What is Concentration?

Both Bill Gates and Mr.Goofy have same 24 hours per day. What Bill gets done in a minute is not  possible for an underachiever. It is all in the attitude. We recognize that concentration is the key to success.
Definition: Generally in a normal human brain average of 60,000  to 70,000 thoughts arise in a day. If all these random thoughts keep interfering then it causes lot of disturbance. So, actually concentration  means controlling one's brain to stop the unnecessary thoughts from letting you process the information that you would like to read, understand, analyze, comprehend, and remember. We need to train our brain to restrain us from goofing off. In short, "Controlling the unnecessary thoughts and processing only one thought is concentration".

This article is for everybody, mainly students, parents who always want their kids to succeed in life, for working men & women with everyday challenges which get even harder with inflation and competition.

Thoughts turn to actions

Parents always ask kids to concentrate, pay attention and focus. But, do you ever realize that we never explained what exactly does concentration mean and we never taught them how to do it. As a parent, I myself never knew how to explain it to my little daughter. In order to be able to explain it clearly to her, I searched on internet, read articles and watched lot of shows and found out many amazing things which I would like to share with you.

Quick tricks to help improve concentration:
    * SuperBrain Yoga:  Two-minute exercise to make you smarter. Watch this video on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSwhpF9iJSs
    * Draw: Stimulate both left and right brains by drawing a face using two hands at the same time (See the pictures below)
    * Play games: When  brain-tired activate your brain by playing chess or chinese checker or memory games on computer
    * Identify: Find out if your kid is a visual learner or audio learner (explained below).

Goal Poster

    * Nutrition: Eat walnuts for brain health
    * Morning food: Low carbohydrate diet
    * Evening food: Carbohydrate rich diet
    * Direction of sleep: Sleep facing east so that morning sunrays wake you up. Keep head towards south to help those earth magentic waves energize and refresh.
    * Goal poster: Set a goal, write it big on a poster and paste it in front of the study desk
    * Time Management: Learn to value time. A minute that we wasted is not going to come back ever.One who values time will be valued by time.
    * Puzzzles: Activate left brain
    * Short Break: Take quick break of 2-5 minutes between homework but always return promptly. Long breaks will change the flow of learning
    * Accupressure: The accupressure points to activate the brains are in our thumbs. To stimulate - simply press on the inside of the thumb on either side in vertical direction for atleast 10 times morning and evening. Good hands-on remedy for headche.

Accupressure points on thumb

    * Good habit: After brushing teeth you could clean the upper palate with your thumb, moving it in lateral direction going from front to back. This boosts confidence. http://yogasimplified.com/yogasimplified/chapter2.htm

How to identify learning style: A quick activity to identify learning style. I learn't this when I was doing  my Graduate Teaching Assistant training. Tell the other person that you are going to give some directions and he\she has to follow you . Now stand in front of the person and spread out hands at the shoulder length and while saying touch your nose slowly move your hand  and touch nose with your right hand. Repeat the step but this time say touch your nose but touch your ear instead of nose. Observe, if the other person is following your 'actions' then he is a visual learner otherwise he is an audio learner. Some people are visual learners, they learn better with pictures, diagrams, schematics and flow charts. Read this article http://shrikant-mulik.blogspot.com/2010/02/using-mind-maps-made-easy.html .  For audio learners- try reading and repeating the new concepts.
There is a quick questionnaire available on this link  that you can fill out and it gives the result at he end.  http://www.ldpride.net/learning-style-test.html
My experience: As a parent it is our responsibility to mould a kids brain and motivate them to reach heights of success. My mother was my greatest guide and philosopher. She was always there to motivate me. Saying the same thing over and over, "study hard, get good grades, your future will be great".
 I tell my daughter that it is very natural for the brain to think about summer vacation when we are working on lattice multiplication. If you just remember to come back immediately and think again how to get the answer to the math question then we are successful in tuning our brain to concentrate. Well, it doesn't happen overnight, it definitely takes some

 

Slow and steady wins the race

practice.  Talk to your kids, millenium kids are smart, in fact super smart, they will understand if you explain it in a right way.

There are so many modern day examples how people struggle due to stress and lack of concentration, and give up to drugs. I read this article on yahoo on Feb21, 2011.
"Tyson Changed: The hands that once caused so much fear, that once scrambled the brains of highly trained men, which caused elite professionals to cower in fear, now gently, tenderly, caress a pigeon. Mike Tyson, former heavyweight champion of the world, the one-time baddest man on the planet, is now just a working stiff who hustles odd jobs to make a living."

Human brain: There are two lobes- left and right with different controls. Left brain is for logical and analytical thinking and right brain is for creative and emotional thinking. Left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa. The acupressure points for left brain is in right thumb and right ear lobe. Similarly for right brain the pressure points are in left thumb(accupressure point) and left ear lobe(super brain yoga). Brain is something that will never get full, the more you acquire knowledge the more sharper it becomes. Helpful link: http://www.tastyhuman.com/30-interesting-facts-about-human-brain/

Brainy Food : Have you heard of the expression "use your noodles". It means use your brain but it has nothing to do with instant noodles. Etiology of the word shows that it is a combination of two words- noddle and fool. The type of food we eat  has a major role to play, some foods keep us active and some make us feel lazy.
 "Diet: Protein included or carb free diet before going to school or test. Give carbohydrate rich diet in the night".
Morning- Carbohydrate free diet (Walnuts, almonds, fruits, sprouts, tortillos, no rice, steamed fish, Vegetable soup or chicken soup, boiled egg)
Evening-   Carbohydrate rich diet (Rice, bread, sweets, banana, mango, milk)

Ginko biloba is used as a memory enhancer and for boosting concentration but there are many contradictory opinions about it so I refrain from going for those easy ways and tried the other routes.
Scientific explanation: Before going to school or test, feed carbohydrate free diet to  your kids because protein diet will keep their brain active. At nights give food that has carbs in them because it helps them to fall asleep faster and wake up fresh. High level of glucose stimulates pancreas to secrete insulin that helps in absorption of glucose. Starchy food has high glucose content which demands the body to produce insulin which cause the blood to circulate more in the abdomen area than towards brain. This supply and demand for blood circulation is one reason that is making us feel tired after heavy lunch. It is also proven that rise in insulin level is associated with rise in Serotonin hormone level which is associated with sleepy feeling.

 Draw a face by both hands to stimulate right and left brains 

Useful links:
http://teacher.scholastic.com/clifford1/flash/concentration/index.htm
http://www.aplusmath.com/games/Concentration/Addition_Concentration.html