Limited attention and mindfulness practice

[jwardmagic]

I have only been practicing mindfulness for about 20 minutes a day for a week so am extremely new to it. I am also a psychology student and have noticed something.

At the moment, a ten minute meditation I can handle, and I seem to be getting better at focusing. However, if i extend this to twenty minutes, I start to loose a lot of focus, thoughts come flooding in, and I can not maintain my focus on the breath for as long as I could before getting swept away in another thought stream.

In psychology, the most prominent theories of attention state that attention has a limited capacity = and that attention demanding activities use more of this limited attentional energy than others. Is this what may be happening with me in my early days of meditation practice? I put a lot of attentional effort in and then am drained of it as I try to extend my practice beyond 10-15 minutes?

These attentional models in psychology also say that after a while, automaticity takes the place of attention requiring activities. If this is the case, I assume when 10 minutes of daily pracitce becomes habit, I'll then be able to progress to longer sessions?

Also, considering I've noticed my attention on my breath seems to dwindle after 10 minutes or sometimes a little longer, could I assume that for people with actual attention difficulties like ADD or ADHD, mindfulness will be even more challenging?

I am following a guided mindulness program for beginners called ''Headspace'' which I am finding extremely helpful.

[Gareth]

I remember the days well where five minutes used to seem like an eternity and the entire meditation was me thinking 'is it over yet'. This changed though with time (I think my brain changed). Now forty minutes can go by in a heartbeat.

Don't get too hung up on "being able to focus." I've been meditating for nearly five years and there are still days when I sit and can't keep my attention on anything at all for any length of time. The point is coming back to your object of focus, not remaining focused on it.

Happy meditating. Remember, we're always here.

[JonW]

Hi jwardmagic,
Welcome to the forum.
I can only echo what Gareth has said.
I wouldn't worry too much about what's happening to you during meditation at this stage. It's very early days. When the practice beds in and you become more grounded in it, those kinds of thoughts naturally drop away.
Practice is key. Just keep practicing.
Cheers,
Jon, Hove

[Janknitz]

I'm such a brand newbie to mindfulness meditation that I have no right to an opinion about anything--two days and two very short mindfulness meditations to my name. But I'm here because I was inspired by a fascinating book called 10% Happier by Dan Harris. Dan describes how he came to his meditation practice and the struggles along the way. It's a fascinating read--he's an ABC news anchor and his story about coming to meditation is peppered with a behind the scenes look at the network news anchor business.

I had made some lame attempts at meditation on my own, but could never turn off my "monkey mind". I think I tried to swat stray thoughts out of my mind like you would shoot at things in some sort of cosmic computer game. But Dan said something that really helped me understand this was not the way to deal with those thoughts. He said "Beginning again is the actual practice [of meditation], not a problem to be solved." In other words, it's not about not having random thoughts, it's all about bringing your focus back when you do.

In the book he gives practical suggestions on what to do with the random thoughts. The simplest thing is to "note" or simply acknowledge awareness of the thought and then bring your focus back to your breathing.

This was like the key that opened the door to me. I didn't have to sit there and try to clear my mind, that's not what it's about. It's building that ability to focus despite the random thoughts--learning to set them aside and bring focus back. I think of it like a muscle and I can see it's going to need a lot of "exercise" to get strong enough for me to sustain my focus for long periods of time. I'm just taking baby steps now, and I can forgive myself for faltering, too.

He offers a few different ways to deal with random thoughts in the book. One is RAIN (Recognize, Acknowledge, Investigate (i.e. how it makes you feel) and Non-Identification (not identifying with the thought), then bring your focus back to your breath. I found that very helpful to have a way to deal with thoughts that just wouldn't quiet down when I tried to return my focus to my breathing (in my vast experience of two short meditations)

[JonW]

""Beginning again is the actual practice [of meditation], not a problem to be solved."
Wise words indeed.
Thanks for sharing those thoughts, Janknitz.
Adopting beginner's mind is always a healthy approach to meditation.
It sounds like you've hit the ground running with this.
All best,
Jon, Hove

[FeeHutch]

""Beginning again is the actual practice [of meditation], not a problem to be solved."
Wise words indeed.
Thanks for sharing those thoughts, Janknitz.
Adopting beginner's mind is always a healthy approach to meditation.
It sounds like you've hit the ground running with this.
All best,
Jon, Hove

Absolutely, you are as welcome to express an opinion and share your thoughts as anyone else