My problem with novels is that I end up hyper-focusing on them. If I'm into a good book, I'll only get maybe 4 hours sleep a night (staying up late reading), spend all day Saturday/Sunday reading, and end up getting physically sick from not moving around.
There is a basic meditation technique where you just lightly focus your attention on your breath. When you notice you’re not thinking of your breath, which will happen 10s to 100s of times a minute, typically, you bring your focus back to your breath.
It’s incorporated into a general school called “mindfulness” which you read more about. A book I’d recommend for beginners is “The Joy of Living” by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.
The theory is that training your mind to focus on something mundane like your breath for 10 minutes, you will generally train the capacity of your mind to direct focus.
This greater focusing ability will come in handy when you want to focus on other specific things without being distracted as easily, like listening to someone in a conversation or going through the debugging process for a bug.
I like Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and the Shambhala approach. Some of his best books IMO: Turning the Mind Into an Ally and Running with the Mind of Meditation.
I like his approach since it has a more modern appeal and his writing is very approachable for those new to meditation (at least to me).
The standard breath-watching practice you're most likely to encounter primarily targets samatha, which basically means concentration or freedom from distraction.
+1 for reading novels. You may have to try a few before you find one you really like, but once you become invested in a story, it's pretty easy to spend a few hours a day reading. In my experience, it's been a pretty effective way of breaking the scattered thoughts/quick reward cycle. Some novels I've enjoyed recently: the Southern Reach trilogy, and Oryx and Crake.
Meditation is also great, but I think the barrier to entry is pretty high for someone already struggling to focus. Certain types of yoga (Iyengar/Hatha) can be good gateways into meditation.
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Reading novels seems to help for me. More directly, there’s always meditation.
My problem with novels is that I end up hyper-focusing on them. If I'm into a good book, I'll only get maybe 4 hours sleep a night (staying up late reading), spend all day Saturday/Sunday reading, and end up getting physically sick from not moving around.
You shouldn't get physically sick from 1 day of not moving around.
It sounds like you may have other issues with your health that are causing concentration issues.
Meditation is frequently mentioned in this context, is there a specific meditation design for for attention span ?
There is a basic meditation technique where you just lightly focus your attention on your breath. When you notice you’re not thinking of your breath, which will happen 10s to 100s of times a minute, typically, you bring your focus back to your breath.
It’s incorporated into a general school called “mindfulness” which you read more about. A book I’d recommend for beginners is “The Joy of Living” by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.
The theory is that training your mind to focus on something mundane like your breath for 10 minutes, you will generally train the capacity of your mind to direct focus.
This greater focusing ability will come in handy when you want to focus on other specific things without being distracted as easily, like listening to someone in a conversation or going through the debugging process for a bug.
I like Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and the Shambhala approach. Some of his best books IMO: Turning the Mind Into an Ally and Running with the Mind of Meditation.
I like his approach since it has a more modern appeal and his writing is very approachable for those new to meditation (at least to me).
The standard breath-watching practice you're most likely to encounter primarily targets samatha, which basically means concentration or freedom from distraction.
+1 for reading novels. You may have to try a few before you find one you really like, but once you become invested in a story, it's pretty easy to spend a few hours a day reading. In my experience, it's been a pretty effective way of breaking the scattered thoughts/quick reward cycle. Some novels I've enjoyed recently: the Southern Reach trilogy, and Oryx and Crake.
Meditation is also great, but I think the barrier to entry is pretty high for someone already struggling to focus. Certain types of yoga (Iyengar/Hatha) can be good gateways into meditation.