Reclaim Your Brain
How to rebuild your attention span in a world designed to break it.
Hi everyone;
Today we’re going to talk about how to get your FOCUS back..
Because let’s be honest, “most people’s attention spans are wrecked these days”.
Technology has rewired our brains for constant stimulation. Dopamine receptors are fried from micro-hits of novelty. Focus feels impossible. Motivation evaporates faster than it appears.
Most people can’t go five seconds without seeking the next dopamine hit, can’t hold a convo without eyes wandering & looking for a better person to talk to, can’t read more than 10 pages without being distracted, and just can’t finish their tasks, etc..
& while it might seem innocuous at first, it’s really not …
I mean you know what I’m talking about, at least to a certain degree..
when you open your laptop to do meaningful work, but somehow end up checking email “just for a second.”
when you pick up your phone to respond to one message & suddenly you’ve scrolled through three apps you don’t even remember opening.
when you sit down to read, but your mind starts itching for stimulation before you’ve finished the first paragraph.
All till one day if not already you decide to reflect on what is happening & realize that your ability to focus - aka; the most valuable cognitive asset you have - is slipping through your fingers.
Cal Newport (author of deep work book) calls it “a state of fractured attention”
— a mind trained by constant switching to avoid depth.
Andrew Huberman calls it “reward prediction error chaos” — your dopamine system is constantly pulled outward by micro-hits of novelty until real work/focus feels uncomfortable, even painful.
Deeper it is when:
You try to concentrate but your brain feels “foggy.”
You know what to do, but can’t sit still long enough to start.
You read the same sentence three times and still don’t absorb it.
Your attention jumps like a tab-browser with 37 windows open.
Your day ends and you feel strangely busy… yet embarrassingly unproductive.
& in case you wondered..
This is not harmless, not normal, and not accidental.
& it will certainly not fix itself by magic..
Understand - we’re living in a world engineered to hijack your attention. And slowly, and discreetly it has been winning.
Tik tok. Instagram. Twitter. Those shorts are getting shorter and shorter - guiding people for the next dopamine hit in a matter of second
Every notification, every ping, every swipe and micro-scroll is reshaping your neural circuitry. Not metaphorically. Literally. As Huberman often says: “Neurons that fire together wire together.”
“Your brain is wiring itself for distraction.”
& again, if you reflect on yourself a little you can literally feel & point out the consequences
Focus is no longer your default. Distraction is.
Deeper it’s not just your work that takes a hit, but your overall life
Yeah - the cost of distraction is literally your life trajectory.
& I’m not exaggerating
Distraction costs you your potential
In fact, “Cal Newport” makes a brutal point in Deep Work: “If you can’t focus, you can’t create anything of value”.
Not in your career.
Not in your relationships.
Not in your personal growth.
Every major opportunity in life requires the one skill you’re losing: the capacity to stay with something long enough to produce excellence.
When you lose the ability to focus:
You do shallow work instead of important work.
Your creativity collapses because your brain never enters deep mode.
Your learning slows down because depth is required for memory.
Your productivity becomes performative: busy, but not effective.
You’re essentially working with half of your cognitive horsepower.
Worse? Most don’t even realize it..
Understand that dopamine rewards progress toward goals - but when you can’t focus, you don’t experience progress.
You get:
micro-hits of dopamine —>followed by frustration—>followed by shame—>followed by avoidance.
That cycle kills motivation.
& eventually… It kills confidence.
You start feeling like you’re the problem, whereas your “biology” is just reacting to an overloaded environment.
You get stuck in a loop of low-quality thinking. Distraction fragments your brain into tiny, shallow slices. You never get to hold a thought long enough to sharpen it.
Again, to produce at your peak level, you need to work for extended periods with full concentration.”Without that, your thinking becomes reactive, scattered, and impulsive instead of intentional
All to the extent you’re not using your mind - you’re surviving it.
You can’t remember last time entered that “flow state”(aka; the very state that makes work meaningful)
Because that would at least require:
10–20 minutes of uninterrupted focus just to start
Dopamine stability
A low-noise environment
The absence of micro-interruptions
Most people haven’t been in flow for months — sometimes years.
Later, I really believe the worst part is hit on your self-image
You start to feel/believe you’re not capable of achieving anything, or atleast nothing meaningful for that matter
Every time you say “I’ll start now” but don’t, every time you say “I’ll stay focused” but can’t, everytime you say “I’ll finish this today” but don’t — you weaken the trust you have in yourself.
it’s a fact - One of the fastest ways to lose confidence in yourself is to not keep the promises you make to yourself
And when you stop trusting yourself, everything gets more difficult
Lose your ability to focus for long enough & you’ll stop thinking of yourself as someone who can.
You’ll start to think of yourself as lazy, undisciplined, and distracted person
& that’s the real pain.
How to fix yourself. Get your focus back.
Alright; By now I think you realized why it’s so important for you to fix your attention’ span & get your focus back
& first step toward fixing it is understanding that you CAn
Yeah 100%.. I’ve been there so I know what I’m talking about
We live in a world that will simply your brain if you let it
all those reels, all those shorts, all those dopamine traps, etc.. You can get rid of all of that
Understand, attention span is a muscle. Train it. It gets stronger.
Focus & concentration become natural state/second nature :
So let’s see how you can do it exactly:
Start with long, silent walks:
Simply the cheat code for a scattered brain
if your mind feels like multiple tabs open at once, start here:
long, silent walks. No playlist. No podcast. No stimulation. Just pavement, breath, steps, and the echo of your own thoughts.
