Concentration

The concentration or focus or attention, can be defined as the process that takes is inhibited irrelevant information and focuses on shots into the relevant information. (Adapted from Pineda and Lopera, 1997 ).

Summary

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• 1 Within sport
• 2 Study Techniques: Attention-concentration. How to achieve it
• 3 Factors that favor attention-concentration
  • 1 Organization and Planning
    • 1.1 Long-term programming
    • 1.2 Short-term scheduling
  • 4 The art or practice of concentration
  • 5 Sources

Within sport

Within sport, not only the ability to discriminate from the important to the unimportant is important, such as the sustainability of this mental state. Depending on the sport, the psychological capacity to hold concentration longer (a long game of tennis) may be more important than maximum concentration point ( archery ). So we can define that in sport we have a power and a capacity in the concept of concentration.

The capacity or power of attention (concentration) is related to the amount of information received, the relationship between these is inversely proportional (Adapted Rubenstein 1982 ). Likewise, the effort required for maximum concentration is proportional to the information received. Likewise, the possibility of concentration is inversely proportional to the information taken that is relevant.

For the achievement of his aspirations, for the good success in all that he pursues, man needs something vital at all times and places: the concentration of purpose, thought, feeling and action. (RHona)

The capacity of attention or concentration is closely related to stress and empathy towards what is done. It is easy to see psychologists say that such a child has attention deficit and they have not seen him playing with the console for hours and hours without blinking.

For Rubenstein ( 1982 ), attention modifies the structure of psychological processes, making these appear as activities oriented to certain objects, which occurs according to the content of the proposed activities that guide the development of psychic processes, attention being a facet of psychological processes.

Study Techniques: Attention-concentration. How to achieve it

Attention is the process through which we select some stimulus from our environment, that is, we focus on a stimulus from among all those around us and ignore all the others.

We tend to pay attention to what interests us, either because of the characteristics of the stimulus (size, color, shape, movement …) or because of our own motivations. Thus, attention and interest are closely related, as are attention and concentration.

Factors that favor attention-concentration

• Interest and willingnessto study
• Plan the studyof a chapter or the development of a problem in a very concrete way, for a short period of time, no more than 30 minutes.
• After two hoursof study, take a short break to relax from the concentration maintained up to that moment.
• Change the subjectof study: so you can stay focused longer. If you dedicate an hour to a subject taking two 5-minute breaks, you can dedicate another two hours to different subjects, with slightly longer breaks of 8-10 minutes without dropping your concentration.
• Take notes: If during the explanations the teacher is attentive to mentally synthesize and in writing in short sentences the details of interest, you will exercise attention.

Organization and Planning

It is necessary to have a study plan in which the contents of the different subjects are included, conveniently distributed, according to a well-thought-out distribution of time.

For them, it is necessary to establish a schedule that helps us create a daily study habit and that avoids wasting unnecessary time.

When we make the schedule we have to take into account:

• It must be weekly.
• When structuring it, we must take into account all the fixed occupations that we do, that is, extracurricular activities,
• Decide how much time to spend on each subject.
• The degree of difficulty of the subject.
• Alternate those subjects that are to our liking and ease with those that present a greater effort.
• The schedule must be flexible and realistic, this means that it does not have to be so harsh that it is impossible to meet.
• Remember that you have to always have it at hand and in sight.

Long-term scheduling

It can be done in a very general way by planning the entire course or by evaluations, in order to know how, when we should study, with what means to do it and what difficulties we should overcome. By means of a table we must include the first, second or third evaluation, the months included and everything related to each subject (Topics to be studied each month, exam dates, work dates, …)

Short-term scheduling

1. A) Weekly planning

A good way to study is to work well throughout the week and rest on Saturday afternoons and Sundays (to relax your mind and start the week in full physical and mental shape).

At the beginning of the week, the student should try to distribute the time available among the various tasks of the subjects that make up the course. The distribution of the hours between the subjects will depend on their importance, difficulty and the imminence of an exam or work to be prepared.

1. B) Daily work plan

It is advisable that we make a plan of activities to fulfill each day. It is important that this plan is in writing, so the activities can be reviewed, they relieve the mind of anxiety and create a kind of moral obligation to fulfill them. When making the daily work plan, the following should be taken into account: start with subjects or jobs of medium difficulty, continue with the most difficult and finish with the easiest. There will always be days when the scheduled goals or schedule cannot be met. This non-compliance is of little importance, as long as it is an exception and the proposed weekly objectives end up being met.

The art or practice of concentration

No matter what activity you are doing, the focus is to eliminate distraction and focus on the task at hand. If you find yourself reading a topic and suddenly find that you have no idea what you just read, or if you are in class and have difficulty paying attention to what is being said, these tips can help. :

• Stick to a routine, schedule your study homework to be effective.
• Study in a quiet environment
• For a study break, do something other than what you’ve been doing and in a different place (for example, take a walk if you’ve been sitting).
• Avoid daydreamingby wondering about the topic as you study it.
• Before the lessons, review the notesfrom the previous classes and read the topic that belongs to the class of the day so that you can anticipate the main ideas that the teacher presents.
• Be outwardly interested during lessons

(expression and posture of attention), as this will motivate your inner interest.

• Resist distractions bystanding in the front of the classroom, away from interrupting peers, and focusing on the teacher through listening and taking notes.