Whether you feel mentally exhausted or find it difficult to complete simple cognitive tasks, there are natural ways to help increase your mental focus and alertness.
Yes! At Nuzena, we have made it our mission to provide education through our hub on integrative ways to improve health and wellness… and mental health isn’t any different!
With that being said, here are 6 natural ways to increase your mental focus and alertness so you can get back to killing it!
1. TRY MINDFULNESS MEDITATION
If you haven’t read our article on the benefits of mindfulness meditation, you should do that next…
For those who need a refresher, mindfulness refers to being fully aware of everything happening around you as well as inside your body and mind. Some of the benefits of practicing mindful meditation include:
- reducing stress levels;
- increasing working memory;
- increasing focus.
There are tons of guided mindfulness meditation videos for you to try. Here’s a good place to start:
10-Minute Daily Calm Mindfulness Meditation Video
2. OPT FOR BRAIN EXERCISES
A study published in 2015 in PLOS One demonstrated that training your brain with various exercises can increase:
- short-term memory;
- working memory;
- problem-solving abilities;
- reasoning skills;
- speed of processing.
To get those results, researchers from this study had participants complete 15-minutes of cognitive training for a minimum of 5 days per week, for a total of 10 weeks. The cognitive exercises were provided by lumosity.com, an online brain-training program.
This goes to show how important it is to continuously train your brain! If you’re struggling with a lack of mental focus or short-term memory, read more about the benefits of cognitive training.
3. IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP PATTERNS
Now, this one won’t come as a surprise…
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Teens from 13 to 18 years of age need 8 to 10 hours of sleep per day. For adults between 18 to 60 years of age, they recommend 7 or more hours of sleep every day.
However, they note that the number of hours isn’t all that matters — the quality of sleep is highly important. You can detect signs of poor quality of sleep if you wake up after sleeping long hours not feeling rested…
Some studies have shown that sleep can affect cognitive performance and concentration abilities. With that being said, investigating your sleep patterns and making small changes to improve your sleep quality and time might help improve your mental clarity and focus!
4. SPEND TIME OUTDOORS
Spending time in nature is always refreshing…
An article published in 2010 in Harvard Health suggested that children with ADHD tend to focus better after spending time outdoors.
Similarly, a study published in 2016 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology demonstrated that including green plants in office spaces may increase the worker’s productivity and concentration. Crazy right?
If you decide to incorporate outdoor activities into your daily routine, we’d love to hear about your personal experience. Take photos on your next outdoor excursion and tag us at #nuzenahealth!
5. HERBS
Now, let’s talk nutrition!
Some studies have shown that taking certain herbs that have stimulatory properties, such as green tea and bacopa, may help support a feeling of alert awareness.
Let’s take a closer look at those two herbs.
Green tea has many benefits. Like coffee, it contains caffeine, a stimulant that is great for boosting focus and alertness. However, green tea also contains L-theanine, an amino acid that provides calming effects. Combined together, caffeine and L-theanine are thought to help boost focus and alertness, while avoiding side effects that come from consuming caffeine alone.
Bacopa is a herb that is well-known in Ayurvedic medicine. Various studies have shown that bacopa can help boost brain function while helping reduce stress and anxiety.
If green tea isn’t your thing or you can’t easily access bacopa locally, we recommend looking into green tea and bacopa extracts.
6. NUZENA’S MENTAL FOCUS +
At Nuzena, we’ve formulated Neuro Focus +, a nootropic blend that helps support mental clarity, focus, and concentration, while promoting feelings of relaxation. Various studies suggest that nootropics may be one of the most popular supplements for optimizing high brain function, making them highly interesting for students, demanding work situations, or anyone who requires a mental edge.
Our Neuro Focus + blend contains green tea extract (L-theanine), bacopa extract, DMAE, glutamic acid, niacin, magnesium, and more. As we mentioned above, finding tropical herbs such as bacopa can be challenging, which is why opting for a blend made of natural ingredients can be very interesting.
Read more about Nuzena’s Neuro Focus +.
Now, taking natural supplements isn’t the absolute answer to living a healthy life. At Nuzena, we encourage you to take an integrative approach to give your body a greater chance of getting maximal results!
Let’s connect — Head over to our most recent Instagram post and let us know which of the 6 ways you’ll focus on!
PS: We invite you to join our healthy living community to be notified every time we publish a new article.
The Nuzena Team
