ATTENTION

 Attention means simply focusing our mind to do or understand our everyday task. We should attentive before doing any work. But we do not know that we draw our attention everyday for planning, reading, talking, daydreaming, when responding and others either voluntarily or involuntarily. 

The famous Psychologist William James characterized attention as the “Searchlight of consciousness.” By these words he meant that, Attention is the way by means we scan our environment and focusing our mind to those substance which we want to need or to be wish in a certain period of time.

Attention broadly divided into two.

·       Passive attention.

·       Active attention.

***Passive attention: Passive attention means involuntary draw our attention or focusing our mind in response to external stimuli. Like, a loud noise, strong smell, hearing a familiar name, seeing the familiar face, bright light etc. are the external stimuli which draw our attention involuntarily. Sometimes, absence of external stimuli also drawn our attention. Like, for drawing attention of inattentive students in a class the teacher remain silent for a few seconds may brings their attention immediately.

          So, for drawing our passive attention an external stimulus is required. In psychological term it is called “novel stimuli.” The response against the novel stimuli is called “orienting response.” But in some case novel stimuli cannot pay our attention. This occurs due to habituation.

The best example of habituation is the story of the shepherd boy. He threw a test to the villagers by loudly shouting that a tiger had arrived. Two times they were come to protest him. But at third time when actually the tiger had arrived, he become failed to draw his attention to the villagers in order to save himself. Why villagers were not to come in third time? Because they were habituated with the prank of the shepherd boy which led him to death.

*** Active attention: Active attention means focusing our mind voluntarily to any subject or matter in order to fulfill our needs and goal. Active attention is selective. That means we only focus our mind in a single subject or point during active attention. For example, before examination the students are draw their foremost attention in study so, that they are able to achieve their goal or make a good result. But it is difficult to pay attention for a long period of time. In a research it was found that, adult peoples are able to fully concentrated their mind to the subject about forty-five minutes.

          Active attention is again subdivided into two. The outward attention and inward attention.

          # Outward attention: Outward attentions are related to focusing mind outwardly. Like, finding a familiar face in a crowd place, driving a car in an unfamiliar road, watching television, attentive to watching favorite sports show etc. Here, a person only focusing a selective matter. When a person wants to find out his relatives from a crowd place, he only tries to find out his required person and reject other peoples on the place. While watching favorite tv sports he become attentive in watching his favorite player activities not to other as much.

          # Inward attention: Inward attention means focusing our mind inwardly. Like, to solve a mathematical problem, thinking about a complex matter and try to bring a solution, appropriate judgement, remembering previous events etc. In these cases, the person only focuses inward. For example, before examination students only concentrated his mind in study, sometimes they forget about sleeping or eating.

          Some cases it found that, a person become skill to do two tasks at a time. Playing music with singing, hearing with writing, studying and eating, driving and talking, these are able only by continues doing this altogether and by habituation.

How do we improve our attention?

          All the people around the world desire to improve their every day attention, especially students. Attention can be improved by following processes:

·       Prayer and meditation are the best way to increase our attention. Because while we offering prayer, we only concentrated our mind towards the God. Prayer increase our patience. During meditation we closed our eyes and concentrated our mind towards any subject which improves our thinking capacity also make us attentive.

·       Taking a short break between the working period also improves our working attention.

·       Taking a short snape or sleeping refresh our mind also improves our attentive capacity.

·       Solving puzzles or rubik’s cube also make us attentive.

·       Going in a tour or adventure also refresh our mind and increase our creativity.

·       Listening music or reading story or moral books also removes our tiredness and improves our attention.

·       Taking regular physical exercise makes us physically strong and help to cope with critical situations more attentively.

·       Daydreaming or remembering previous joyful events also refreshes our mind and make us attentive.

·       Playing video games also improves our attention and helps to cope with everyday situations and solve them intelligently. But excessive gaming for a long period of time and in a regular basis is harmful for our health also make addiction. So, try to avoid it.

·       In our country it is difficult to controls the activities of kids or difficult to satisfy them. This is due to availability of their play toys or satisfying them by seeing mobile or other gadgets. Their attention improves by talking, group playing, telling stories, giving some selective toys or solving blocks puzzle toy which increase their creativity also helps to be adapted with limited things.

These are some techniques that improves our everyday attention. Although, if you notice that your attention is not improved you should appoint to a psychologist for betterment of your life and everyday functions.

 

___Amatul Zami Aditi

Student (final year B.H.M.S.)

Govt. Homoeopathic Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh.