a reminder that you need to reply to a text an itch.
The first exercise involves sitting upright, closing your eyes and focusing on where your breathing feels most prominent, usually in the chest or diaphragm. I start by setting a timer for three minutes each day, instead of the recommended 12 – a smaller “dose”, encouraged by Jha, to get used to it.
Even as a trainee psychotherapist (with a vested interest in learning to be present) I find it hard to believe that something so stark, that we can do by ourselves, can help focus a mind that feels scrambled by multiple lockdowns, political divisiveness or economic uncertainty. These short bursts of mindfulness training each day can help us notice the traffic of our thoughts and urges, and develop what Jha calls the “mental muscle” to observe, rather than act. So she came up with some simple practices “that exercise the brain in ways that it is prone to being weakened”. Jha began thinking differently about mindfulness when she experienced her own “crisis of attention” (“a blaring, unrelenting onslaught of mental chatter,” she writes) that reduced her ability to feel present with her small children. The first step to better focus is accepting a key truth: you cannot just decide to have unfettered attention We might start blanking, zoning out or snapping at our partners, then feel guilty, which makes focusing even harder.
#Come back in focus again full#
When that whiteboard is full of thoughts, feelings and images relating to what’s making us stressed, there is no room for new information. “Working memory is like a mental whiteboard with disappearing ink,” says Jha. For example, choosing the words to put together in an email, or reading a page in a book. This mode impacts our “working memory”: the amount of information that can be held in our minds and used for a task. We get stuck in “loops of doom” or imagined scenarios. In a high-alert state, we often start ruminating and catastrophising. Stress is one of the biggest obstacles to focusing, says Jha. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do: respond powerfully to certain stimuli.” “We’re in a crisis because our attention works so well. To think otherwise is just false,” she says. That is a healthy response to your current situation. “There is nothing wrong with your attention, even if you feel more distracted right now. I tell her this distractibility has made me anxious. I tell Jha this and she erupts with laughter. When I first opened Peak Mind, I set a timer to see how long it would take me to feel the pull of social media. ‘Working memory is like a mental whiteboard with disappearing ink,’ says Dr Amishi Jha.
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