Focus, Attention, Concentration

As a teacher of 6-9 year-old children, I'm always saying "pay attention," "concentrate," "focus on what you're doing." It is a consistent mantra throughout the school-day. I know a little about brain development which helps me understand why children at this age need so much help in this area. The frontal cortex, which is responsible for such executive functions as organization, attention, impulse control, is one of the last parts of the brain to fully myelinate.  Recent studies conclude that it isn't fully developed until a person reaches their mid-twenties (hence all the "unwise" decisions people tend to make before their mid-twenties.) Young children then have great difficulty in these cognitive areas, simply because the hardware isn't fully developed in their brains. As a teacher and adult in the lives of young children, I often feel like a surrogate frontal lobe to them, curbing their impulses, helping them make good decisions. I'm generally considered to be very organized; I'm good at planning ahead, foreseeing outcomes of various situations. I have excellent executive function capabilities- or so I thought.

The standing series of Bikram postures calls for intense concentration, even more than it calls for strength or flexibility. When I move through these postures, I feel and look like a weeble-wobble. I teeter and fall out of standing head-to-knee and bow several times. Even the ten seconds of stick is hard for me. I've come to realize how fragile attention can be- the slightest thing can become a distraction- a drop of sweat on my cheek, someone moving next to me, moving my eyes a fraction of an inch. The distractions can come from the inside as well- a negative thought, a doubt, even a moment of pride ("I'm doing it!"). I see this with my young students- a dangling necklace, a new pencil, a falling out with a friend- these can become a morning-long distraction for some children. I thought I was beyond this myself with my fully developed frontal cortex.

But for me, Bikram is still hard. It takes my whole brain to do it, working very intensely. My brain is therefore more vulnerable to distractions and less able to manage the constant impulses to be doing anything else but the hard work of the yoga posture. The standing series has given me the perspective of my students in a very real way. They are doing very hard work that taxes their already limited attentional capabilities. The yoga has allowed me to slip into their brains and face the same attentional challenges.

We are working on building our focus and concentration, my students and I, in a few ways.  We practice meditation about 4 times a week in our classroom, sitting still and listening to a meditation story or focusing on our breathing. During work time the children use a variety of strategies to hone their attention: noise-blocking headphones, sitting alone or silent timers for example. And they have me and my assistant to give them feedback, raising their awareness of their own actions. During Bikram practice, I'm trying to give myself the same kind of feedback to raise my awareness of what I'm doing and thinking. This meta-cognition- thinking about thinking- can help improve skills in many areas. I hope it will eventually help my balancing series.

Finally, I think improving focus takes a tremendous amount of patience. Like many people, I tend to be less patient with myself than with other people. I want to do a perfect bow position- and I want to do it now! I want to get my forehead to my knee today! I'm not there yet. But I hope to be. With patience and perseverance I think my ability to concentrate will improve. Someday. . . I will achieve a beautiful balancing series.