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[Sitemap](https://medium.com/sitemap/sitemap.xml) [Open in app](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.medium.reader&referrer=utm_source%3DmobileNavBar&source=post_page---top_nav_layout_nav-----------------------------------------) Sign up [Sign in](https://medium.com/m/signin?operation=login&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40betterfuture231%2Fhow-to-stay-present-e284dd892346&source=post_page---top_nav_layout_nav-----------------------global_nav------------------) [Medium Logo](https://medium.com/?source=post_page---top_nav_layout_nav-----------------------------------------) Get app [Write](https://medium.com/m/signin?operation=register&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2Fnew-story&source=---top_nav_layout_nav-----------------------new_post_topnav------------------) [Search](https://medium.com/search?source=post_page---top_nav_layout_nav-----------------------------------------) Sign up [Sign in](https://medium.com/m/signin?operation=login&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40betterfuture231%2Fhow-to-stay-present-e284dd892346&source=post_page---top_nav_layout_nav-----------------------global_nav------------------)  # How to Stay Present ## A Full Guide to Presence and Focus [](https://medium.com/@betterfuture231?source=post_page---byline--e284dd892346---------------------------------------) [Better Future](https://medium.com/@betterfuture231?source=post_page---byline--e284dd892346---------------------------------------) 12 min read · Jan 20, 2024 \-- Listen Share ![]() ## A Reminder As a reminder; Your imagination is not evil. This is a guide on how to control your mind and prevent it from wandering without actively choosing to, not a step-by-step on how to completely kill the imagination, as this is both impossible (at least I think) and can actually be harmful to us. Day-dreaming here and there can give us some insight on a potential course of action we hadn’t previously thought of; Indeed, the imagination can be quite useful. This is suffice to say that the imagination is not necessarily our enemy, but rather an indifferent force that can work to our detriment if we do not take the precaution of controlling it. Keep this in mind as you read. ## I Use To Day-Dream A LOT During my years in middle school, and even in elementary school, my mind was all over the place. Often times, my grades were very poor due to my inability to sit down and concentrate on a task for more than 10 seconds. I sat in my fantasies, mouthing words and twitching whilst this mental movie was playing out in my head. People would try to talk to me and they could physically see my eyes go blank as I sunk back into my world of illusion. This is far more common than people think it is, and the amount of people who suffer from this same lack of presence keeps increasing over time. I honestly think that I could’ve been diagnosed with ADHD during that time period had I been brought to a psychologist and examined by someone who was at least somewhat well-versed in psychoanalysis. This inability to focus and total ignorance of reality was not a problem caused by genetics, nor was it simply due to my young age; It was because of my lifestyle. The encroachment of industrialization and modernization has totally robbed children (especially male children) of the childhood that’s right for them, not solely in regards to the environments and what they’re taught (though that certainly is included), but in their diets as well. The modern child has a “heart-healthy balanced breakfast” with 50 grams of carbs, seed oils and list of other toxic chemicals which are put into the food. The modern child (referring to the male here) is told to sit with his legs closed, avoid roughhousing with friends and classmates, is taught to look for the authority for essentially everything and anything, and is effectively made a pet to his superiors rather than being permitted to have the experiences that a boy naturally should have. Imagine; Primitive man would’ve never been eating breakfast or wasting too much time fantasizing; Primitive man had a necessity to be present and aware of the environment surrounding them. The diets of the indigenous Americans, their lifestyles, and etc. all helped them stay present and keenly aware of their environment; Staying present wouldn’t have been an issue for these men. What we can extrapolate from this is that we don’t need a therapist, psychologist, or anyone else in the medical field, but rather, we need a change in our diets and lifestyle, as it is these two things that dictate whether or not we will have a “sharp mind” or not. Therefore, one who daydreams too often must do a rewiring of the self rather than an overload of modern medicine. ## Don’t Be a Consumer One of the main reasons I guarantee you’re finding yourself unable to stay present is because your brain is overstimulated. By now you’ve been fed this dopamine detox ideology one-too-many times and are probably starting to feel impatient if you’ve already read stuff like this before, but seriously, detoxing from all the media we