notable event and introduce researched prickles

               Focusing is something that everyone struggles with at some point in his or her lifetime.  The human attention span is getting shorter.  According to a study by Microsoft, “the average human being now has the attention span of eight seconds.  This is a sharp decrease from the average attention span of 12 seconds in the year 2000.”  Focus is defined as the center of interest or activity.  It may sound simple, but it is quite the opposite.  Staying focused is actually difficult especially since the human attention span is only getting smaller, which is counting against me and everyone else that struggles to stay focused.

               I chose focus as something that I need to improve upon because it affects my daily life in academics.  I find the academics to be very challenging here at Virginia Tech especially majoring in Health, Nutrition, Food and Exercise.  My classes are not only challenging, but some classes are also boring.  It is the boring classes that I find myself really struggling to stay focused because the material is not very interesting or intriguing as some other classes in my schedule.

               It was a random Wednesday morning around 9:30a.m. when I realized that I have not listened to one word that has come out of my professor’s mouth since the lecture began at 9:05a.m.  This was when I realized that I really do need to focus more if I want to be successful in this class.  I have succeeded in previous courses because I have either paid attention during lecture, taken notes, or was very interested in the course material which made me want to learn more.  This had me thinking on ways to conduct my experiment to help improve my focus.  I decided to go back to the basics and determine what was causing me not to focus during class.  The first thing that popped into my head was my phone.

               After some serious self reflection, it was not hard for me to realize that my phone had my attention more than my professor.  Constant notifications popping up on my screen can be very distracting when I am trying really hard to focus on the boring material.  Because of this reason, for my experiment I put my phone away in each class and when doing homework to see what the results would be in the end.  Either my experiment worked and I did focus better, or my experiment failed and I just fell back into my old habits.  That is what you will find out at the end of this paper after reading observations, reflections, and opinions from many sources.

                              One source that I found very interesting was a news article published in a newspaper titled Independent.  The article talks about 15 ways to stay focused, according to scientists.  These are people that I can “bring to my table” because they know what they are talking about when it comes to focus.  One of the ways suggested to focus better was to minimize multitasking.  This might seem very straightforward, but an interesting fact that I learned is that out of a sample of 100 Stanford students that went through a series of tests to examine attention spans, memory capacity, and ability to switch from one task to the next- the multitaskers performed more poorly on each test.

               Did you know that exercise isn’t just good for the body, but it also helps with memory capacity and concentration according to John Ratey, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  “In particular, scientists think regular exercise may help stimulate the release of a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which some research suggests helps rewire memory circuits to improve their functioning.”  How cool is that?

               Another source that I found interesting was a blog from mindvalley.  The blog is titled, How To Focus When You’re Distracted: 4 Proven Ways To Concentrate Better.  An interesting suggestion that I learned from this blog is to train your willpower muscle.  You have to train yourself to be more disciplined.  It won’t be easy but it will be worth it.  “If you overcome resistance daily by challenging yourself in small ways, you’ll see a gradual change in the right direction.”  There are some suggestions that follow to help you challenge yourself like waking up earlier, saying no to junk food, or cleaning the house when it is not your turn.

               I actually never considered meditation as a way to improve your focus but after reading about it, it makes sense.  Mediation can be a great tool to help improve your concentration.  “It is important to clear all distractions, find a quiet place, and leave behind any other thoughts.”  For the rest of the section on meditation, it offers tips and advice on how to properly mediate.  Meditation was mentioned in both sources that I found, which is both helpful and interesting.