5 Nutritional Factors to Increase Focus

The ability to focus whenever needed is a priceless feature in all domains of life, not only in the practical domain. There are an unlimited number of ways to teach physical behaviors that lead to focus, yet hardly anyone talks about the relationship between diet and the ability to focus.

In fact, I have been involved in several heated discussions in which I have noticed that some people deny the idea that the foods we eat have any effect on our concentration. I have always asked them why they always separate the body and the mind when they are so closely related and similar in their combination, in addition to the fact that there is a scientific fact that states that every food we eat affects our feelings, emotions, what we think, and how well we mentally comprehend during the day.

The moment you actually realize the value and the horror of this information, you will gain a unique and poignant view of your state of mind and will be in control of it too if you choose to act on it, and you may end up achieving a healthy balance of body and mind.

Although the relationship between food and mental health may be clear as ice, at the same time it is very easy to deny or miss it. The bottom line is that you have to make sure to provide your brain with the best foundations if you want to easily reach a state of mental focus.

In the following, we will present the five main nutritional factors that should be carefully applied because of their great impact on concentration and intellectual abilities. They are not the only factors, but they are the most important for improving mental ability, and you can consider them as a system that supports your mental abilities and improves your focus:

1. Water:

I know that most health and diet tips start with water first, due to the many benefits that result from keeping the body hydrated and refreshed. Our body is made up of a large proportion of water, and almost all organs of the body depend on the availability of water in sufficient amounts to perform its functions to the fullest. It is not surprising at all that the lack of water in the body leads to a severe loss of focus and mental abilities in general. Human brain cells depend on their ability to send exchanged electric currents between each other in order to be able to function properly, and some other requirements and conditions must be met for optimal communication to be achieved between them. However, water is one of the most important components that must be available to achieve optimal cellular communication between brain cells, and it is also one of the factors that we have control over and can control. Therefore, it is necessary to start consuming 1.5 liters of water per day, which can be adjusted depending on the type of foods eaten and the amount of liquids consumed during the day through fluids other than water. And there is a good way to calculate the appropriate amount of water that the body needs, and it is to note that you don't need a glass of water more than once an hour.

2. The right amount of food:

We all know that we need food to derive the energy our bodies need to function, but many do not know the amount of food that is sufficient or necessary for our bodies and minds to function properly, so it is very likely that we are eating much less or much more than the appropriate amounts of nutrients in our daily diets. When we overeat, we find ourselves sluggish, bloated, drowsy, and confused. On the other hand, when we eat less than our bodies need, we will feel hungry and our brain will be confused with this matter at the expense of other more important things, like securing another source of energy needed for the easiest functions of the body, such as breathing, eyelid movement, maintaining body temperature, and others.

The solution is simply to eat the right and appropriate amounts of food in accordance with the metabolic rate of each person, lifestyle, and age. We can use what is called the equation of total energy consumed daily to estimate these quantities, which take into account the calories needed to survive and carry out daily activities depending on how active each person is in their lifestyle. It should be noted that several formulas can be used to estimate the appropriate nutritional amounts, but I will tell you what could be done to calculate them easily and accurately.

Measure your body weight in pounds - each pound equals 0.45 kilograms - and then multiply it by 13, 14, or 15 according to each person's level of physical activity. The number 13 is used for people who do not move or exercise much, the number 14 is used for those who exercise moderately 3-4 times a week, and the number 15 is used for people who exercise vigorously more than 4 times a week. For example, my weight is estimated at 117 pounds, I exercise an average of six times a week, and then the number of basic or basal calories I should be consuming per day is calculated as follows: Total daily energy consumption = 117 (body weight in pounds) x 15 (activity level factor) = 1755 calories (per day).

The total number of calories to be consumed per day can be divided into 5-6 small meals, where it can be divided into 3 main meals, 2-3 snacks throughout the day, and then the desired goal can be reached directly. It should be noted that the formula for the total energy consumed per day is applied to people who want to maintain their weight, while the general rule for weight loss is to reduce the number of calories required to maintain weight by 20% while keeping the food intake more than 1200 calories per day.

You can use a website, such as CalorieKing.com, to find out the calorie value of food eaten during one day. I know that this may seem very complicated to people who are not trying to lose weight and just want to improve their mental abilities and focus, but it requires just a little effort and comes with very important benefits for maintaining physical and mental health. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that my clients are discovering that they overeat at a rate of 30-50% per day after calculating the appropriate calorie intake in the manner described above.

3. Good quality food:

Quality is very important, especially regarding the foods we eat. The value of one calorie is not equal to another according to its quality, and it must be that talking about what is harmful and beneficial to health is somewhat complex, so we cannot talk about and analyze it here. However, we cannot lose our way if we adhere to the basic nutritional rules, which are summarized as follows:

• Eat fresh foods as much as possible.
• Avoid any type of processed or pre-made food.
• Eat lean meat and fish free of toxins.
• Eat all kinds of fresh vegetables and fruits.
• Reduce the intake of sugar, and eat a good group of nutritional supplements that support health.

