how to improve mindfulness? Ways to train attention in adults, description of techniques and techniques

Mind­ful peo­ple are more like­ly to have a suc­cess­ful life. The ques­tion aris­es: “Why?” Because an unob­ser­vant per­son miss­es a lot. Often he does not notice very impor­tant and nec­es­sary lit­tle things, of which some­times our life con­sists. There is noth­ing sur­pris­ing. Who­ev­er is sen­si­tive to his sur­round­ings always knows and knows more. And this means that such a per­son will not be con­fused in a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion and will be able to get out of it with dig­ni­ty.

The word “atten­tive” comes from the word “mind­ful­ness”. The last form of the word as a whole means selec­tive per­cep­tion to this or that object, to any infor­ma­tion. To become atten­tive is to slow down your activ­i­ty and begin to slow­ly per­ceive infor­ma­tion. This term is opposed to the words haste or mul­ti­task­ing. If a per­son care­ful­ly stud­ies any prob­lem, he becomes slow, because his mind is focused only on this prob­lem.

In addi­tion, this fac­tor will help:

• not be dis­tract­ed by tri­fles;
• pay atten­tion to the best option if you need to make any choice;
• study as much infor­ma­tion as pos­si­ble;
• use the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion when it is nec­es­sary to repro­duce it in mem­o­ry;
• remain calm in the event of a stress­ful sit­u­a­tion;
• stop get­ting upset because of some­thing unnec­es­sary and super­flu­ous;
• hear or see what oth­ers will not hear or see;
• become patient;
• learn to pay atten­tion to the peo­ple around you;
• learn to com­mu­ni­cate in the right way with peo­ple;
• feel your impor­tance;
• become use­ful and hap­py.

Take note: an atten­tive per­son tends to know more than oth­ers. He is a think­ing per­son, since his men­tal activ­i­ty con­stant­ly ana­lyzes this or that infor­ma­tion. There­fore, peo­ple always turn to such a per­son for help and receive it. And this means that this per­son feels his inde­pen­dence and sig­nif­i­cance.

In psy­chol­o­gy, it is gen­er­al­ly accept­ed that all process­es occur­ring in the human mind have low and high sig­nif­i­cance. Atten­tion also has its lev­els. The low­est lev­el is invol­un­tary atten­tion (direct), and the high­est lev­el is vol­un­tary con­cen­tra­tion. The Sovi­et psy­chol­o­gist L. S. Vygot­sky believed that the devel­op­ment of con­cen­tra­tion is direct­ly relat­ed to the devel­op­ment of behav­ioral activ­i­ty. Atten­tion devel­ops accord­ing to the fol­low­ing scheme: from imme­di­ate to more seri­ous, that is, there is a tran­si­tion­al activ­i­ty from invol­un­tary atten­tion to vol­un­tary.

At the same time, atten­tion devel­ops dif­fer­ent­ly in dif­fer­ent direc­tions. It all depends on the cho­sen activ­i­ty (study, pro­fes­sion­al skills, etc.). From the same state­ment, we can con­clude that atten­tion can devel­op nat­u­ral­ly.

There is a direct and imposed devel­op­ment of atten­tion. These two fac­tors have both com­mon fea­tures and sep­a­rate ones. This ques­tion is easy to explain. Nat­ur­al atten­tion devel­ops as the human brain devel­ops. There is a grad­ual accu­mu­la­tion of expe­ri­ence, knowl­edge and skills. This type of intel­lec­tu­al activ­i­ty is a very long process, so it is con­sid­ered the most sta­ble. When atten­tion devel­ops in an unnat­ur­al (accel­er­at­ed) way, then such a process is less sta­ble, since its imple­men­ta­tion requires the con­sol­i­da­tion of acquired knowl­edge. Accel­er­at­ed activ­i­ty for the devel­op­ment of atten­tion is car­ried out with the help of var­i­ous exer­cis­es.

For the process of imposed devel­op­ment of intel­li­gence, a per­son needs less time. How­ev­er, all exer­cis­es and spe­cial class­es must be sup­port­ed by life expe­ri­ence. When these two fac­tors begin to work togeth­er, then the imple­men­ta­tion of the devel­op­ment of atten­tion will become a suc­cess­ful exer­cise. It should be tak­en into account that the process of devel­op­ing atten­tion, includ­ing in a small child, would be impos­si­ble to car­ry out with­out speech skills, with­out imi­tat­ing the behav­ior of oth­er peo­ple and with­out good men­tal abil­i­ties.

