How To Focus Mental Attention To Mindfulness And Meditation

Mental attention is the basic instrument of any type of meditation. One could almost say that meditating and consciously focusing attention are essentially the same thing.

How to focus attention when meditating.

There are many forms of meditation, but perhaps we should start by talking about concentration, since meditation uses concentration as a basis (which is nothing more than conscious and sustained attention), to go one step further.

In order to acquire the habit in an effective way, we must "train" our ability to maintain conscious attention through the practice of some exercises, whose objective is none other than to get used to being really "attentive".

According to research, including mindfulness into our regular activities can help us improve our quality of life. But what is mindfulness, exactly, and how can we practise it? Let’s join us on a yoga holidays of mindfulness and relaxation from June 3 to June 6, 2022. During yoga holidays you go into nature, mindfulness, meditation and treatments give you a lot of rest and distance from the stressful everyday life 

Basic exercise to cultivate mindfulness.

A practical exercise to train our attention is to sit quietly, either on the floor in a yoga posture or on a chair, stool, or whatever is at hand.

Ideally, choose an environment that is as quiet as possible and without distractions. If we are sitting on a chair, we will place our arms on our legs, keeping our spine upright and with our head in line, looking straight ahead. There should be no tension, more than what is necessary to maintain the posture.

Little by little, we loosen the accumulated tension, starting from the head, going through the neck, the shoulders and descending through the trunk and extremities; while we regulate breathing, letting the tension go with each exhalation.

Focus our attention on the breath.

Starting from the calm state achieved through awareness of our body and slow, deep inspirations and breaths, we begin to focus our attention only on breathing. We must clearly perceive each of our inspirations and expirations, trying not to influence them. It's okay if it's hard at first. 

This is one of the most important steps to start in meditation. In fact, trying it already supposes to be meditating; because it combines essential factors of meditation: Attention, concentration and detachment.

We already have our attention on our breathing, but if we want it to be full, conscious and sustained, becoming authentic meditation, we must avoid influencing it. It is about observing the process without intervening.

It's easy to say, but doing it takes practice.

The beautiful thing is that, little by little, we will be achieving it for longer and longer periods of time. It is about letting our body be and that our full attention does not influence what we are aware of.

With practice we will be able to focus our attention on other objects of meditation; whether it be our own thoughts, sensations and/or feelings, without letting ourselves be carried away by them, just as we do with breathing.

Let us bear in mind that our own intervention and the judgments we make about what we think and feel can make us less free and independent and, therefore, unhappy.

As we delve into these types of exercises, we will understand the importance of mindfulness as a basic instrument of meditation and the usefulness of meditation as a tool to improve our quality of daily life.