Mental Skill 02: Concentration Part 2

Lesson Overview

This lesson focuses on developing concentration through the use of personal words, mental pictures, visualization, and relaxation techniques. Learners are taught how to manage distractions, reduce mental “frazzle,” regain focus, and improve performance by intentionally controlling their thoughts and attention. The lesson also introduces breathing and body scan techniques to improve concentration, relaxation, and sleep quality. 

Lesson Objectives

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

1. Explain the importance of personal words and mental pictures in maintaining concentration. 
2. Describe how visualization can improve focus and performance. 
3. Create a personal “mental menu list” of words and mental images to use during challenging situations. 
4. Identify the effects of sensory distractions on concentration and emotional regulation.
5. Practice refocusing attention by intentionally returning to predefined words and mental pictures. 
6. Explain the relationship between thoughts, emotions, and physical responses such as breathing and heart rate. 
7. Apply deep breathing techniques to trigger relaxation and improve focus
8. Use the body scan technique to reduce tension and promote restful sleep. 

All right, let’s go on to the next guiding principle your words. Now, there is a movie scene here from Costner for the love of the game. Just to cut right to the chase, his words in the movie scene clear the mechanism in clear the mechanism, Now, those were his words. And I know that’s a Hollywood movie scene, but we use movie scenes to help us illustrate difficult principles. And there’s one right there. Those are his word clusters. Those were his words. Now, word clusters, I’m going to give you another lesson on word clusters for right now.

All you need to recognize is those were his words. Your words are what you need in that moment Being optimal or if you’re frustrated Distracted, drifted, frazzled, your words are what you need to come back to. So your specific words, your specific mental pictures, you know, there’s ways for us to find that. A lot of times we can go back, right? Go back to the beginning of your early childhood memories of being in athletics and winning. There could be some parenting moments there, which is what you saw in the movie with Costner. So again, sidebar here, guiding principle, you can borrow from somebody else’s words. You can use someone else’s lyrics from a song. You could write someone else’s words down, but what you going to end up finding is we got to focus more on your words and mental pictures and here’s why. One of your other development techniques, your brain draining techniques is going to be visualization. Visualization is also one of the big four from the Navy SEALs. Visualization as you can imagine has to do with mental pictures, right? You’re visualizing. Now, keyword visualization is always forward, reflection is always backwards, but in the Is always backwards, key word, but in the visualization technique, something for us to concentrate on, what we’ve got to be able to do is be very vivid.

So, very clear words and very clear mental pictures is a very critical part of this puzzle for you as we get you to the next level of performance. Your words. In fact, we get to a point where we actually teach you to create your own mental menu list. Yeah, you want to write that down. Mental menu list. In other words, we try to get Words and mental pictures on the menu, on the list for those times when you need a corrective action, or again, you got to recover quickly from failure, or you just realized you’ve drifted. You got to have something to come back to, and we create a mental menu list. Now one other point here on your words there’ll be a state of frazzle, you know when there’s just so much going on you’re amped at that 16 thoughts a second You’re thinking about the past you’re thinking about the future.

You’re thinking about all these whatifs scenarios in your mind You’re thinking your words and pictures are going crazy State of frazzle. All right something. I want you to recognize especially with a little figure here the way God Built us we have five senses Sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. Now we’re going to learn a little bit more about this. Got to have a little bit of biology here sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. So, five what we call external senses or sensory perception. Okay. Now we’ve learned in our previous class you’ve got a thinking brain and a feeling brain, right?

Thinking brain and a feeling brain. Now, here’s what’s important. If you remember on previous studies, when that information comes in, It goes into the feeling brain first. Scientists made a major breakthrough in fear research when they found that information from our senses reaches the amygdala almost twice as fast as it takes to get to our frontal lobes. When this information comes in sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell what are we talking about? Talking about the fans screaming. Talking about the opponents hackling you or heckling you. Talking about all of these external distractions. All of those external distractions can go into the feeling brain, set off the alarm. All of a sudden, you got all kinds of chatter and frazzle. It sets off the alarm. You get the adrenaline rush on all your stress hormones, and next thing you know, man, your heart’s beating, your breathing pattern goes crazy. This is frazzle. It’s all about sensory perception. What you’ve got to learn to do is turn down the volume of sensory perception. You’re hearing things, but you need to turn and tune it out. You’re seeing things, but you need to block that out. You’re smelling things, but you need to refocus your attention, we might say.

And what are you doing there? That’s the skill of concentration, and you’re refocusing on what? Your words and your mental pictures for that moment or for that task. That’s the flex. So, again, what you’ve got to learn to do here on your sensory perception a lot of times is turn that down. And in the movie Costner. When he says clear the mechanism, the director does a wonderful job. The sound goes off, the visuals get blurry. It’s a wonderful illustration of turning down the sensory perception and getting the words in the pictures. When the emotional brain hijacks, frazzle, mind’s thinking all kinds of things. When I bring the mind, my mental pictures, and I repeat them, it calms the emotional state. And we get back into a moment of flow. Okay? So, your words, sensory perception, you gotta learn how to turn them down. So, when we talk about flexing the mental skill of concentration, this is your intentional act on thinking on words and pictures. That you have already predefined. You’ve already thought it through. So again, back to your mental menu list. And as you find yourself drift away, awareness, you regulate, you bring those words and those pictures back on that task.

