{"id":54413,"date":"2021-10-25T12:49:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T12:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mindful.org\/?p=54413"},"modified":"2026-04-01T03:17:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T03:17:33","slug":"find-your-focus-own-your-attention-in-12-minutes-a-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mindful.org\/find-your-focus-own-your-attention-in-12-minutes-a-day\/","title":"Find Your Focus: Own Your Attention in 12 Minutes a Day","content":{"rendered":"\n

You are missing 50% of your life. And you\u2019re not alone: Everyone is. I say this confidently, even without knowing who you are, or how your brain might be different from the last one we tested in my lab at the University of Miami, where I research the science of attention<\/a> and teach cognitive neuroscience courses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the course of my career as a brain scientist, I\u2019ve seen certain universal patterns in the way all of our brains function\u2014both how powerfully they can focus, and how extraordinarily vulnerable they are to distraction\u2014no matter who you are or what you do. I\u2019ve had the opportunity to peek inside the living human brain, and I know that at any given moment, there\u2019s a high probability that your mind just isn\u2019t here. Instead, you\u2019re planning for the next item on your to-do list. You\u2019re ruminating on something that\u2019s been bothering you, a worry or a regret. You\u2019re thinking about something that could happen tomorrow, or the next day, or never. Any way you slice it, you\u2019re not here, experiencing your life. You\u2019re somewhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mental time travel is one of the biggest culprits degrading our attention. We do it all the time. We do it seamlessly. And we do it even more under stress.<\/a> Under stress, our attention gets yanked into the past by a memory, where we get stuck in a ruminative loop. Or we may get launched into the future by a worry, leading us to catastrophize on an endless number of doomsday scenarios. The common denominator is that stressful intervals hijack attention <\/a>away from the present moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Mental time travel is one of the biggest culprits degrading our attention. We do it all the time. We do it seamlessly. And we do it even more under stress.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is how mindfulness<\/a> first entered my lab as a possible \u201cbrain-training tool.\u201d I wanted to know whether training people in mindfulness exercises could help them be more effective in high-pressure situations. Our basic definition of mindfulness was this: paying attention to present-moment experience without conceptual elaboration or emotional reactivity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wondered if training people to keep attention in the here and now, without editorializing or reacting, could serve as a kind of \u201cmental armor.\u201d I wanted to answer this question: Could mindfulness training protect and strengthen attention? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To find out, we set our sights on one of the most high-stress, high-demand populations: the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key Summary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What is Focused Attention Practice?<\/strong> A specific mindfulness technique designed to strengthen concentration and reduce distractibility in just 12 minutes daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benefits for Attention:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n