Unlock Your Brain: Neurological Tips for Better Focus

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host Rob dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. If you're out there and you love this podcast, please do me a favor. Give us a rating and review however you listen to us. The more positive ratings and reviews that we get on each platform, the most of those platforms show this podcast to people who have never listened to it before, which allows us to grow and expand and impact more people's lives. So if you would do that, I'd greatly, greatly appreciate it. Today, we're going to be talking about how to get focused.

0:35And I'm going to teach you some tips and tricks of how to actually use your eyes and how to use your brain through neuroplasticity of how to actually change your brain to be more focused so that you can get more done. Because in reality, let's be real, we live in a very, very distracted world. And since the iPhone and smartphones have come out, we've only gotten more and more distracted. And so if distraction was a muscle, our distraction muscle is really, really strong. And over time, I think that the past 10 years, 12 years or so, we've accidentally gotten really strong distraction muscles and really weak focus muscles.

1:16And I like to see focus as like a muscle because focus is something that you can grow. It is something that you can expand. It is something that you can get better with. Whether you're somebody who has ADD, ADHD, doesn't have it, whatever it might be, no matter what your circumstance currently is, you can always get better at focusing. And that's what I really want to help you dive into today. And it's kind of like the way I like to think about it is like I'm right-handed. I can write really well with my right hand. If I try to write something with my left hand, like I can barely hold a pen with my left hand.

1:47So it's kind of like my right hand is my distracted part of my brain and I'm really good with that one. And it might be that my left hand, my focus is not really great, but the more and more that I use my left hand, the more and more that I write with my left hand, the better I will get. And focus is the exact same thing. And the reason why focus is extremely important is because you only have 24 hours every single day. You don't get any more. And everyone's schedule is different. Maybe you have a job. Maybe you don't. Maybe you have children. Maybe you don't. Maybe you have hobbies. Maybe you don't.

2:15But you get 24 hours a day. And so when you sit down to work, to create, to do whatever it is that you want to do, to be the person that you are in this world, when you sit down to take action towards what is it you're trying to do, why would you ever want to bring less than 100 % of your mental focus to something? Like when I sit down to work, to create podcast episodes, to create reels for Instagram or anything that is, I try to bring 100 % of my brain power to it. Not 40%, not 60%. And so I'm going to share a few things that you've probably heard me talk about before, but I'm going to share some things that I've actually never shared on the podcast before.

2:54and tips and tricks on how to use your eyes, how to use your brain to get your body and your brain to be more focused. This is actually taken from my book, Level Up. In part two of, you know, part one of my book is why you're not taking action. Part two is how to take action. And this is actually chapter eight. I'm going to share some tips and tricks from chapter eight of actually neurologically how to use your brain to get more focused. And so I'm excited to share this with you. So one of the things that is super, super important, and the book, in case you want to buy it, is called Level Up, How to Get Focused, Stop Procrastinating, and Upgrade Your Life.

3:28You can buy it anywhere if you want to buy it. But one of the things that's super important, and you've heard me talk about it before, over and over again, but I'm really curious if everyone's using it, is the Pomodoro Technique. And I'm going to talk about the Pomodoro Technique, but I'm also going to tell you why, neurologically, it is actually one of the best things that you can use to get focused and create whatever it is that you want to create. So when you sit down to do the Pomodoro technique, when you sit down to get deep work done and you say, I'm going to work from this time to this time, you need to create some sort of routine.

4:00And so you want to remove all the distractions from within arm's reach. You want to take your phone. And if you work from home, put your phone in another room, turn off all of your notifications, turn off your emails, turn off your wifi. If you can, like if you need to use Google doc to write your book, turn off all of your wifi, have it. So there's no distractions you could have. Also, people can be distractions. So notify people that you're going to focus and not to bother you. If you're getting focused work done and you're in the office and you're in a big open office, put your headphones on so people know that you're working.

