a.k.a. Meditation. Running, drawing, yoga etc. also work for some people. Whatever gets you in the zone.

ShoplifterOfTheWorld

Hey, that's weird... I really can feel the flow of blood going through me... Crazy.

The Amazing Ant

That really feels a lot like meditation rather than actual mind exercises.

PotKettleBlack

cult factor = high
real world value = low

Oh, I get it, this must be from a scientology book.

reflous

After reading the comment by reflous, I was a little skeptical, but still wondered what exercises might be presented. Actually the exercises are kind of interesting and meditate-y.

They actually had me until this one made me do a double-take:

• Help in developing psychic abilities

Not that there's anything wrong with that... Just not what I want to improve MY concentration for. UNLESS they included telekinesis in that category, then I'm on-board.

OK just kidding... aside from that one line referring to psychic abilities, it's an interesting list of ways to challenge yourself to avoid letting your mind run off on little rabbit-chasing tangents. Some of them sound pretty hard.

jiffener

What most people think is "psychic ability" is actually really good intuition. Meditation, hypnosis, and other forms of mental discipline can go a long way toward developing that. (I've been repeatedly accused of having psychic powers, but I do not.)

mdebusk

For most people, its all fake. But, I've been doing this for about 5years in my regular (3-4 times a week) Aikido Training. Part of what we do, is meditate and relax, breathing (deeply, not the standard breathing people do) look into Low Breathing (as some runners call it). There is also other martial arts that meditate and do deep breathing. Key is... not to breath with your chest area, but use your stomach area... if you can realize the difference, you'll notice how much more breath you actually get. More breath, more oxygen to the brain, more stuff happens in the mind. Less oxygen, less thinking goes on. think of a fire... no oxygen no fire, more oxygen way more fire.

IzelT

That short piece of instruction does sound rather dubious. It gives me the impression that it is mostly aimed at the sort of people who are in to "alternative medicine".

However, I have been practicing meditation for approximately 4 years by now. I must admit that I feel that it helps me a lot in busy periods. The technique I use i rather different from the above though.

I learnt it through a non-religious, non-mystical organization with it's origins in Norwegian academic circles. I like to think it's not your average quack dishing out a panacea.

Whether the effects that I feel are placebo or not doesn't really matter. As long as they're there.

ThanasEnlarded

Practicing in this manner may be called many things. However, at the core it is about increasing one's awareness. As psychological beings (thought and behavior) we use selective attention to manage the amount of stimulus in our environments. This is truly an adaptive development. We cannot possibly pay attention to everything with the same degree of effort. Nor would we want to. An example of this is being able to drive home without knowing what we drove past. That is, on some level we can drive a car safely AND be near oblivious of the environment. Imagine if we had to attend to everything on the road as if it were of the utmost importance. We would never be able to get home in one piece. When an individual engages in activities that foster increased attention we are only building-out capacity that we otherwise take for granted. There is nothing "cultish" or mystical about this ability. Instead, an individual is intentionally choosing to develop a capacity to make conscious decisions regarding stimulus from the environment. Think of it as exercise for the mind. As noted in the link there are many benefits. Why the practice of this gets a bad rap may be that it is more common in Eastern cultures. It may be that this degree of difference is sometimes difficult to accept.

michaelallain