Types and properties of attention
Types of attention:
- External . Directed towards the world around us.
- Internal . Aimed at a person’s own emotions and experiences.
- Involuntary. Helps survive since prehistoric times. Rushes in the apartment at night, suspicious sounds and smells - we notice all this thanks to involuntary attention.
- Arbitrary. Attention that we direct through willpower. For example, reading a book about quantum mechanics.
- Post-voluntary. Let's say you tensed up and concentrated on something. At a certain point, voluntary attention becomes post-voluntary. This means that you no longer need to hold it by force.
There are three things that will always attract attention: food, danger and sex.
And this is completely natural. For example, people always look at car accidents. The thing is that the brain at a subconscious level pays attention to things directly related to survival. Properties of attention:
- concentration, focus, stability. Attention is heterogeneous, its level is constantly changing;
- volume. Attention has a volume - this means that several objects can be in the field of attention at once. For an adult, the normal attention span is 4-6 objects;
- switchability Every 20 minutes (approximately, each person has their own characteristics) attention switches to a new object.
Attention can be controlled
How to manage your attention
Let's be honest. If you know how to manage attention, you are unlikely to read this. Most likely, you are more familiar with the following situation.
You need to do a coursework, you cheerfully write the introduction, then you accidentally remember about cats on the Internet and you become interested. Suddenly you are already on Wikipedia. As a result, you finish at three in the morning on the topic “Cubbyan missile crisis,” and the course student was not ready, and that’s how it is. But all you had to do was not get distracted. In words it is easy, but if you try, you can do it in practice.
Attention is one of the parameters of mental activity that is most difficult to train.
Our authors are experts not only in their disciplines, but also in the field of attention management. It is this skill that helps you write a thesis from A to Z in just a few days.
Practical recommendations from experts:
- You need to be able to consciously seize the moment when your attention wants to switch.
- Ask yourself if you really need to move on to something else now. The key word is “need”.
- If not, then use your willpower to maintain your attention.
- At the end, when the job is done, reward yourself with something nice.
Here's an example:
Let's imagine that you are doing what you love. Of course, you are writing a course.
Attention! Our readers now have a 10% discount on any type of work.
Suddenly a thought popped into my head: “Let me see what’s new on Facebook?” At this moment you need to catch yourself on this thought and answer the question: “Do I need it?”
If you've been writing for a good 40 minutes, then it really makes sense to switch gears, relax and take a break. Well, if only one word is written, then pull yourself together and continue. For example, until you write a section of a paragraph or a page. This will take effort, so go and eat the candy at the end.
The ability to manage attention and concentrate helps to cope more successfully with tasks in crisis situations and under stress.
What else will help you concentrate? Healthy sleep, meditation and comfortable conditions. Lack of sleep, noise and general dissatisfaction have a detrimental effect on attention. Breaks between couples were also invented for a reason. Attention needs time to rest. So don't force yourself to work for hours without a break.
Hypnotoad - knows a lot about managing attention
Attention management and its application
I was prompted to write the following by an article in Geektimes “Meditation - ancient reality hacking in modern times.” At the beginning I wanted to write a small comment, which became a big one and resulted in this article. I want to say right away that I do not have sufficient knowledge or experience to touch upon such a deep topic, but I was lucky enough to live in India for many years near great Teachers of Buddhism and Yoga and listen to their instructions, as well as study texts. My understanding of the theory and practice of “meditation” is still in the process of development, therefore, I ask you to consider this article not as truth, but only as a direction for reflection, which may help others better understand this topic. The term “meditation” has now included everything that is not laziness, denoting by it many practices used in spiritual traditions (and not only in the Eastern ones, Christian vigils and many other things can also be included in this category). This term does not have an unambiguous analogue in Indian (Tibetan, etc.) languages; the meaning of the term “dhyna” is one of many generalized by it. The term “meditation” can be used to define practices of working with attention in which we:
a) we concentrate our attention, subordinate it to our will, as a result of which we acquire the skill of concentrating attention; b) subordinated to the will, we direct concentrated attention to various aspects of perception, including analysis and experiences of the external world, body, mental processes for their study and transformation.
One text says that our attention is like a candle flame in windy weather, it constantly fluctuates, preventing us from seeing the frescoes on the wall at night. Focused attention is like a candle flame surrounded by glass; it burns evenly and helps you see everything, no matter where you direct it.
What does it mean to subordinate attention to will? To do this, there are practices of one-pointed concentration of attention, which include:
- returning attention to the selected object, - staying attention on the selected object, - completely one-pointed concentration.
To understand how this works, you need to turn to the theory outlined in Indian philosophy (in this case, Buddhist) which says: “One moment, one consciousness.”
It often seems to us that we can simultaneously hear, see, and think at the same moment, that is, at one moment there are many simultaneous awarenesses filled with different processes (consciousness of the visible, audible, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, mental). But that's not true. Our consciousness exists as a consistent process of flashes of consciousness, where at one moment (an extremely small unit of time) only one consciousness occurs (only the perception of the visible, or audible, etc.). But since flashes of consciousness-perception occur very quickly, we create the illusion of their simultaneous (two or more) manifestations.