We can liken our bodies to a car. If we include poor quality food in our diet - just like using poor quality fuel - we will get poor and unstable performance in both cases, so I advise you to invest some time in learning the basic principles of healthy eating, and then put the effort into feeding your brain with food sources that provide you slow-release and long-lasting energy, and I promise you'll get great focus as a result.

4. The correct frequency of eating meals per day:

Most people I talk to about nutrition have a hard time believing that they have to eat every 3-4 hours, or 5-6 times a day. They fall into three groups, the first group includes people who are afraid of becoming obese and overweight when they eat that amount, the second group includes those who argue that they do not have time to eat that number of meals per day, and the third group claims that they cannot tolerate large amounts of food, so they only eat once a day.

 Although all of the above is logical, the solution I offer them all is to calculate the exact amount of food that their bodies need according to the level of physical activity in their life then divide that amount into 3 main meals, and 2-3 snacks, and after about a week, they will find a stimulus in their bodies which urges them to request food automatically to draw energy at the specified times.

Therefore, I advise you to put proper nutrition among your priorities to take care of your mental abilities and focus, and then I guarantee you that all arguments and excuses will disappear forever. I know that this is not easy at first as it requires conscious effort and some preparations, but it leads to several benefits, including:

• Getting rid of bloating and digestive discomfort.
• Getting rid of gasses due to the availability of good and appropriate quantities of food, so that the stomach and intestines can digest it easily, without leaving some food to rot inside the intestine and turn into annoying gasses.
• Maintaining balanced and equal levels of energy during the day.
• Getting rid of laziness and foggy thinking, which is one of the mental disorders that affect a person's ability to think and do various daily activities. A person with foggy thinking feels that their mind is not clear, as if they are drowning in fog.
• Getting rid of the feeling of hunger, which distracts attention from the most important things during the day.
• Getting rid of scattered thoughts, anxiety, and thinking disorders.
• Enjoying clear and specific intellectual and mental processes.

In addition to several other benefits that you will discover for yourself when you follow the previous nutritional strategy. Eating smaller and more frequent meals will reduce the size of the stomach, and will increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the body’s digestion of food to extract the necessary energy from it. As for those who are not interested in all the benefits I mentioned, I would like to point out that adhering to the above will contribute to tightening the various parts of the body and improving their appearance.

It should be noted that all of the previous benefits lead to a greater ability to focus when needed because they contribute to removing obstacles related to the body's ability to endurance. This gives the mind enough space to carry out its functions.

5. Providing a healthy and suitable environment for eating:

Finally, it is necessary to talk about the environment in which we should eat our food, which constitutes an important factor - although it is not very popular - in maintaining the health and effectiveness of the digestive system, and thus the ability to focus well. I mean by an environment suitable for eating a peaceful environment that is stress and tension free.

We know that stress is one of the fiercest enemies that attack the human race. It attacks the body, mind, and spirit. It does not hold them as prisoners, but kills in subtle and cunning ways. The digestive tract is one of its most sensitive and affected victims. When a person is affected by high levels of stress, the body diverts attention to other functions and objectives that seem important to it, such as avoiding danger while escaping from a tiger chasing you, increasing the respiratory rate, etc., and then the digestion process stops to save energy.

This has several consequences, such as reducing absorption of nutrients from the food in the intestine, refining food because it remains in the intestine, and the process of its digestion is delayed, in addition to the release of hormones by the endocrine glands into the blood to fulfill the requirements of the fight-or-flight response imposed by the warning induced by the state of alert, which is another topic that would take a long time to explain. I will just say that stress affects every molecule of the body with its negative effects, and then leads to all kinds of diseases ranging from chronic headaches to heart diseases and advanced stages of cancer.

The solution to all of this is as follows:

1. Make sure to eat in a stress-free environment.
2. Take the time to chew food properly. Chewing it 25-35 times will do the trick.
3. Pay attention to the food eaten in terms of its taste, texture, quantity, smell, and color.
4. Enjoy the food that we eat, and eat the food that we enjoy.

All of the above help us relax and focus on the task at hand, which is the process of digestion. As a result, we get the energy that the cells of the body desperately need through which we are able to do our jobs correctly, besides being able to focus appropriately when it's needed.

In conclusion:

I hope that I have helped in your digestion process, which is considered one of the most important and complicated processes in our bodies. That’s why I wanted to provide you with enough details about it, so you can better understand it and take it seriously, as this process could change the way we perform our work, and our focus on our affairs. I also wanted to facilitate it, so it won’t become a heavy burden. That is why you should look into the digestion process as an important process since it is the one that consumes the most calories in the body, so paying enough attention and taking it seriously would really improve your ability to work with more focus.