regularly consume is a must for increasing presence. Consuming entertainment and even videos that are unedited and feel productive in abundance cause your ability to stay in the environment suffer. When you are constantly consuming entertainment, information you don’t need, or are simply consuming too much at a time, your brain is getting used to receiving a lot of data with no pause. This not only creates the habit of drifting focus, but you also run the risk of becoming a “shallow ocean” — knowing a little about a lot of things instead of vice-versa. Achieving this is going to be a slower process since your trying to rewire your brain from how it has been for most of your life, but simply start. Tonight, don’t watch videos while you eat. Don’t even read books. Just sit and be present or think about philosophy. Do this every night for the rest of your life. ## Intermittent Fasting and Focus As previously mentioned, diet is a key factor in maintaining good focus and presence. It doesn’t matter what other habits you do, if your diet is not up to par, your mind will be all over the place (if not day-dreaming, than brain fog and cloudiness). So, what is the best diet for focus? Before we even get to the foods, we must discuss **fasting**. Intermittent fasting is the key to a higher sense of focus, and without it, you’re kind of screwed. Our brains are wired for periodical eating since food comes less frequently in a natural setting, so it makes sense that when we’re hungry, our brains are sharper; We needed that focus to go hunt food. Therefore, for the first few hours of the day, you should avoid eating anything. **Warning for diabetics**: Fasting can be dangerous if you are on insulin. Dr. Pradip Jamnadas, a cardiologist with 30+ years of experience and an advocate of intermittent fasting recommends to his patients that, > *“The long acting insulin you can stay on, but the short acting insulin that you’re taking for meals you shouldn’t have. You need the background insulin, but the goal here is to get you off insulin” — Dr. Jamnadas on* [*Dhru Purohit’s Podcast*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGiBOP60W6s) It’s important to see a doctor, however, and that you make sure you’re not doing anything that will harm you. I really suggest you watch Dr. Jamnadas [on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@pradipjamnadasmd) yourself and see what he has to say, since he has taken over 150 patients off insulin and has much more experience with intermittent fasting. Here is the most optimal schedule for fasting and focus: 1. Wake up early and fast until 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM 2. Eat only meats, nuts, and vegetables (almonds, macadamia nuts, dark chocolate, fish, beef, eggs, spinach, and etc.) **AVOID CARBS AND EATING TOO HEAVY(peanut butter, dairy such as Greek yogurt or cheese, and etc.)** 3. Fast until 6–7 PM (depending on when you sleep) 4. Eat your protein, carbs (complex), and vegetables. The reason we’re abstaining from carbs during the middle of the day is because carbohydrates (both complex and simple) are detrimental to your focus. Since they are filling and/or high in sugar, we either spike up in energy and then crash or we feel sluggish for a good 2–3 hours and are unable to do any real work for a decent chunk of the day. Instead, it’s much better to save the energy crashing foods for later when you’re getting close to bedtime; This way you’re still getting the necessary energy for tomorrow, but you’re not sacrificing your cognitive strength. Another important thing I must mention is that you should do your best to eat as early as possible, and avoid eating too much at dinner. Now I must admit, this part is a little pseudoscience-y, but this is only because I could not find sufficient research covering the topic. When we eat a lot and go to sleep within the next hour, we have failed to fully process our meal. Because of this, the food digests during our sleep, which takes even longer for the body to fully absorb since our digestion runs at a slower rate during rest. When we wake up the following day, our body was so concentrated on digesting food that we did not enter deep sleep, and thus we feel sluggish and tired in the morning. Again, I cannot say if this is the legitimate science behind it, but I myself have experienced this feeling of fatigue the following morning when I eat too late. Suffice it to say, you should avoid eating too close to bed-time so that you feel refreshed and ready to get the day started when you wake up. ## ACTIONABLE STEP (FASTING) Open a journal or any place you can write on, and create a fasting schedule that suits your daily routine. Maybe you’re working at this hour and thus can’t eat at 12 PM, so you push lunch an hour earlier or later. Maybe you are still winding down from work and showering, so you push dinner an hour later or make it earlier by an hour. Point is, mold your fasting schedule in accordance to your daily routine. **REMEMBER TO AVOID CARBS OF ANY KIND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY! EAT THEM AT NIGHT\!