Whether you are a student or a young working professional, being able to focus on the task at hand, being vigilant, having a wide attention span, and concentrating on a project for a longer period of time, is critical for your success.

The better your focus and concentration, the more effective you become — you will be able to achieve more with less effort. This is called optimum performance. Therefore these skills not only make you better at your studies or at work, but also contribute to your overall level of self-satisfaction and self-confidence. They will not only make you successful in everything that you choose to do, but they will also make you a happy and fulfilled individual.  

To achieve one-pointed focus and concentration over a prolonged period of time, you need to be able to effectively deal with distractions. There are many distractions that can disturb your focus, some of which external (such as a noisy environment, frequent meetings or phone calls), and others internal (for example, addiction to frequent checking of social media posts, or disturbing, worrying and negative thoughts).

One way to boost your focus and concentration is through a regular practice of mindfulness meditation. It has been shown that meditation improves two aspects of attention — both selective attention and executive control attention. Selective attention is the ability to focus on the most important aspects of the work in front of you. Executive control attention saves you from “noise,” making you able to either ignore distractions, or quickly regain your focus after you have engaged in side activities. Multiple scientific studies have found that after just a few months of meditation, people perform better on tasks which require shutting out various distractions from the external environment. Long-term meditators also demonstrate high-level of focus over a prolonged period of time, and are better at bouncing back from distractions.  

The underlying mechanisms of these changes due to meditation have been studied by scientists. Research has shown that mindfulness meditation causes changes in the brain structure and the brain function, in a manner which is beneficial to our cognitive performance. Meditation stabilizes the stream of thoughts and improves many cognitive processes. For example, scientists have found that meditators have more stability in their ventral posteromedial cortex (vPMC), a region linked to spontaneous thoughts and mind-wandering. In contrast, this region is almost always active in people who do not meditate. The vMPC stability is a commonly used metric to determine one’s mental focus. Our “monkey-mind” which has a tendency to engage in approximately 3,000 thoughts per hour — most of which are counterproductive — is quietened as a result of meditation.  

Other studies have shown that meditators are better at splitting their attention intentionally across multiple things. This is particularly useful for jobs and professions which require a significant amount of multitasking. Meditators are able to pay better attention to detail, which can be a key distinguishing factor for success in the business environment. This ability also reduces the risk of a study-related fatigue and burnout.  

Neuroscientists have found that there is a significant increase in tissue of the anterior cingulate cortex among those who meditate. This brain area is involved in maintaining attention and controlling impulses. Meditators also have thicker tissue in several other cortex regions involved in attention control and body awareness. Long-term meditation leads to strengthening of neural pathways between various brain areas, which scientists believe strengthens the focus.

A scientific study has found that two months of mindfulness meditation leads to an increase in the cortical thickness in the hippocampus, a part of the brain that governs learning and memory. On the other hand, mindfulness meditation decreases the volume of the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for stress, fear and anxiety, which in turn leads to a healthier and more effective response to challenging situations.  

An increasing number of children and young people suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). The good news is that some studies have even found that even fairly simple meditation techniques, such as breathfulness meditation, make students diagnosed with ADD become calmer and more focused in their studies. Meditation, indeed, benefits everyone.