A Scientist's Guide To Life How To Concentrate

This month, we tackle… oh, hang on, wait a minute, I just need to let the dog out, now what was it again? Psychologist Dr Nick Perham from Cardiff Metropolitan University explains how to concentrate

- Dr Nick Perham

DISTRACTION ISN’T ALL BAD.

If we get distracted at work, it’s not great for productivity, but distraction has a positive side. If we were always so focused that we never got distracted, we’d miss potential changes, such as threats, in our environment. Imagine if you were concentrating so hard on a book that you didn’t hear a fire alarm going off. Distraction is vital for survival.

SILENCE IS BEST.

Of course, there are plenty of times when you do need to concentrate and noise becomes a problem. For example, we’ve found that people do worse on tasks such as mental arithmetic when there’s background noise to disturb them.

SOME SOUNDS ARE MORE DISTRACTING THAN OTHERS.