** Focus and work becomes nigh-impossible once you eat carbs. ## Staying Present It’s very easy to get lost in your own fantasies whilst walking to the store, the gym, going on the daily commute to work and etc., but always remember that when you decide to indulge in these things, you’re less focused on the present. Events and people catch you off guard more easily, you’re more vulnerable to the outside world, and most importantly, your ability to appreciate nature and be relied on by other people is harmed. Even in conversations, neglecting to practice presence means that your mind will literally go blank in fantasy and you’ll lose the entire conversation. Trust me, people can see when you lose your focus on them or the world, and when they make that observation, they lose respect for you. Staying present is actually pretty easy, we just overcomplicate it and fall into vicious cycles of not being present, getting angry at ourselves for not being present, thus taking us away from being present, which then leads to even more anger. To stay in the moment, you simply need to *observe your surroundings*. Observing your surroundings essentially means that you’re looking at your environment and noticing the activity taking place. This doesn’t mean that you take mental notes like “Okay, that guy just fell on his ass. Now this bird is flying over me. This thing is doing this…” because you’ll end up stuck in your thoughts again. Simply watch things as they happen. Do not anticipate or expect anything. Do not let yourself go into imagination and expect nothing to happen, getting carried away by the “safety” of society. Simply walk and observe what *does* happen, and listen to the sounds in your environment; easy as that. When we begin to fantasize, our vision is usually fixated on a single point; This is because our mind is really bad at focusing on numerous things at once, and so when we focus internally, our external awareness is brought down, and vice versa. Therefore an efficient way to quell your wandering is by observing the entire environment using both your peripheral vision, and main line of vision. Try this to understand exactly what I’m saying: Pick one point to focus on with your eyes, and focus very hard on this point. Then, try to observe the entire setting around you using your peripherals *and* main line of sight. Use this technique of noticing your surroundings to bring yourself back into the present; Observe the movements of animals, leaves, trees, cars, people, even that of which is inanimate such as colors, houses, and etc. Look at your surroundings using your entire field of vision. The more we focus on our surroundings, the more present we become. Therefore, if we ever feel that we are losing presence, we can use this “environmental scan” to come back to the moment. This works vice-versa too; **If you need to focus really hard on something, limit your line of sight to a singular point/make your line of sight as narrow as possible.** Focus on staying present *most* of the time; Your mind will wander here and there, and that’s fine if done on occasion. Just make sure that these wanderings are philosophical and that they add onto your spiritual wealth. ## ACTIONABLE STEP (PRESENCE) Now, try it. Go outside right now, no matter the hour, and listen to the sounds, observe both the animate and inanimate, watch how trees sway in the wind, and look at the size of houses without thinking anything of them; Simply look at these things. When you feel yourself beginning to drift, circle your attention back onto the environment using the “whole” of your eyes to take in every detail that your 180\* vision encapsulates. ## Train Your Mind Here we introduce multiple different methods for improving presence and focus, the first of which being **meditation**, something that you likely expected and simultaneously dreaded hearing. “But I can’t meditate! Every time I try, my mind keeps wandering and it’s so boring! Meditation isn’t for me” This line of logic is all too common for those who are being introduced to the concept of meditation, but this rhetoric makes no sense if you reflect on it. When you walk into the gym for the first time, do you expect to squat 3x your body-weight within the first day, week, month, or even year? For most people, probably not. So why is it that when we first begin meditating, we expect to be able to sit down for 40 minutes with absolutely no thoughts from start to end? Our brains have literally been conditioned to seek instant pleasure and to have an attention span that darts from one thing to the next. Why would you expect yourself to master meditation so quickly, when there are men out there who dedicate their entire lives to this practice? We have really unrealistic images of what a “beginner” in meditation (and in general) should look like. In reality, when one sits down to meditate, we should start with 5–10 minutes, possibly even less. Pick one thing to focus on beforehand; The flow of your breath, the expansion of your belly as you breathe, the feeling of air entering your nose, the sound of your breath, and etc. As a beginner, you must begin with the breath, as it is the easiest to focus on. I myself have been meditating for a good few months now (say 7–8, give or take) and still I choose to focus only on my breath for 10–15 minutes. Once your have started the timer, begin focusing on the given target. Your mind will instantly start wandering, thinking about other stuff. **The important thing here is that you avoid indulging in the fantasy, and redirect your attention back to the given target every time a fantasy appears.