Brain Health Tip #7

Use Your Attention Wisely

You can increase your attentiveness and what you select to attend to by developing the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the most evolved part of the brain and is responsible for judgment, attention span, concentration and critical thinking. Because it can be trained through activities requiring sustained attention such as reading, a more developed and utilized prefrontal cortex can better ignore the distractions that zap time from our days, thereby decreasing feelings of being overwhelmed.

To this point, Winifred Gallagher, author of Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, breaks the myth of multitasking: "People don’t understand that attention is a finite resource, like money,” she said. “Do you want to invest your cognitive cash on endless Twittering or Net surfing or couch potatoing?" Probably not.

So turn your phone off, close your email, and invest in some ear plugs to find space in your life for prefrontal cortex development. Focus on what is important to you!

This tip courtesy of Luminosity.com