How Do People Focus in Noisy Environments?

[nascentmind]

I have to work in a noisy and crowded place. I would like to know the techniques people use here to concentrate and focus. I have noticed that sports persons seem to have intense concentration but I don't know how they do it.

 

[chiro]

This might sound like a stupid response, but my suggestion is to not think about it.

Don't think about the noise and just put your mind on something else: put it on a problem, or make your thoughts and your motivations directed towards the thing you are working on.

One thing about a sports-person is that they train themselves by their coach and through their experiences to deal with not only distractions, but the pressure as well. Maybe you can think about how to get the focus away from the noise but being aware of what specifically distracts you.

Is it a specific thing? Is it something specific that irritates you?

If you want to go deep into this, you might want to look at the concept of mental dissociation: the mind has a mechanism that allows it is to dissociate from things that range from something mild to something traumatic.

Another suggestion is meditation: you may find that meditating can help clear your mind and deal better with the above situations.

In the end though, it's going to be the practice of controlling your focus and that will translate to thinking about something else rather than the distractions that are there.

 

[I_am_learning]

Try headphones and listen to non-song sounds, like a repeating loop of birds chirping or rain, if songs distract you.

 

[nascentmind]

I cannot use any headphones or music. The scenarios are noisy workplaces, and boring meetings. My mind is tuned to pay attention to whoever is talking. In case of noisy places where there are lots of people talking my mind gets confused as to what to pay attention to.
Also I have a problem of doing mental arithmetic in noisy places which is causing me a lot of grief. Its very hard to hear myself in the head when things are noisy.

Are there any practices/training I can follow. I have a strong mental disassociation for stress and failure where my mind flies to somewhere nice.

 

[Artus]

I have this problem too. I try to be apart from TVs, people talking, or looking around the window. But the worst enemy now is web browsing.

 

[Adyssa]

I'm quite good at getting on with things in noisy places, I can block it all out. How, I'm not really sure, but I'm quite introverted by nature so being lost in my own thoughts comes naturally to me! I often sit in the cafeteria at uni and study and there's hundreds of other people around, eating, talking, phones ringing, etc but I don't hear any of it when I put my head down.

I also like to listen to "music" on my iPod when I do homework, but not songs, I like ambient/techno music for studying, it's soft and smooth and repetitive and helps me to zone out. Stuff like this:

Natural/Electronic.System - Smoke Machine Podcast 50