One of the greatest feelings I can have is the feeling of going to bed knowing I put my heart and soul into my work during the day. Knowing that I executed on every goal with my utmost honest attention and focus.
When I was a triathlete training 40+ hours a week, my coach used to tell me that I needed to exhaust myself (in some sessions) until there was no juice left in the tank and you know what, it proved to work well for me. So I adopted this theory in my day to day work and built the mental capacity to exhaust my focus and attention capacity so when I lay my head on my pillow at night, I know I did everything possible that day to get me closer to my goals.
In this article I will teach you three things:
How FITLIGHT can be used to maintain attention and focus capacity
Why you should be training your focus and attention on a daily basis
I will do this by referencing an article that was written to exemplify the science behind FITLIGHT which I will include at the end of this article for your own reference.
Many of us are looking for a quick fix, a quick journey to the end goal but we fail to realise that ‘half-assing’ a project won’t get you to where you want, it will get you somewhere else. So it’s my duty, as your mental performance coach, to teach you how to train your focus and attention muscle so you can reach your full potential.
By now, you know that I am the ambassador of FITLIGHT Trainer™ – they specialize in designing and creating equipment and technology applicable in a variety of industries. In our quest to set the standard by which all others will be measured, we have embraced innovative technology in the creation of our FITLIGHT™ products for all to enjoy in the pursuit of performance excellence.
I use this equipment in my brain health programs for all of my athletes and my corporate clients. I want you to understand that you don’t have to be an elite athlete to use products like this. The only reason why the media portrays athletes as the only ones being able to use equipment like this is because the theory of brain training is still new and I believe I am at the forefront of it.
How FITLIGHT can be used to maintain attention and focus capacity
Cognitive and motor processes are essential for athletic performance. Among the cognitive processes involved in athletic performance, attentional functioning has been the main research topic in the recent years. Experimental studies have reported the superior cognitive abilities of expert athletes, who are capable of quickly extracting important information, encode and retrieve relevant information more efficiently in comparison with non-experts (e.g. Collins 2002; Mann et al. 2007; Memmert 2009 for review). In addition, experts can modulate their cognitive and motor resources according to specific task demands better (Castiello and Umilta 1992). Gilia et al. (2011) found the differences in visuospatial attention in athletes engaged in open-compared to closed-skill sports and nonathletes. Among participants who responded to a computerized line-length judgment task, those authors observed that volleyball players responded significantly faster and more accurately, making a statistically significantly lower number of errors as compared with rowers and controls.
The studies mentioned above were trialled and tested using the fitlight training system to prove the efficacy of the product which proved to help increase focus performance. Not only can you use the computerised training protocols for improving athletic performance but you can track, measure and test your focus capacity and abilities. There are a number of different training options built into the system that allows you to track your own progression over a period of 3 months so you can see the exponential growth in your thinking capacity.
The study outlined at the end of this article examines the ability to maintain attention during a serial reaction time task performance in expert handball players and non-athletes. Participants performed a protocol with the FITLIGHT Trainer™ consisted of 10 series of simple motor reaction task to visual stimuli. Each of the 10 series included 22 reactions. Ability to maintain attention was determined by analyzing the variability in results during testing, e.g. the total time of test execution and the average reaction time to visual stimulus in each subsequent series.
Why you should be training your focus and attention on a daily basis
Digital devices are potentially damaging your wallet—but not in the way you might think. Smartphones and other gadgets allow us to follow our friends, read the news, watch a football game and even track our investments anytime, and nearly anywhere. We’re always multitasking, or moving from one bit of information to the next, and rarely looking at one piece of information long enough to fully digest it. All this has one crucial side effect: It creates a shortage of attention, which can lead to poor choices.
Most successful people plan what they need to accomplish. It has been demonstrated that having a written plan of action increases productivity. We know this but what we fail to do is follow through with our mandatory checklists because it requires so much focus and attention to push through the checklist. One of the important aspects of attentional processes in sport performance is sustained attention during task performance. Sarter et al. (2001) described ‘sustained attention’ as a state of readiness to respond to rarely and unpredictably occurring signals over prolonged periods of time. The ability to maintain attention on a particular stimulus or location for quite a prolonged period of time is important in ball sports. Dynamic sports such as handball require high attention skills because many stimuli are acting simultaneously in very short time units. The attentional focus adopted during the execution of a skilled motor action can have a profound effect on performance outcomes.
There are no instant, miracle cures. But recent studies suggest we have more control over our cognitive health than we might think. It just takes some effort. Step by step, you can built your focus, you can build your attention and you can achieve your goals!
References:
Szczecin University, Faculty of Physical Culture and Health Promotion, Poland
State Higher Vocational School in Wa?cz, Poland
A Study Design; B Data Collection; C Statistical Analysis; D Manuscript Preparation; E Funds Collection
Alves H., Voss M.W., Boot W.R., Deslandes A., Cossich V., Salles J.I., Kramer A.F. Perceptual-cognitive expertise in elite volleyball players. Frontiers in Psychology. 2013; 4: 1–9.
Ando S., Kida N., Oda S. Central and peripheral visual reaction time of soccer players and nonathletes. Percept Mot Skills. 2001; 92: 786–794.
Collins D. Psychophysiology and Athletic Performance. In: B. Blumenstaein, M. Bar-Eli, G. Tenenbaum. Brain and Body in Sport and Exercise. U.S.A: Wiley. 2002: 15–37.
Mann D.T.Y., Williams A.M., Ward P., Janelle C.M. Perceptual-cognitive expertise in sport: A meta-analysis. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology. 2007; 29: 457–478.
Mann D.T.Y., Williams A.M., Ward P., Janelle C.M. Perceptual-cognitive expertise in sport: A meta-analysis. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology. 2007; 29: 457–478.
