On Training Mental Fitness

A few key ideas from Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention

by Amishi Jha, PhD, published in 2021.

"We tend to accept that, to improve our physical health, we need to engage in physical exercise ... Just as specific types of physical training can strengthen certain muscle groups, this type of mental training can strengthen attention ... Lieutenant General Walter (Walt) Piatt ... has transformed his life and leadership style through mindfulness practice ... said, 'Mindfulness training gave our soldiers push-ups for the mind.'

... we can train the brain to shift away from specific default tendencies that aren’t serving us. We can train our attention to better serve us when we need it most. And ... you can do this in as little as twelve minutes a day ... if you engage in regular mindfulness practice, for as little as twelve minutes per day, you can protect against that stress- and overwhelm-related decline in attention."

"Mindfulness practice actually changes the structure of your brain in ways that are beneficial to attention . . . if you do it often enough ... We are learning that certain forms of mental training are effective at training the brain similar to the way physical exercise works to train the body. And when it comes to better attention—to achieve better performance, better emotion regulation, better communication and connection—one form of mental training consistently shown to work is mindfulness training. It’s no longer a mystery: mindfulness practices can train the brain to operate differently by default.”

The minimum required dosage for training your attention:

• Four weeks

• Five days a week

• Twelve minutes a day

"Based on these many studies, what we’ve come to understand is that asking people to do too much, especially those with a lot of demands and very little time, de-motivates them. The key is having a goal that is not just inspiring, but possible. Twelve minutes worked better than thirty, and five days worked better than every single day. So this is what I want to encourage you to do: practice twelve minutes a day, five days a week. If you do this much, you are on track to really benefit. And the even better news is that if you do more, the benefits go up. 

An important caveat: if you are busy and stressed but are also suffering from an ailment, disorder, or illness, this prescription may not work for you."