** The best way to do this is by wasting no time and instantly going back to the area of focus; If you spend too much time indulging in it, you’ll lose yourself in the fantasy. The next thing you want to do is watch long-form, unedited content. This can be podcasts, self-improvement videos, documentaries, and etc. Just make sure that it isn’t stimulating (lots of edits, many funny moments, and etc.) and that it is mostly unedited. You want to watch videos that your “normal”, hyper-stimulated self would consider boring, and you want to watch these videos IN FULL, present. Don’t simply listen to it in the background; Sit down and watch the full thing, making eye contact with the guy who’s speaking as if they were there right in front of you. **Also, read books.** Reading books not only allows you to increase your attention span, but more often than not you’re getting better quality of information than you would when simply watching videos online. ## ACTIONABLE STEP (MEDITATION) Right now, head to a quiet space where you’ll be relatively undisturbed and meditate for 3 minutes, focusing on the feeling of your nasal breath. Now, meditate for this amount of time every single day. Over time the hour at which you meditate, the duration of meditation, the focus of the session and etc. will change, but for now just focus on following the steps I gave you. **Set an alarm for a time of night that you know (for the most part) that you’ll be available for mediation.** And then that alarm goes off, unless your wife is in labor or something, act almost like a robot and instantly walk over to that one quiet space to go meditate. This isn’t the attractive “DO THIS ONE HACK TO BOOST FOCUS” answer most people are going to give you; This is the real way to increase focus and become someone who can hold his attention on something for more than five seconds at a time. ## Conclusion In order to control your day-dreaming, you must optimize your diet schedule, eat the proper foods that’ll increase brain and hormonal health, and you must train your brain to be present and focused. Gaining control over your own mind is the most powerful thing you can do, as it enables you to take control of your own life. **To control the world is impossible, all we can do is control ourselves and our reactions to the world.** From this, we are able to cultivate a better future for ourselves, our families, friends, and ultimately, humanity. Thank you all for reading, and as always, give me your criticisms and personal experiences in the comments. Here is my email if you have any other questions: betterfuture231@gmail.com I check it at 12:00 PM and 9:00 PM every day, so you’re sure to get a response. 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## A Full Guide to Presence and Focus [](https://medium.com/@betterfuture231?source=post_page---byline--e284dd892346---------------------------------------) 12 min read Jan 20, 2024 \-- ## A Reminder As a reminder; Your imagination is not evil. This is a guide on how to control your mind and prevent it from wandering without actively choosing to, not a step-by-step on how to completely kill the imagination, as this is both impossible (at least I think) and can actually be harmful to us. Day-dreaming here and there can give us some insight on a potential course of action we hadn’t previously thought of; Indeed, the imagination can be quite useful. This is suffice to say that the imagination is not necessarily our enemy, but rather an indifferent force that can work to our detriment if we do not take the precaution of controlling it. Keep this in mind as you read. ## I Use To Day-Dream A LOT During my years in middle school, and even in elementary school, my mind was all over the place. Often times, my grades were very poor due to my inability to sit down and concentrate on a task for more than 10 seconds. I sat in my fantasies, mouthing words and twitching whilst this mental movie was playing out in my head. People would try to talk to me and they could physically see my eyes go blank as I sunk back into my world of illusion. This is far more common than people think it is, and the amount of people who suffer from this same lack of presence keeps increasing over time. I honestly think that I could’ve been diagnosed with ADHD during that time period had I been brought to a psychologist and examined by someone who was at least somewhat well-versed in psychoanalysis. This inability to focus and total ignorance of reality was not a problem caused by genetics, nor was it simply due to my young age; It was because of my lifestyle. The encroachment of industrialization and modernization has totally robbed children (especially male children) of the childhood that’s right for them, not solely in