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Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How do I get it back?

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Re: Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How do I get it back?

#21

Post by TYPE_FASTER »

liamcardenas wrote: post #19

Nutrition. I have struggled quite a bit with attention. The single most effective thing I can do (more effective than medication) is to improve my diet by cutting out carbs. I find if I am in a mild state of ketosis (greater than 0.3), I can concentrate way better. I am not advocating that everyone go on a ketogenic diet, but cutting out refined sugar and eating only healthy nutrient-rich carbs does wonders for my br…

It's not just me! I thought I was imagining things, but changing my diet recently has had a positive impact on my ability to focus and be productive.

Re: Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How do I get it back?

#23

Post by anderspitman »

floatingatoll wrote: post #10

This will sound sarcastic, but it’s not. Stop visiting HN more than once a day. Repeat this for every “news”/“feed” site and app that you use. It sounds completely nuts, but it forces you to stop slicing up “read the news” (a focused activity) into “read the news distractedly” (a timesliced activity). Shut off push notifications for anything that is not money/shipping related or a direct IM with individuals. Email no…

I like this. The inability to permanently disable Facebook Messenger notifications is what finally pushed me over the edge to remove it from my phone.

Re: Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How do I get it back?

#24

Post by derekp7 »

closeparen wrote: post #2

Reading novels seems to help for me. More directly, there’s always meditation.

My problem with novels is that I end up hyper-focusing on them. If I'm into a good book, I'll only get maybe 4 hours sleep a night (staying up late reading), spend all day Saturday/Sunday reading, and end up getting physically sick from not moving around.

Re: Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How do I get it back?

#25

Post by matiasz »

In my experience, the best way to improve my attention is by practicing śamatha meditation. The śamatha practices that entail mindfulness of breathing are thought to be ideal for those living in modernity.

The best introduction to śamatha that I’m aware of is B. Alan Wallace’s “The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind.”

Re: Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How do I get it back?

#26

Post by nicolashahn »

rossdavidh wrote: post #6

Meditation is, essentially, concentrating on one thing (e.g. one's breathing, a phrase) for an extended period. It's kind of like using a piece of gym equipment to exercise just one set of muscles, repeatedly. So, how does one increase attention span? Practice paying attention, in an environment with fewer distractions, and keep practicing until you become good at it again (don't expect that to happen quickly). Also,…

I think this is the most important thing listed - nutrition, exercise, avoiding social media will allow you to get to an increased attention span, but won't take you there, and meditation will.

The closest meditation exercise I've found that is basically a workout for your attention span is to sit still somewhere quiet and count your breaths, in and out. Breathe in 1, breathe out 2, breathe in 3, etc. It may help to visualize the number as well. Every time you catch your mind wandering, you gently bring it back and begin with the last number you remember. After a cycles of this, you'll find you're able to count for longer without becoming distracted. Do this regularly and see if your attention span on other tasks is increased as well.

Re: Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How do I get it back?

#27

Post by sli »

rossdavidh wrote: post #6

Meditation is, essentially, concentrating on one thing (e.g. one's breathing, a phrase) for an extended period. It's kind of like using a piece of gym equipment to exercise just one set of muscles, repeatedly. So, how does one increase attention span? Practice paying attention, in an environment with fewer distractions, and keep practicing until you become good at it again (don't expect that to happen quickly). Also,…

Something I always like to add to suggestions of meditation is this clarification: clearing your mind completely is not the right way to do it, because completely clearing your mind is nearly impossible. At least for most, maybe some folks can do it. I cannot, and I don't know anyone who can. Instead, it makes me more susceptible to distraction, because brains want to be brains, they want to think and do work.

A nice side-effect of that approach, or perhaps the whole point of it, is that you can now consider meditation as a general thinking tool rather than a more specific way to deal with some specific problem as in OP's case (solving attention problems).

Instead, like OP says, meditate on something instead. Consider if the difference between zero, one, and a million. Zero thoughts works but is hard, one thought works pretty well, and one million thoughts is simply restating the problem.

Re: Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How do I get it back?

#28

Post by bproven »

liamcardenas wrote: post #19

Nutrition. I have struggled quite a bit with attention. The single most effective thing I can do (more effective than medication) is to improve my diet by cutting out carbs. I find if I am in a mild state of ketosis (greater than 0.3), I can concentrate way better. I am not advocating that everyone go on a ketogenic diet, but cutting out refined sugar and eating only healthy nutrient-rich carbs does wonders for my br…

Agreed - this plus dedicating time every day to some kind of training/workout. IMO the human body wants to move and work - its not meant to sit around like a blob all day

Re: Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How do I get it back?

#29

Post by anderspitman »

I've been working on this lately as well. Not finished with the process but here's a few things I've tried:

* Read part of a book before starting work.

* No HN/reddit/etc until noon.

* No Facebook until 6PM.

* Disable almost all notifications.

* Only check emails/texts once an hour at the top of the hour.

* Use software that respects my desire for focus.

The last one is currently the most interesting to me. When I was going through disabling all my notifications, I realized you can't truly turn them off on FB messenger. You can only mute them for up to 24 hours. After that I decided to remove any software from my life that was created to manipulate users rather than empower them. That's mostly meant switching to OSS apps and self hosting.

https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted has been an incredible resource

Re: Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How do I get it back?

#30

Post by __raccoons__ »

closeparen wrote: post #2

Reading novels seems to help for me. More directly, there’s always meditation.

+1 for reading novels. You may have to try a few before you find one you really like, but once you become invested in a story, it's pretty easy to spend a few hours a day reading. In my experience, it's been a pretty effective way of breaking the scattered thoughts/quick reward cycle. Some novels I've enjoyed recently: the Southern Reach trilogy, and Oryx and Crake.

Meditation is also great, but I think the barrier to entry is pretty high for someone already struggling to focus. Certain types of yoga (Iyengar/Hatha) can be good gateways into meditation.

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