Keep in mind that spe­cial­ists began to study the process of atten­tion devel­op­ment rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly. Pre­vi­ous­ly, many sci­en­tists were sure that it was not worth devel­op­ing atten­tion in chil­dren. And only in the 20th cen­tu­ry were the first devel­op­ments on the devel­op­ment of atten­tion in chil­dren and adults obtained. A great con­tri­bu­tion to the devel­op­ment of the above process was made by the famous psy­chol­o­gist L. Vygot­sky, who, after devel­op­ing a strat­e­gy for the devel­op­ment of a gen­er­al the­o­ry of human cog­ni­tive process­es, began to study the above prob­lem.

It became clear that the process of devel­op­ment of vol­un­tary atten­tion in chil­dren begins to go well only when the child begins to engage in cog­ni­tive and edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ties. This process devel­ops espe­cial­ly well when the child goes to school and starts class­es in var­i­ous sub­jects.

By the age of 10, the process of con­cen­tra­tion is caused by emo­tion­al­ly neu­tral stim­uli, and it becomes more qual­i­ta­tive. And at the age of 12–14, chil­dren begin a tran­si­tion­al peri­od (restruc­tur­ing of the body), which reduces the char­ac­ter­is­tics of mind­ful­ness. Due to the tran­si­tion­al peri­od, the child becomes fatigued dur­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of intel­lec­tu­al activ­i­ty. All this is due to a decrease in cor­ti­cal con­trol. By the end of ado­les­cence, every­thing is get­ting bet­ter. L. S. Vygot­sky deter­mined the time when cer­tain stages of atten­tion cor­rec­tion take place:

• The 1st stage is the con­trol of the child’s con­scious­ness by adults;
• Stage 2 is the for­ma­tion of the child as a sub­ject, now he can draw the atten­tion of adults to his needs;
• The 3rd stage implies ways of con­trol­ling one’s con­scious­ness and behav­ior that the child has adopt­ed from adults;
• The 4th stage involves con­trol­ling the child with his own atten­tion.

It is known that a per­son is char­ac­ter­ized by two main types of atten­tion — this is invol­un­tary and vol­un­tary atten­tion. If the mak­ings of the first type of atten­tion are giv­en from birth, then we need to inten­sive­ly devel­op the sec­ond. Let’s con­sid­er this ques­tion in detail.

Its increase is direct­ly relat­ed to the real­iza­tion that a per­son must study and work. To do this, he needs to include a cer­tain type of his men­tal activ­i­ty. For exam­ple, when younger stu­dents become mem­bers of a team, they always try to achieve suc­cess and there­by stand out in front of their com­rades. Such actions are aimed at the rapid devel­op­ment of mind­ful­ness. It should be not­ed that vol­un­tary atten­tion is con­scious. At the same time, all edu­ca­tion­al meth­ods are aimed only at its devel­op­ment and the devel­op­ment of intel­li­gence.

It is very impor­tant that the child is aware of this process and under­stands that learn­ing is a work nec­es­sary for the devel­op­ment of any per­son­al­i­ty. There­fore, he needs to enable the child to under­stand the ulti­mate goal of his edu­ca­tion, so that he can visu­al­ize the future results of his own work.

So, when learn­ing, a child must have a cer­tain inter­est, and so that he does not dis­ap­pear, he needs to know about the ben­e­fits of the end result. For exam­ple, a stu­dent must under­stand that his suc­cess­ful school­ing will con­tribute to admis­sion to a pres­ti­gious uni­ver­si­ty, after which he can get a well-paid job.

Remem­ber: in order to devel­op vol­un­tary atten­tion, adults (teach­ers and par­ents) need to act sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly and con­sis­tent­ly. Edu­ca­tion based only on attract­ing invol­un­tary atten­tion will not give the desired pos­i­tive effect. Also, the process of edu­ca­tion, which is designed only to attract arbi­trary atten­tion, will not give the desired effect. In this case, the child will sim­ply get tired of study­ing.

The edu­ca­tion of invol­un­tary atten­tion is based on the abil­i­ty to focus on var­i­ous infor­ma­tion, com­pare facts, etc. From ear­ly child­hood, par­ents should famil­iar­ize their child with the world around them, name­ly, teach them to respond to the vari­abil­i­ty of objects and phe­nom­e­na that occur around. Then the learn­ing process will become attrac­tive. The child will show emo­tions, and invol­un­tary atten­tion will begin to devel­op rapid­ly.

There­fore, train­ing pro­grams should be bright and visu­al. For exam­ple, to show the beau­ty of nature, the teacher must draw for this pic­ture, which were cre­at­ed by rec­og­nized artists. Var­i­ous inter­est­ing exper­i­ments and prac­ti­cal work can be used to show nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na.

And remem­ber that it is at a young age that visu­al learn­ing has a spe­cial and impor­tant mean­ing. How­ev­er, this type of train­ing requires com­pli­ance with a num­ber of con­di­tions. For exam­ple, you must first set a spe­cif­ic prob­lem and solve it, and only then make some com­par­isons and find oth­er ways to solve the same prob­lem. Grad­u­al­ly, chil­dren will learn to notice the infor­ma­tion that requires atten­tion. In the same way, they will be able to iden­ti­fy the essen­tial and main ele­ments that are con­tained in the prob­lem.