regards to the environments and what they’re taught (though that certainly is included), but in their diets as well. The modern child has a “heart-healthy balanced breakfast” with 50 grams of carbs, seed oils and list of other toxic chemicals which are put into the food. The modern child (referring to the male here) is told to sit with his legs closed, avoid roughhousing with friends and classmates, is taught to look for the authority for essentially everything and anything, and is effectively made a pet to his superiors rather than being permitted to have the experiences that a boy naturally should have. Imagine; Primitive man would’ve never been eating breakfast or wasting too much time fantasizing; Primitive man had a necessity to be present and aware of the environment surrounding them. The diets of the indigenous Americans, their lifestyles, and etc. all helped them stay present and keenly aware of their environment; Staying present wouldn’t have been an issue for these men. What we can extrapolate from this is that we don’t need a therapist, psychologist, or anyone else in the medical field, but rather, we need a change in our diets and lifestyle, as it is these two things that dictate whether or not we will have a “sharp mind” or not. Therefore, one who daydreams too often must do a rewiring of the self rather than an overload of modern medicine. ## Don’t Be a Consumer One of the main reasons I guarantee you’re finding yourself unable to stay present is because your brain is overstimulated. By now you’ve been fed this dopamine detox ideology one-too-many times and are probably starting to feel impatient if you’ve already read stuff like this before, but seriously, detoxing from all the media we regularly consume is a must for increasing presence. Consuming entertainment and even videos that are unedited and feel productive in abundance cause your ability to stay in the environment suffer. When you are constantly consuming entertainment, information you don’t need, or are simply consuming too much at a time, your brain is getting used to receiving a lot of data with no pause. This not only creates the habit of drifting focus, but you also run the risk of becoming a “shallow ocean” — knowing a little about a lot of things instead of vice-versa. Achieving this is going to be a slower process since your trying to rewire your brain from how it has been for most of your life, but simply start. Tonight, don’t watch videos while you eat. Don’t even read books. Just sit and be present or think about philosophy. Do this every night for the rest of your life. ## Intermittent Fasting and Focus As previously mentioned, diet is a key factor in maintaining good focus and presence. It doesn’t matter what other habits you do, if your diet is not up to par, your mind will be all over the place (if not day-dreaming, than brain fog and cloudiness). So, what is the best diet for focus? Before we even get to the foods, we must discuss **fasting**. Intermittent fasting is the key to a higher sense of focus, and without it, you’re kind of screwed. Our brains are wired for periodical eating since food comes less frequently in a natural setting, so it makes sense that when we’re hungry, our brains are sharper; We needed that focus to go hunt food. Therefore, for the first few hours of the day, you should avoid eating anything. **Warning for diabetics**: Fasting can be dangerous if you are on insulin. Dr. Pradip Jamnadas, a cardiologist with 30+ years of experience and an advocate of intermittent fasting recommends to his patients that, > *“The long acting insulin you can stay on, but the short acting insulin that you’re taking for meals you shouldn’t have. You need the background insulin, but the goal here is to get you off insulin” — Dr. Jamnadas on* [*Dhru Purohit’s Podcast*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGiBOP60W6s) It’s important to see a doctor, however, and that you make sure you’re not doing anything that will harm you. I really suggest you watch Dr. Jamnadas [on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@pradipjamnadasmd) yourself and see what he has to say, since he has taken over 150 patients off insulin and has much more experience with intermittent fasting. Here is the most optimal schedule for fasting and focus: 1. Wake up early and fast until 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM 2. Eat only meats, nuts, and vegetables (almonds, macadamia nuts, dark chocolate, fish, beef, eggs, spinach, and etc.) **AVOID CARBS AND EATING TOO HEAVY(peanut butter, dairy such as Greek yogurt or cheese, and etc.)