4:28Put a sign on your door. Put a sign on your back that says, Getting work done, don't talk to me for the next 30 minutes. Whatever it is that you need to do to remove distractions because distractions keep you from being focused. So can we remove as many distractions as possible? The next thing that I want you to do is take a pen and paper and brain dump everything that you have to do later. Everything that's an idea, everything on your to-do list so that your brain can release everything that needs to be done later and that your brain can go, okay, I don't need to think about this because it's on this piece of paper.

5:00Then I would recommend putting on noise-canceling headphones and then set a timer, whether that's on your phone, whether that's on your computer. I actually have a completely separate timer that's on my desk that is actually just a timer that I bought from Amazon. And you set it for 25 minutes and you focus on one task and one task only. And now here's where we're going to start going into stuff I've never shared before. And this is what's important is you focus on one task and one task only, and you're going to fight through the struggle. The thing that I've found is as I was writing the book Level Up is I use myself as a guinea pig.

5:31I hate writing. I'm just not a fan of sitting down to write. I love speaking. I'm much better at it. But I would have to sit down and write. And it was a struggle for me. and when I was doing a lot of research on this book, I realized that neurologically, when you sit down to do something new, like a new task, your brain takes about six minutes to warm up. But that warm up, this is really important, actually feels like stress and agitation. And this is a really secret part to sitting down and getting focused. Okay, so when you're sitting down to get some work done and you're sitting down to focus and take the action that you need to, whatever it is, it actually feels like stress and agitation.

6:15And so I don't know if you've been like me, but I would sit down and I would sit down to write the book and I would just get so agitated and I'd be like, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. And as I started working with neurologists to put this book together and make sure all of it was fact, I realized, oh my God, this is crazy. When your brain is warming up to get focused, it releases two chemicals. One of them is called acetylcholine, and the other one is called epinephrine, which is adrenaline. It's another name for adrenaline in your brain. But epinephrine and acetylcholine, when they're released in order to get focused, both of them feel like stress and agitation in the body.

6:57And so a lot of times, here's what happens, is we sit down to get something done, and then we start feeling agitated, right? And we're like, oh my God, I'm so agitated. I'll go do something else. What's crazy about that is that it is showing you, you are walking through the gateway of focus and you're just about to dip out. And so we're like, oh my God, I'm stressed. I'm stressed. I'm stressed. No, no, no. That stress and agitation, I need you to get this in every single cell of your body. You need to understand when you feel that stress and agitation, that's actually your brain warming up to get focused towards a new task.

7:32Stress and agitation is the gateway to focusing your brain. How crazy is that? It's showing you that your brain is warming up. So don't stop. You've got to fight through the agitation. And as I was writing the book, I would notice after about six minutes, seven minutes, eight minutes, depending on what day it was and obviously we feel different every single day, is eventually I would get into a a flow state. And that's when it was amazing. But I almost never got into a flow state without the stress and agitation first. And so I really want you to get that into all of your cells, is that it actually feels like you're stressed and anxious and agitated before your brain actually focuses because of those two chemicals being released in your brain.

8:13And so here's what you want to do. When you sit down, you want to fight to get to 25 minutes. When I first started, So it's 25 minutes on, five minutes off, 25 minutes on, five minutes off. And so in those 25 minutes, when I first heard about the Pomodoro technique years ago, which is just simply 25 minutes on, five minutes off, when I first heard about it, it was a real struggle like six years ago, seven years ago for me to get to 25 minutes. I remember by the time I get to like 19 minutes, my brain was like, I need to check my phone. I need to check my email. Oh, I have an idea to do this. Oh, I should do this thing.

8:44I should do this thing. And so it was a real struggle for me to get to 25 minutes. but over time I kept saying nope shut up brain we're going to keep working on this thing nope shut up brain we're going to keep working on this thing nope shut up brain we're going to keep working on this thing same way that you train a dog sit sit sit eventually the dog learns to sit you're training your brain focus focus focus and you fight for 25 minutes to get to those 25 minutes when you hit those 25 minutes you give your brain a five minute break and here's the key and I've heard a lot of people I was teaching this to one of my friends the other day I was talking to him about the book.

