Doctor’s Brutal Advice For Your BROKEN Attention Span

This is how you fix your attention span for good.

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About me:

Dr Jeevan Fernando is a practicing medical doctor and a research author in addiction psychiatry. He is driven to use his knowledge of neuroscience, psychiatry and philosophy to empower people to reach their personal and professional potential.

Jeevan studied at University of Cambridge, achieving his medical qualification (MB BChir), and an MA in Physiology, Development & Neuroscience.

He has been published in multiple peer-reviewed research articles, in topics ranging from substance addictions to sleep behaviour.

Recent articles:

[salimr]

Here's an exercise: when you watch a YouTube video, don't read the comments until it's over.

[loverofart-ji]

Great video. These past few months has been an eye opener for me, the one I love, the one i cherish still Left me, I lost alot of friends because of her, she often said they were bad influence on me, and she still left me, i still love her and that is what hurts the most. Love sometimes is unexplainable and cruel.

[vconyoutube]

Summary:
when we start to do a task, we generally tend to get distractions because of stimuli which could be internal or external. This stimuli demands attention and nudges us to take action in that regard. This is in layman terms getting distracted from a task. So to control distractions from external stimuli, one can remove such objects from your sight and your reach like your mobile, video games, etc.
But the actual problem comes with internal stimuli aka our thoughts, as we cant just remove our brain and keep out of reach right. So Dr. Jeevan suggests 3 techniques, which i feel are doable and interesting. He is calling it Behavioral inhibition.
There are 3 techniques:
1. Keep a note of all the thoughts which demanded your attention and nudged you to act, especially the important ones. So that you can take care of them after your task is done.
2. MOST IMPORTANT AND TOUGHEST OF THE THREE IMO. Train outside work as well. Means try to train your mind not to act immediately after every stimuli. like for example: if you feel like eating something now, eat after a delay of 30mins. or If you dont wanna go to the gym, it is exactly when you must go to the gym.
3. Mindfulness. A kind of meditation. Just close your eyes and focus on your breath. Thoughts will arise, but just reshift your focus on to your breath. This will teach and train your mind to focus on one thing at a time.

[leosousa]

You can reduce the frequency of intrusive thoughts by resting more, relaxing more, and addressing these thoughts at other times so they don't accumulate in your mind. This way you will have more free working memory which is basically attention. You shouldn't force your attention, you naturally pay attention to things that add value to you so you can finally grow. But if there are many things in your mind and you are used to accumulating them unfinished, then basically you are constantly in a hellish mental state. Spend your free time unwinding, relaxing, you will find new way of seeing things and your attention and memory will go up. You should trust me because this is basic logic.

[peanbean]

I'm either hyper focused and efficient or totally lost. There's no in between.

[excelsior_]

IMHO, one of the best videos about attentions spans out there.

[obedrossi]

Paused this video 23 times but got through it.

[ahmxdhsn]

💯 agreed Doc.
I've tried all this stuff and I can confirm from experience that he's absolutely right.

[GrayShark]

Can you make a video on stopping procrastination? I am sure we all be grateful for it. With your knowledge and expertise the video will be insightful!

[mms]

Best use of my 10 mins. You had my attention. Thank you

[Dasha-s]

Thank you for this video. This is the best and simplest advice I’ve heard in a while!

[catatonicbug]

The hardest part is when you need to retain focus on something that is not stimulating or interesting. Studying a topic that is boring is extremely difficult to maintain focus on.

[videosuperfast]

This is golden advice. Thanks for explaining it in such an easy to understand manner Jeevan.

[XxExternalBleedin]

This video is soo useful, no fluff, all practical tips, I'll come back to it again and again. Thank you.

[NexxuSix]

After listening to this video I’m kind of relieved to know that being distracted can actually be a good thing that can prolong your life by keeping you out of danger. But, yes, prolonging your concentration can also be healthy as well. Thank you for this video! 😊

[mainquestlift]

Best plug for meditation I’ve seen yet

[sameer]

having watched a lot of videos on this topic. I can say this is the best explanation of the problem and the best solution.

[plixplop]

A big thing for me is anxiety associated with the task. My work tends to be technically complex, I often don't know exactly how long a job will take until I really dig into it, yet it also needs to be completed in a specific timeframe, and ironically I waste more of that limited time by being distracted to check social media etc. But on the other hand, if I'm doing something that is just for my own use, I will get completely engrossed in it and feel no need to "take a quick break to look at my phone". For example I recently built new screens for my windows (first time, had to learn step by step as I went), and did some maintenance on my yard that was mostly simple physical work - I had no problem staying on task with these things and felt motivated and satisfied once they were completed. I'm interested to hear your insights on this.

[XnetRoidPL]

Overall great advice!
I've dealt with a lot of overthinking issues, which lead to depression and it also requires you to learn how to block unwanted (toxic) thoughts before they get to you.
I never considered it usable for better attention span, especially since some tasks are actually important, but always having a notepad is a great idea!

[a.p.]

I love this, you got the best connection points on how attention seeking behavior works.


Can you ever do a video that you do this same one but with a addressing it towards people with ADHD. Issues with poor memory, impulsive behavior and dopamine imbalance makes that graph even bigger even bigger im sure.