If we conditionally take 100 consecutive flashes of consciousness, then it turns out, for example, that the first few flashes are occupied by the perception of the visible, the next few by the perception of the tactile, the next by the olfactory, the next by the audible, the next by the taste, and the next by the mental. They can be in any order. When we begin the practice of concentration, we choose one object with which we intend to continuously fill the entire sequence of flashes of consciousness. These objects can be external - a point, a pebble, etc., breathing, a spoken sound, an image in the mind (symbol, teacher, deity), imagining oneself in another image (for example, a deity). Since our mind is not accustomed to consistently holding the same object in each subsequent moment of consciousness, we have to make a constant effort to return attention to the selected object. For this we are developing:
- Mindfulness - constantly remember why we are sitting and what we are doing here (usually developed throughout the day as reflection on the benefits of concentration and the intention to implement it qualitatively), - Vigilance - notice when attention is distracted, - Effort - returning to the chosen object (the mind really doesn’t want to do this and begins to persuade you to think of some thought, and only then return to the object, dream about something, etc.).
In order to get at least a minimal effect, the practice of concentration is performed at least 2 - 3 times a day for 35 minutes or longer. It is believed that only during this time the mind performs the minimum necessary number of actions to develop a skill. When you return your attention to the selected object, you are, as it were, training your attention, as a result of which you acquire the skill of concentration. This is similar to how lifting a dumbbell trains a muscle, and as a result, gains muscle strength.
When you have already acquired a certain skill of focusing attention and, for example, out of a hundred consecutive flashes of consciousness, more than fifty are occupied with the chosen object, your mind will naturally remain on the object, you need to put in much less effort, and you can already use your attention to study and transformation of one's experience of the world. When all one hundred out of one hundred consecutive flashes of consciousness are occupied by one object, then this is a completely unidirectional concentration, where even the experience of oneself as a subject and an object, as something separate from you, ceases, since there are no flashes of consciousness left filled with tactile or other perceptions.
But just returning attention is not enough, you need to understand how to do it, so the practice of one-pointed concentration alternates with the practice of concentrated reflection, in which you understand how to properly concentrate.
And that is not all. It is also necessary to create conditions in the mind and daily life that promote concentration. These are actions of body, speech and mind that allow the mind and body to be non-excited and pliable.
With focused attention, we can direct it to the mind itself, comprehending how it creates the totality of perceptions called reality (where “I” and “WORLD” are not a duality, but generated by consciousness, in which there are appropriated experiences that we consider ourselves, and not appropriated, which we consider to be the outside world), develop good qualities (not only make efforts to do good and not do bad, but also to discover and eliminate the cause of delusions that prompt us to commit negative actions), transform our experience of reality. Without the skill of concentration, this becomes impossible or extremely ineffective. As it is said:
“No matter what you do - read mantras, adhere to asceticism for many years, If at the same time you are distracted by your mind, Everything is useless, so the Wise said.”
I will not expand here on the purposes and methods that use the concentrated mind, due to the fact that I do not have sufficient knowledge and experience for this. But I can say one thing: even the practice of concentration itself brings many benefits, including the organization of life, the ability to achieve set goals, delve into assigned tasks and solve them in the most effective way. Another important benefit of mindfulness practice is the ability to take a break from yourself. In certain teachings, it is believed that every moment of our reaction leaves imprints on us that accumulate throughout our lives. And these imprints do not just lie there as dead weight, but constantly require our attention and energy for self-maintenance, which we subconsciously give to them all the time. And the longer we live, the more of our attention and energy is absorbed by them, the less we have left for active life. Time begins to fly faster, and we are more and more absorbed in various thoughts and experiences that are not related to the present moment. We get tired of constantly “chewing” thoughts.
When we practice focusing attention, then by returning attention to the selected object, we gradually withdraw attention from everything else, thereby depriving the imprints of their “nutrition”, as a result of which they fade and become less manifested. The processor of our mind, being not occupied by open print windows, begins to work more efficiently and with less effort, freeing up its resource in the direction we need. And we can say that we are relieved. We rest, take a break from ourselves.
In principle, all these methods can really be called “hacking” reality, but you need to understand that this is a lot of work, work on yourself, and five minutes of practice in the morning and evening will not give even a small result. In addition, this is a consistent, deep method of working with consciousness, and in order for it to be effective, you need to turn to those traditions that are time-tested and have real teachers who have the necessary knowledge, their own practice and experience.
But we can also hack reality in simpler ways—by making thoughtful decisions and sticking to them. One text says that karma can be good, not good, and karma of yogis (sometimes neutral is also considered). How does the karma of yogis differ from others? The fact that the yogi, knowing that certain actions lead to strictly defined results, and knowing what results he wants to get, makes a deliberate decision and strictly carries it out. For example, he decided to concentrate every morning, pray, run, not eat sweets, etc. And he does it. One morning he has a karmic predisposition for this and he wants to do it, and he does it, but the next morning he has no predisposition, and he doesn’t want to, but he does it anyway. So he “hacks” (reveals) his mind. But before you decide to do something or not, it is important to think it over very carefully, not to take on big things right away, so as not to burn out later and break down, but, starting small, fill your whole life with conscious actions.
I apologize for the rather chaotic presentation that reveals little, but this topic is touched upon quite often and, perhaps, my writing will create a new direction in thinking for someone.