For exam­ple, the mate­r­i­al pro­posed for study should be very bright in its form and rich in con­tent. In this way he can arouse inter­est and awak­en men­tal activ­i­ty. Only then will stu­dents think about solv­ing the prob­lem. An impor­tant role in the devel­op­ment of intel­li­gence is played by the gen­er­al cul­tur­al lev­el, since it is he who con­tributes to the devel­op­ment of invol­un­tary atten­tion.

To increase intel­li­gence, one must prop­er­ly raise aware­ness. This requires prac­tice. Mind­ful­ness goes hand in hand with mind­ful­ness. When these two fac­tors are cor­rect­ed prop­er­ly, men­tal per­for­mance will improve. If you can train mind­ful­ness, you can eas­i­ly focus your mind­ful­ness on some­thing impor­tant and nec­es­sary for you. In addi­tion, you will be able to increase your mem­o­ry capac­i­ty and devel­op habits that will allow you to act despite the dif­fi­cul­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. Remem­ber that prac­tices that increase mind­ful­ness can help devel­op mind­ful­ness.

There are var­i­ous tech­niques that con­tribute well to the devel­op­ment of both direc­tions. Puz­zles allow you to focus inter­est and there­by devel­op all types of men­tal activ­i­ty. So that the chil­dren do not get tired, and their inter­est in learn­ing does not dis­ap­pear, it is nec­es­sary to arrange a phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion ses­sion dur­ing the les­son. A small charge will give such an effect that will be com­pa­ra­ble to an intel­lec­tu­al exer­cise. Exer­cise “Fly” requires a board with a lined field (3x3) accord­ing to the nine-cell prin­ci­ple. You also need to pur­chase a piece of plas­ticine (it will act as a fly). The teacher gives com­mands: to the right or to the left, down or up. All stu­dents care­ful­ly mon­i­tor the move­ment of the object and try to pre­vent it from leav­ing the play­ing field. If the “fly” goes out of bounds, it returns to the cen­ter of the board and the game starts again.

Con­sid­er oth­er effec­tive meth­ods. The method of focus­ing on your breath will help not only to relax, but to adjust the lev­el of con­cen­tra­tion on some­thing. To per­form this method, you need to sit in a chair and watch your breath­ing. As soon as you get used to doing this action, your mind will invol­un­tar­i­ly begin to be dis­tract­ed by extra­ne­ous actions. For exam­ple, you sud­den­ly remem­ber about lunch or about unwashed dish­es. If there is a dis­trac­tion from the main thought, you will have to return to the start­ing posi­tion and con­tin­ue to fol­low the breath.

The fol­low­ing exer­cise will help increase the poten­tial of group mind­ful­ness. To com­plete it, all par­tic­i­pants stand in a cir­cle. The behold­er remains in the mid­dle. The host gives the com­mand: “It’s ear­ly morn­ing!”, after which the play­ers begin to invol­un­tar­i­ly move their arms and legs. Sud­den­ly, the host says: “Every­one freeze!” (it is desir­able that the voice is not loud at the same time). The play­er who did not hear and did not exe­cute the com­mand is “caught” by the behold­er. The los­er becomes the behold­er, and the for­mer behold­er becomes the gen­er­al cir­cle. The game helps to devel­op mind­ful­ness and obser­va­tion.

Every con­scious per­son should raise the lev­el of his atten­tion. Adults should help chil­dren in this process. Let this les­son become one of the most impor­tant direc­tions in your devel­op­ment. There­fore, train atten­tion always and every­where. For exam­ple, you are walk­ing with your child on the way to the store or to the park. Ask your child to pay atten­tion to the sur­round­ing objects: trees, curbs, fences, build­ings. Let your child learn to remem­ber every lit­tle thing: col­or, com­po­si­tion, quan­ti­ty, qual­i­ty of the mate­r­i­al. For exam­ple, you saw a green con­crete fence or you walked past a store whose walls were com­plete­ly trans­par­ent.

Ask your child guid­ing ques­tions: “Was the fence trans­par­ent?” or “What did you see behind the trans­par­ent walls of the store?” etc. Such ques­tions will give impe­tus, and men­tal activ­i­ty will work in full force. Remem­ber: spe­cial exer­cis­es increase mind­ful­ness very well, but when it is devel­oped direct­ly, the effect only inten­si­fies. Keep in mind that dur­ing sleep, the human brain always con­sol­i­dates the infor­ma­tion that it received ear­li­er.

In the next video you will find an inter­est­ing exer­cise for devel­op­ing atten­tion when work­ing with infor­ma­tion.