The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
By doing that repeatedly over and over, what you're really training up is the network within your brain that indeed includes that prefrontal cortex that you're focusing on as well as some other structures, the inferior temporal cortex, indeed the hippocampus, a structure associated with memory, and other components of the neural circuit that are involved in directing our mental focus and concentration.
Every Sunday: the week’s new conflicts and verdict changes — and nothing else.
Native comments, Twitter mentions, and Reddit threads about this claim — surfaced together so the conversation isn't fragmented across platforms.
Bookmarking — the dossier-vs-overview split is the right call. Most of the time I want overview; sometimes I want receipts.
Would love a "what would change this verdict" RSS feed. Sign me up if it exists.
a relatively short meditation practice of about 13 minutes in which you fully expect your focus and concentration to drift, but that you are continually refocusing is going to be the most effective, yes, indeed, the most effective at teaching yourself to focus and stay concentrated.
A huge component of improving your ability to focus and concentrate by way of neuroplasticity, rewiring of the circuits for focus and concentration, is the repeated return to a state of focus from a state of non-focus or diminished focus.
Those very brief types of meditations, because they really are focusing and more accurately, I should say, refocusing exercises. When you do that sort of activity of closing your eyes and forcing yourself to focus and refocus on your breath and internal state, that is directing your perception inward. Or if you choose, you could deliberately focus your perception on some external object or sound, for that matter. When one does that, the circuits of the brain involved in focus dramatically improve. That is they rewire and increase their ability for you to achieve focus.