As we get older paying attention is very important

It is true, when we are young, that we can “get away” with many less than good habits, as our bodies are very forgiving, and our habits aren’t cast in stone yet.

Actually, it seems that this is true, but these habits all come back on us in spades when we get older.

Old physical injuries often come back to plague us in our later years. Achy back, achy knees and hips…… often due to the way we abused out bodies when we were youngsters.

The way we have used our minds comes back like “the proof is in the pudding” when our mental habits begin to show more and more as we age.

As we get older, a bit like the way we drive a car… whereas we were very careful when we were younger, we tend to get more lax…. feeling like “I am an expert driver because I have driven for so many years”.

I like to use the example of walking down stairs… it is something that we can easily test ourselves on….. try walking down the stairs, doing nothing but paying attention, and counting the stairs as we go down… (not 2 or 3 stairs, but a flight of stairs, or more)

If we pay close attention, it becomes obvious that our foot starts down towards the next step, and our mind flits off to something else…… i believe this is the main reason why people fall down stairs…. simply lack of attentiveness.

This is just one example of how closely we pay ONGOING attention when we are doing things. To add to this tendency, our personality also weighs in, such that if we tend to juggle alot of things in our day, or multitask, or for that matter, if we tend to be a bit ADHD, our mind flits around even more, and we find ourselves needing to make lists just to get the basic things done in the day (not a bad practice, that is for sure).

When we get older, this mind flitting tendency grows to where we head off somewhere to do something, but by the time we actually get to the place where we were going, we have forgotten what we went there to do. Of course, this is pretty much normal…. but for some it can become a very serious issue.

The solution to this (not an easy solution, but one that definitely helps!!!), is to slow the mind down, and practice continuous focusing on the task at hand. Very important as we get older!!

We tend to wake up in the morning, fairly focused, but as the day goes on, we tend to get “wound up” with things that don’t go quite right, or just simply being busy.

This “wound up” state, is directly opposite to how we should be using our brain.

Every time we realize that our mind is spinning, we should consciously stop, pay attention to our breath…. slow our breath down, which then brings our mind back closer to a quiet state, and then continue with what we were doing.

This practice might not seem very efficient at first, and might even feel cumbersome, but if we practice “coming back to focus, coming back to focus…..” we gradually find that both our memory and attentiveness will function better.

I cannot stress how important this practice is.