Focus and alertness are prerequisites for paying attention to information, and this focused attention signals the nervous system to make changes for knowledge retention.

“so focus goes with alertness you can't be focused if you're not alert this is prerequisite so you need to be alert and you need to be focused in order to pay attention to the information that you're trying to learn in fact it is the process of being focused and attending that cues your nervous system that something is important that something's different about whatever sensory experience you happen to be having when you're focused and attending whether or not it's the information you're hearing or that you're looking at or both that cue at the level of neurochemicals in your brain and body signals to the neurons hey you're going to have to change you're going to have to alter your connections either make them stronger or weaker or a combination of those things in order to make sure that your nervous system can retain and use the information at a future time”