9:15He's extremely successful, one of the most successful authors out there. And he goes, oh my God, I've been doing it wrong all the time. I will do the Pomodoro technique. And then in my five minutes off, I will check my phone. And I said, you don't want to check your phone. You don't want to check your phone. You don't want to check your emails. You want to give your brain a rest in those five minutes. That rest can look like a couple different things. You can either go for a walk, you can go outside and you can just expand your eyes and allow them to go to wherever it is that they want to go to.

9:44Or you can just close your eyes, set another timer for five minutes, and just do some deep breathing. Because what your brain does in this moment when you're resting is it's number one, it's like you can't work out all day long. You have to work out hard and then rest and work out hard and rest and work out hard and rest. Your brain works the exact same way. Focus and rest, focus and rest. You can't stay focused all the time. But when you're looking at something that's really close to your face, like your phone, your brain and your eyes actually have to look and they have to go in a little bit to focus.

10:15That's called a convergence eye movement, which means that your eyes are actually looking inward at something that's close. That eye movement actually tells your brain that it needs to focus on something. And so if you're looking at your phone or you're looking at your emails, your brain never gets the rest in those five minutes, which is super important for you to understand. You have to give your brain that rest. And then once you get done with that five minute rest, whether you close your eyes, whether you go for a walk, whether you just allow your peripheral vision to come in and you just sit in silence, you go back for another 25 minutes.

10:48And as you do this more and more often, you're going to start to realize that you can get to 25 minutes faster. There's not as much stress and agitation in the beginning. You can get to 25 minutes faster or better, I guess you would say. There's not as much resistance towards it. At that point in time, what I recommend is expanding the time. And so Pomodoro is 25 minutes on, five minutes off. In the book Level Up, I talk about something that I do that's called Pomodoro Plus, which is 45 minutes on, 10 minutes off. I've been doing this for a few years now because once again, it was a really big struggle for me to get to 25 minutes for a while.

11:24And then I got better at it and better at it over years and years and years. And now I realized that by 25 minutes, I'm like in the zone and I don't want to break it. So I'll set it for 45 minutes now and then 10 minutes off. And so I'd recommend starting at 25 minutes. And if it becomes easier and easier to get to 25 minutes without resistance, go to 30 minutes, go to 35, go to 40, go to 45, and then give yourself a longer break if you're going to go longer. Now, here's what's really interesting about focus, okay? Your mental focus follows your visual focus. So your brain and your body, it's super important to understand this.

12:00The only part of your brain that is not in your skull is your eyes. Your eyes are a part of your brain that are outside of your actual skull. And so the way to get your brain to focus is it actually follows your visual focus. And the way a lot of neurologists think this comes from is if you and I are out hunting 100 ,000 years ago and we see an animal in the distance and we have to look really far at that animal, we're looking and we're focusing on our eyes and seeing where's that thing going? Is it picking up smells from different directions? and we're using our eyes to see every movement that that animal is doing.

12:38And what that's doing is eventually telling our brain, lock in, like be locked in. And so your mental focus will always follow your visual focus. So then you start to ask yourself, how can I get my visual focus to lock in to tell my brain it's time to lock in? And so really what it comes down to with that being said is when you're sitting down to focus, let's say you're sitting down to write your book, right? and you're sitting there and you're staring at the cursor just blinking, what you want to do is actually try to, you know, you see your peripheral vision, is you actually want to try to close your peripheral vision off, and you want to look so intently at the screen.

13:15If you're listening to podcasts, you can't see my hands like people on YouTube can. But you're trying to actually get your visual focus to be just the screen and everything else outside of the screen to be a little bit blurry. Almost as if you were taking like a paper towel roll, and you were looking through your eyes, through the, like you put it up to your eyes and you're looking at that screen, you're trying to see nothing else. And so one thing that actually works really well for me, you can try it if you want to, you don't have to. But when I was writing the book and I had to focus and I was trying to literally cancel out all of my visual field except for the computer screen, this is, it's kind of weird, but I'm gonna tell you the truth.