That’s the flex of the mental skill of concentration. Okay, let’s go to the next guiding principle here. Can you sleep at night? Now this has a lot to do with concentration because what you may have noticed at nighttime you get all these thoughts everything’s running through your mind Right, you get all these thoughts from work You got all these things from your athletic competition, your finances, your family. You got a lot going on. Well, that’s creating an emotion, emotional state, even though you’re sitting there in your action as you’re trying to get back to sleep.

So, what you find here is that it’s not so much outside, not so much the external, what’s the chatter on the inside. But the same thing’s happening. You got all this chatter going on, words and pictures, things you’re thinking about. The emotional brain is sending a flood of horn into your system, setting off your adrenal glands. So even though you’re sitting there trying to relax in bed, you got to learn how to calm your chatter. And that’s why we put this under the concentration skill. I’m going to give you two techniques. So what you’ve got to recognize here is the power that you have in the mind to regulate body function breathing heart rate blood pressure all of those, if you look at our Olympian athletes and high performers and even, you know, snipers, you know, all the things that the body does originate here.

Brain body sync. All right. In basketball, it helps to be tall. In racing horses, it helps to be small. But every of those athletes has a brain that has to be synchronized with athletic activity. For this guiding principle, breathing, I want you to recognize how important breathing is. There’s going to be two techniques I’m going to give you one is the breathing technique, the other is the body scan. Right? Both of them have to do with confidence. And repeating the words in your mental pictures. So what I need you to recognize it by doing deep breathing exercises. It’s the blood flow. And the oxygen you bring to the brain, specifically the thinking brain that creates a mimicking effect for the relaxation response. Breathing. Specifically, I want you to know why breathing works. It’s blood flow, specifically within the blood. It’s oxygen. Remember your guiding principle from your mental skill of communication. You got to be like your blood flow, you got to nourish and fight. Nourishment is that oxygen. And we wanted to get to your thinking side of the house where you can focus on a few simple words and a few simple pictures that create a relaxed state.

The final technique, a relaxed state. The final technique, arousal control, is centered on breathing. Deliberate slow breathing helps combat some of the effects of panic. Long exhales in particular mimic the body’s relaxation process and get more oxygen to the brain so it can perform better. Did you catch that? A few simple pictures while you’re breathing. Now you’re focused on your breathing. I want specifically on the technique here you go. Number one, six to eight long exhales. Six to eight. That’s one. Long exhale, number two. Do that six to eight, six to nine times, and you will, in an immediate response, trigger the relaxation response. Again, getting that blood flow through the deep exhales, getting that blood flow back to the thinking side of the brain. It literally goes up to the volume knob and turns the volume down. Slows the flow of all these cortisol and all these hormones that are getting in our system that are getting us amped up. And did you recognize that? By you concentrating on specific words and specific mental pictures, you can regulate body function. Right? So, this is something I want you to try at night. So, again, you’re doing your breathing techniques, right?

That’s one. One way to practice. The relaxation response. Six to eight, six to nine deep, long exhales. That’s number one. The second technique is the body scan technique. You learn this in military a lot. Again, what we see is fatigue. Fatigue hinders performance. So when we look at our military, when they got to work in rough conditions, they got difficult environments, changing environments, how do you still get your rest so that you can perform an optimal way where your training pays off? Same thing we’re trying to do. So, again, getting enough sleep at night is big business. Another way for you to get yourself to sleep is the body scan. Now, here’s the way the body scan works. Again, you’re using words and mental pictures, but you’re literally visualizing yourself laying on your bed and you’re going to hover up above yourself and view yourself go down. You’re looking at yourself. Now, what you do is you start at the top of your head and you do a body scan. Now, you start at your cheeks. And frankly, that’s where I always find mine. I’m laying in bed and I’m trying to get back to sleep and I’m tense.

I’m stressed about something. Stress, by the way, is a good thing. Distress. That’s the one you got to be careful of. But things stress you out, right? You’re thinking about things and they stress you out. You have thoughts and there’s low grade hijacks. That’s stress. That’s worry. This is a normal function, okay? So what we’re learning here is that anytime you’re doing a body scan and you find any part of the body that you’re scanning tense, start over. You Intentionally relax it. So, again, you can imagine I’m sitting there in my bed, I’m laying there in my bed, I’m doing my body scan. I see that right out of the gate, my cheeks are tense, my teeth are so, uh uh. First thing I do, then I’m gonna light it up, start over. And what you’re gonna find as you scan your body, it’s usually your face or your limbs, your hands, your feet, your tense.

That’s what gets it first. All right. So, a couple of sleep techniques. See the twist here. Thank you. It’s the mental skill of concentration. You’re repeating your words and your mental pictures, those words that create a relaxed state. All right upbeat music) you The world is a very important part of the world. I don’t know what to do. You you MUSIC PLAYING upbeat music)