** 3. Fast until 6–7 PM (depending on when you sleep) 4. Eat your protein, carbs (complex), and vegetables. The reason we’re abstaining from carbs during the middle of the day is because carbohydrates (both complex and simple) are detrimental to your focus. Since they are filling and/or high in sugar, we either spike up in energy and then crash or we feel sluggish for a good 2–3 hours and are unable to do any real work for a decent chunk of the day. Instead, it’s much better to save the energy crashing foods for later when you’re getting close to bedtime; This way you’re still getting the necessary energy for tomorrow, but you’re not sacrificing your cognitive strength. Another important thing I must mention is that you should do your best to eat as early as possible, and avoid eating too much at dinner. Now I must admit, this part is a little pseudoscience-y, but this is only because I could not find sufficient research covering the topic. When we eat a lot and go to sleep within the next hour, we have failed to fully process our meal. Because of this, the food digests during our sleep, which takes even longer for the body to fully absorb since our digestion runs at a slower rate during rest. When we wake up the following day, our body was so concentrated on digesting food that we did not enter deep sleep, and thus we feel sluggish and tired in the morning. Again, I cannot say if this is the legitimate science behind it, but I myself have experienced this feeling of fatigue the following morning when I eat too late. Suffice it to say, you should avoid eating too close to bed-time so that you feel refreshed and ready to get the day started when you wake up. ## ACTIONABLE STEP (FASTING) Open a journal or any place you can write on, and create a fasting schedule that suits your daily routine. Maybe you’re working at this hour and thus can’t eat at 12 PM, so you push lunch an hour earlier or later. Maybe you are still winding down from work and showering, so you push dinner an hour later or make it earlier by an hour. Point is, mold your fasting schedule in accordance to your daily routine. **REMEMBER TO AVOID CARBS OF ANY KIND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY! EAT THEM AT NIGHT\!** Focus and work becomes nigh-impossible once you eat carbs. ## Staying Present It’s very easy to get lost in your own fantasies whilst walking to the store, the gym, going on the daily commute to work and etc., but always remember that when you decide to indulge in these things, you’re less focused on the present. Events and people catch you off guard more easily, you’re more vulnerable to the outside world, and most importantly, your ability to appreciate nature and be relied on by other people is harmed. Even in conversations, neglecting to practice presence means that your mind will literally go blank in fantasy and you’ll lose the entire conversation. Trust me, people can see when you lose your focus on them or the world, and when they make that observation, they lose respect for you. Staying present is actually pretty easy, we just overcomplicate it and fall into vicious cycles of not being present, getting angry at ourselves for not being present, thus taking us away from being present, which then leads to even more anger. To stay in the moment, you simply need to *observe your surroundings*. Observing your surroundings essentially means that you’re looking at your environment and noticing the activity taking place. This doesn’t mean that you take mental notes like “Okay, that guy just fell on his ass. Now this bird is flying over me. This thing is doing this…” because you’ll end up stuck in your thoughts again. Simply watch things as they happen. Do not anticipate or expect anything. Do not let yourself go into imagination and expect nothing to happen, getting carried away by the “safety” of society. Simply walk and observe what *does* happen, and listen to the sounds in your environment; easy as that. When we begin to fantasize, our vision is usually fixated on a single point; This is because our mind is really bad at focusing on numerous things at once, and so when we focus internally, our external awareness is brought down, and vice versa. Therefore an efficient way to quell your wandering is by observing the entire environment using both your peripheral vision, and main line of vision. Try this to understand exactly what I’m saying: Pick one point to focus on with your eyes, and focus very hard on this point. Then, try to observe the entire setting around you using your peripherals *and* main line of sight. Use this technique of noticing your surroundings to bring yourself back into the present; Observe the movements of animals, leaves, trees, cars, people, even that of which is inanimate such as colors, houses, and etc. Look at your surroundings using your entire field of vision. The more we focus on our surroundings, the more present we become. Therefore, if we ever feel that we are losing presence, we can use this “environmental scan” to come back to the moment. This works vice-versa too; **If you need to focus really hard on something, limit your line of sight to a singular point/make your line of sight as narrow as possible.