How do you Activate & Maintain focus.

How do you Activate & Maintain focus.

With gigs of information now flying all around us through the airwaves at the speed of light it is difficult to process everything, so we have to pick what is important and discard what is useless quickly in order for us to maintain sanity and focus on the task at hand. There are a treasure chest of pills (Adderall, Alpha Brain, Modaphinal, Ginko Biloba ) Elixers (Redbull, Sobe Energy) and Potions out there intended to rev up the mind and propel you into hyperdrive focus but are these the permanent answers we are looking for? No, because they use up stored resources leaving you more depleted the next day, thus needing more and more of these magic concoctions to power-up and this can lead to breaking down your immune system and burning our adrenal glands. It is best to use these substances increasingly sparingly and better yet, not at all. If coffee isn't doing the trick anymore, you may just actually need some rest and recovery time, not stronger stimulants. Taking a day or 7 off coffee and then returning to the earth grown nutrient will be just like the first time and you will feel like a king on skates wielding your sword and shield.

So how do we Activate and Maintain focus naturally? This type of focus we are looking for is the kind of concentration you have when you find yourself in a dangerous situation when absolute clarity is of dire consequence. "In flow, we are so focused on the task at hand that everything else falls away. Action and awareness merge. Time flies. Self vanishes. Performance goes through the roof"(Kotler, 2014). Eckhart Tolle brushes over this topic in his books that insinuate a very high level of achievement capable by using the "Power of Now." The power of now comes when all else in the mind falls away. To simply shut off the thinking mind and look, see, hear, taste, and touch with out over analyzing the what ifs, and especially without contemplating future or past events as we do on a minute to minute basis. 

With all the chaos and confusion currently reverberating around the world, being connected to a hire consciousness through mastery of the flow state is becoming more and more desirable. It is actually the most healthy state to be in. It is the opposite of stress which can cause disease and sickness, Flow can generate health and wellness, both mentally and physically. One way to get into this flow state, which is different for everyone, is by practicing something that you are already a master of so that you can enter into a state of mind that requires very little thinking and only attentive focus on the task at hand. For me, it is shooting hoops. If I stand at the free throw line and get in that zone performing that shot I have been shooting for coming up on 30 years, I am immediately propelled into a flow state which I can then carry with me on my day not to mention that it just feels so good. For other people, Joe Rogan for example, he discusses his method, which is shooting Arrows at a target. Not terribly different from shooting a basket. Both require focus and the same motion over and over to the point where it is ingrained in your muscle memory cells. Yes your muscles have memories. Our entire body is comprised of brain matter, not just the brain. There are neurons in the Heart for sure and likely in every single one of our cells,  (I kicked some Bro Science on that one), but seriously, we don't have to think to walk, we can sleep walk so there is something going on there. Our body remembers how to do things. Hell when you cut off a chickens head, the body will run around like a wild terrorist in a mall trying to cut people into tiny infidel pieces. Ok perhaps that was in bad taste, but you get the point. If we can perform a function that requires minimum brain activity so that only the most essential functions of the brain are active, we enter into a state that does not calculate time, self, or worry. It is in a state known as flow or the Superman State. "Flow is an optimal state of consciousness, a peak state where we both feel our best and perform our best" (Kotler 2014).

Find you Flow. 

 




 

 

 



Kotler, Steven (2014-03-04). The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance (p. viii). New Harvest. Kindle Edition.


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