How to keep focus in this distracted world

DISTRACTIONS IN THE WORLD 

There are two kinds of distractions in my eyes: Outer and Inner 

In order to differentiate the two, one has to increase the level of awareness regarding the two different kinds. 

The outer distractions are basically getting addicted to TV, smartphones and can be easily traced and detected. Nowadays, mothers to keep their children busy, in order to finish their household chores and even their office work, give their children their smartphones to play games and watch cartoons and other video which are worthless and non- educative. Little do they know, the impact of cell phone radiation on their children. Moreover research work shows that cell phone exposure can affect children's behavior.

Focusing on inner distractions, they are basically mindset based and are very hard to detect and/ or immediately removed because majority of the times we don't find them as distraction

In case of outer distractions, these ones can be controlled by simply removing the stimuli in a conscious manner turning the tv off or putting the smartphones and other distractions out of sight. It may be difficult at times, but still all these outer distractions can be avoided to some extent.

But it's very difficult to manage the inner distractions!

Some crucial distractions are:

1) Our own negative thoughts

2) Our own feelings 

3) Our own belief systems which are positively and negatively influenced due to our own unconscious encouragement (e.g. laziness, avoiding responsibility, or unrealistic expectations from self and others) 

What all sort of inner distractions we encounter? 

If we take the above mentioned factors one by one

1) Like our own negative thoughts: We can always be positive at every moment of our life. No matter how serious the matter is, or for how long you have facing the trouble, if one develops the habit of staying positive, then no one can divert his focus on being negative.

2) Our own feelings: The first point covers all that is required to be done.

3) The third factor sums up all the above mentioned points

a) Laziness: If we see in our surroundings, the most common distraction is laziness. People are reluctant to work, keep blaming their surroundings for not getting success in their lives. They never admit that the distraction which they have in their mind, not to work hard is the root cause of their unsuccessful life.

b) Avoiding responsibility:- People who are reluctant to take any responsibility, always engrossed in themselves again blame their environment for their unsuccessful life

c) Unrealistic expectations from self and others: Here I can quote the example of my distant cousin who has been academically a very poor student, throughout his life he didn't study. His father is an ayurvedic practitioner and hence he intended to put his son into this practice. He somehow managed to put my cousin in this practice. On finishing his degree, he blamed his father for ruining his life and stealing away his dream to become an aeronautical engineer, Lol. Later on when we came to know that Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was an aeronautical engineer, he was the subject of fun for all of us.

Such ungrateful people blame their well wishers for their unsuccessful life, where they are themselves responsible for the same.

How to keep focus in this distracted world?!

Now comes the main point, how to keep focus in this distracted world :-

1) The only way to detect the inner distractions is the world famous approach called meditation and self-reflection upon one’s unconscious patterns of behavior. Meditation is one of the best ways to remove away your distractions, in fact it's the other way round, to meditate, you have to stay away from all the distractions of the world like, foremost your phone. Then comes your negative thoughts about a person or an incident that has happened to you in your past.

Never forget these words that, "If you will keep clinging to your past, you will never grow to be a better human- being". This is what is meditation all about.

2) Ayurveda (balancing energies in the body and different kinds of food /Sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic foods) impact our focus so balancing that can induce better body functioning, which leads to better mental functioning:

One of the best therapies to increase your focus is to maintain good eating habits.

Food not only nourishes the body, but it affects one's mind too and enhances one's possibility to focus on things which distract your minds. Hence one should develop a habit of eating light food that is easily digestible and develop a focused attitude.

3) Exercising is another indirect way to induce better breathing patterns and their connection to better focus. After exercise, one's ability to sort out priorities improve, allowing the person to block out distractions and better concentrate on the task at hand. Your brain remembers more when your body is active

4) Tratak meditation:- It is basically focusing on a single point or candle flame to increase the concentration of a person so that he/she can focus well on the things and hence increase the concentration of a person.

These are some of the things, which applied can really be beneficial to keep focus in the distracted world.