13:54I would put on a hat and I would put on a hoodie over my hat so that the majority of my visual field was completely canceled out by either my hat above or my hoodie on the sides. So the only thing that I could see was literally the screen in front of me because I'm trying to tell my brain through visual focus, hey, it's time to lock in. It's time to get another Pomodoro technique in. We've got three more pages we've got to write. We've got to get this done. And so that's really important. And the other way that your mental focus follows your visual focus is that if you imagine, like if you're sitting straight in your seat and you just imagine looking straight out at level where your eyes are.

14:33Not looking up, not looking down, but just looking level. When you look down below the midline of the visual field, there's actually circuits in your brain that when you, in your eyes, that when you look low, like below the midline, that are telling your brain it's time to relax. And so think about how often do you sit on your phone and you're literally looking down on your phone when you're trying to get something done? Or how often do you sit down and you actually type with your computer and you're looking down at your computer? So you have to realize when you're looking below the midline of your eyesight, it's telling your brain to relax.

15:09It's actually making it harder to focus. So what do you want to do? This is something that I have in my office, in my house, in my office, in the studio that I'm in right now. I have an external monitor for both of my workstations. and that external monitor is above the midline of my visual field. Why? Because the same way that the below the midline tells your brain to relax, the actual above the midline tells your brain to focus is holy shit. Are you guys listening to this? You can use your eyes where you're looking, how you're looking to tell your, to make it easier to tell your brain that it's time to lock in and start to get focused.

15:48And so what you want to do is you want to have, if possible, an external monitor, that is above the midline. Like you don't have to have it like up at the ceiling and you're like looking at the ceiling, but just a little bit above the midline so that your eyes are above. Your eyes are then telling your brain, okay, this thing is above our midline. So it's in the upper visual field. It is close to us. Maybe you're wearing a hoodie and a hat. These little cues are telling your brain, it's time to turn on. Hey, it's time to lock in. And these are all, this is all just so you know, neurological scientific fact.

16:16I have 73 cited studies inside of this book. So like I went hardcore into science and neurology to make sure that I was literally learning about the brain for how to take action and create the life that we want to. That's why I say it's like the manual for your mind. And so what do you want to do? You want to have it above the external monitor, a little bit above the midline of your visual field. And then the last piece is, if possible, have a bright light that doesn't hurt your eyes, but have a bright light that is above the external monitor. And so at the studio where I am right now, my monitor is literally at a window so that bright light is always coming in.

16:52And at home, I have a huge ring light that is above that I turn on every single time. Why? Because there's receptors in the bottom of your eyes, like the bottom sets of your eyes that are called the basal ganglia. And those actually look up in the visual field. And they're looking up and they get obviously information from the sun. So when the sun is up, it tells your brain to start to focus. And so if you have white light, it's telling your brain that it needs to be focused. And it's not allowing your brain to create melatonin to make you tired. And so these are just a few of the tips and tricks that you can use to actually get your brain to focus.

17:28I have a lot more that are inside of the book, but these are just some of the ones I want you to think about. The first one is a Pomodoro technique. When you're doing a Pomodoro technique, fight to get to 25 minutes. Realize that your brain is going to resist. When you sit down, realize that your mental focus follows your visual focus. So how can you use these tips that I've just given you to allow yourself to at least make it easier for yourself to take the action that you need to to create the action, take the action that you need to to create the life that you want. And so use the Pomodoro technique.

17:57Make sure you realize that you're focusing in your eyes. You're having a little bit of the midline. You have the correct lighting. So therefore your brain goes, hey, it's time to turn on. It's time to get some shit done. And so once again, these are just tips and tricks from the book. If you want to go buy it, it's called Level Up. how to get focused, stop procrastinating, upgrade your life. There's a lot of science that is in it because ultimately I just want you to understand how your brain works so that you can use your brain to get out of your own way, to take the actions you need to, to create the life that you want.

18:24So you can buy it anywhere that you buy books. Once again, it's called Level Up. And with that, I'm gonna leave you the same way. I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission, make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.