** Focus on staying present *most* of the time; Your mind will wander here and there, and that’s fine if done on occasion. Just make sure that these wanderings are philosophical and that they add onto your spiritual wealth. ## ACTIONABLE STEP (PRESENCE) Now, try it. Go outside right now, no matter the hour, and listen to the sounds, observe both the animate and inanimate, watch how trees sway in the wind, and look at the size of houses without thinking anything of them; Simply look at these things. When you feel yourself beginning to drift, circle your attention back onto the environment using the “whole” of your eyes to take in every detail that your 180\* vision encapsulates. ## Train Your Mind Here we introduce multiple different methods for improving presence and focus, the first of which being **meditation**, something that you likely expected and simultaneously dreaded hearing. “But I can’t meditate! Every time I try, my mind keeps wandering and it’s so boring! Meditation isn’t for me” This line of logic is all too common for those who are being introduced to the concept of meditation, but this rhetoric makes no sense if you reflect on it. When you walk into the gym for the first time, do you expect to squat 3x your body-weight within the first day, week, month, or even year? For most people, probably not. So why is it that when we first begin meditating, we expect to be able to sit down for 40 minutes with absolutely no thoughts from start to end? Our brains have literally been conditioned to seek instant pleasure and to have an attention span that darts from one thing to the next. Why would you expect yourself to master meditation so quickly, when there are men out there who dedicate their entire lives to this practice? We have really unrealistic images of what a “beginner” in meditation (and in general) should look like. In reality, when one sits down to meditate, we should start with 5–10 minutes, possibly even less. Pick one thing to focus on beforehand; The flow of your breath, the expansion of your belly as you breathe, the feeling of air entering your nose, the sound of your breath, and etc. As a beginner, you must begin with the breath, as it is the easiest to focus on. I myself have been meditating for a good few months now (say 7–8, give or take) and still I choose to focus only on my breath for 10–15 minutes. Once your have started the timer, begin focusing on the given target. Your mind will instantly start wandering, thinking about other stuff. **The important thing here is that you avoid indulging in the fantasy, and redirect your attention back to the given target every time a fantasy appears.** The best way to do this is by wasting no time and instantly going back to the area of focus; If you spend too much time indulging in it, you’ll lose yourself in the fantasy. The next thing you want to do is watch long-form, unedited content. This can be podcasts, self-improvement videos, documentaries, and etc. Just make sure that it isn’t stimulating (lots of edits, many funny moments, and etc.) and that it is mostly unedited. You want to watch videos that your “normal”, hyper-stimulated self would consider boring, and you want to watch these videos IN FULL, present. Don’t simply listen to it in the background; Sit down and watch the full thing, making eye contact with the guy who’s speaking as if they were there right in front of you. **Also, read books.** Reading books not only allows you to increase your attention span, but more often than not you’re getting better quality of information than you would when simply watching videos online. ## ACTIONABLE STEP (MEDITATION) Right now, head to a quiet space where you’ll be relatively undisturbed and meditate for 3 minutes, focusing on the feeling of your nasal breath. Now, meditate for this amount of time every single day. Over time the hour at which you meditate, the duration of meditation, the focus of the session and etc. will change, but for now just focus on following the steps I gave you. **Set an alarm for a time of night that you know (for the most part) that you’ll be available for mediation.** And then that alarm goes off, unless your wife is in labor or something, act almost like a robot and instantly walk over to that one quiet space to go meditate. This isn’t the attractive “DO THIS ONE HACK TO BOOST FOCUS” answer most people are going to give you; This is the real way to increase focus and become someone who can hold his attention on something for more than five seconds at a time. ## Conclusion In order to control your day-dreaming, you must optimize your diet schedule, eat the proper foods that’ll increase brain and hormonal health, and you must train your brain to be present and focused. Gaining control over your own mind is the most powerful thing you can do, as it enables you to take control of your own life. **To control the world is impossible, all we can do is control ourselves and our reactions to the world.** From this, we are able to cultivate a better future for ourselves, our families, friends, and ultimately, humanity. Thank you all for reading, and as always, give me your criticisms and personal experiences in the comments. Here is my email if you have any other questions: betterfuture231@gmail.com I check it at 12:00 PM and 9:00 PM every day, so you’re sure to get a response. Goodbye. ## MY YT CHANNEL [www.youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMmqMPQ9x2fVnlInudQqb6w) ## Fitness Talon food tier list videos: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yszOe0Fu0EE> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD07raxrJVo> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8HuhaKObZs>