"You are missing 50% of your life. And you're not alone. Everyone is. I say this confidently, even without knowing who you are, or how your brain might be differently from the last one we tested in my lab at the University of Miami, where I research the science of attention and teach cognitive neuroscience courses."

Dr. Amishi Jha

Dr Jha has spent her career studying the brain, people's ability to focus and how vulnerable our brains are to distraction. If you took a hot minute to think about this in reference to your own brain, you know this is true. The yogis call it the 'monkey mind' for a reason! It hops around, often completely unruly, refusing to cooperate and stay still. This is especially prevalent when we are under stress.

Dr Jha refers to this tendency towards distraction as "mental time travel" and says "We do it all the time. We do it seamlessly. And we do it even more under stress." That is often when we need our brains operating optimally the most! So what is there to do about this challenge?

She and her team came up with a short mindfulness training practice and put it to the test. They asked for volunteers from one of the most high-stress, high-demand populations....the military. There are, of course, lots of details but the end result was it was a success. And maybe, most importantly, the soldiers who participated in her study reaped all the benefits. Many continued to practice after the study was over to keep those benefits going. You can read more about her study and the results at mindful.org

I wanted to share her practice with you and you can put it to your own test. My suggestion is to do this practice every day for 30 days and evaluate how you feel, whether you have noticed a difference in your ability to keep focus and really just anything else you notice that may have shifted over your 30 day trial period.

Here is Dr Jha's practice:

A Cognitive Training Push-up

Focus + Notice

THE WARM UP

Settle in taking a posture that is alert, steady yet easeful. Think "upright", not "uptight". Feel free to lower or close your eyes.

THE PRACTICE

1. Focus - Select the sensations of breathing that are most prominent for you. Think of the breath as the "target" for your attention for this practice period. The sensations could be the coolness of the air moving in and out of your nostrils, your abdomen moving up or down, or some other specific sensation tied to your breathing. Now, for the period of practice, focus your attention on these breath-related sensations.
2. Notice - Notice when the mind has wandered away from your intentional "target". Perhaps you notice that your focus is now on thoughts, sensations, or memories and no0t on the breath at all.
3. Redirect - When this happens, simply redirect your attention back to your breath.

THE REPS

There's nothing more to do - simply return to the breath as many times as you need to.