Meditate 10 minutes daily for better focus

Finding it hard to concentrate? Meditating for 10 minutes daily can help prevent your mind from wandering, and reduce repetitive, anxious thoughts. Mindfulness is commonly defined as paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment, and meditating would help you achieve that. The study found that developing an awareness of the present moment reduced incidents of repetitive, off-task thinking - a hallmark of anxiety.

"Our results indicate that mindfulness training may have protective effects on mind wandering for anxious individuals," said Mengran Xu, a researcher at the University of Waterloo in Canada. "We also found that meditation practice appears to help anxious people to shift their attention from their own internal worries to the present moment - external world, which enables better focus on a task at hand.

Mind wandering accounts for nearly half of any person's daily stream of consciousness," Xu added For people with anxiety, repetitive off-task thoughts can negatively affect their ability to learn, to complete tasks, or even function safely.