If you’re really not used to it, the first 10–15 minutes might feel awful - Like some digital detox fever. Your brain will reach for multiple stimulations that aren’t there — that urge to scroll, check, swipe, refresh.
But understand that discomfort is good. It’s withdrawal from constant dopamine hits.
& after about 15–20 minutes, you’ll notice that the noise thins, your mind stops sprinting, your thoughts stop colliding, and your brain starts linking ideas together in the background.
This is exactly what neuroscientists call the “default mode network” (part of your brain responsible for creativity, integration, and problem-solving which only wakes up when you’re not consuming anything).
Silent walking is basically an offline processing boost.
Do it for 45–60 minutes. Do it four days in a row. By Friday, you’ll have:
>a business model >an apology text you’ve been avoiding >a storyline >a solution to a problem you thought was impossible >dozen ideas that were buried under notification noise
All free.
All offline.
All impossible to doomscroll.
Silent walking is the original focus ritual. It resets your mental bandwidth, scrubs your mind clean, and gives you back the ability to hear your own thoughts again.
2.Read long things. Read books.
If you’ want to rebuild your attention you have to make your brain stretch again
Modern content is made —> to shrink your focus down to seconds.
Books do the opposite —>they expand it.
Science talks about this..
Your brain doesn’t just passively receive information - it adapts to whatever environment you feed it.
Andrew Huberman calls this “experience-dependent plasticity”: your neural circuits literally rewire to match the tasks you repeatedly perform.
If you train your brain with:
8-second dopamine hits
micro-scroll loops
constant novelty
…then that’s the attention span your brain will optimize for.
But when you read long-form content — books, deep articles, chapters — you’re forcing your dopamine system into longer reward cycles.
Understand that mental health, focus, and motivation are strongest when your brain operates across “different dopamine time-scales”:
short-term rewards (quick wins, immediate progress)
medium-term rewards (finishing a chapter, learning a concept)
long-term rewards (finishing a book, mastering a skill)
Most people today only hit the short-term part - thus why they’re so anxious, distracted, and have no motivation
Books restore the balance.
Reading long things teaches your brain to:
delay gratification
sit with an idea longer than 10 seconds
resist impulse switching
build momentum through completion
experience slow, steady dopamine instead of chaotic spikes
Every chapter you finish without being distracted is a message to your nervous system:
“We do hard, sustained things now.”
And the more you do that, the more your mind adapts.
Not metaphorically - structurally.
Books aren’t just information - They’re attention training, dopamine recalibration, and mental resilience practice packaged inside pages.
This is why people who read consistently think better, focus better, and produce better. Their minds are conditioned for depth, not dopamine chaos.
3. Set hard limits on dopamine-drain apps — treat them like a casino
If you want your attention back, you need to cut off the biggest dopamine leak in your life — aka; infinite-scroll apps.
Instagram. TikTok. Reels. Shorts. All of them.
Set a 20–25 minute daily limit — and make it OS-level. Not “I’ll try to stop,” but hard stop, screen greys out, access denied.
You should really treat it as a casino limit - when the bouncer says you’re done, you don’t argue — you step outside.
Your thumb will twitch. You’ll feel the phantom itch to tap the app. Great - that’s withdrawal — and every resisted swipe is a rep for your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain responsible for discipline, intention, and decision-making)
Do this for 72 hours & the craving curve collapses.
Your brain stops expecting micro-hits of dopamine.
Your feed becomes less interesting.
The urge to scroll fades.
Because you’ve broken the loop.
Next step —>Relocate your chat apps to your work laptop + —> whitelist notifications to family + work only.
This does two things:
It removes the temptation for “quick checks” that turn into 20-minute scroll comas.
It creates clean psychological borders: this device = work, that device = life.
And when you do get a message?
Open → reply → close.
No vertical-video rabbit hole waiting one thumb-flick away.
One you get that; you want to slice your workday into 2-hour deep work blocks with 30-minute breaks between them.
In those 2 hours:
One objective. One task. Full focus. No switching. No peeking. No “just checking something real quick”
When the 120-minute timer hits zero, you can take a break
Go for a walk.
Refill your water.
Stare at a window.
Eat something.
Move.
Let your mind reset.
Then you come back & go again. This is how adults get shit done nowadays. Not with hacks, but with boundaries, structure, and a dopamine system that finally stops fighting them.
4. Workout without AirPods — train your body and your attention
For those of you who workout (start if you don’t) - take the AirPods out at the gym.
No music.
No podcasts.
No YouTube videos.
No noise.
Just plates clanking, breath counting, and the raw silence of being fully in your body.
Trust me as someone who found it very uncomfortable at first, now I can’t think of training with music ever
Why? Because with the absence of audio distraction, you can feel your muscles firing with precision, you can hear/control your breathing rhythm, you can notice your form, and you can stay present with every rep…
Your awareness drops out of your head and into your body — which is one of the fastest ways to quiet a scattered mind.
So use your Apple Watch for one thing only: tracking time and the structure of your session, not music, or entertainment.
You’ll soon notice that without constant stimulation, your nervous system finally gets to do what it’s designed to do during physical effort: release endorphins and reset your mental circuitry.
And when you’ll walk out of the gym, you won’t just feel pumped, you’ll feel clear.
Your mind uncluttered. Your focus is anchored. Your brain chemistry stabilized.
Training without headphones is not a punishment. It’s a purification.
5. When you watch something… just watch
This one might sound stupidly simple & yet, we live in such a distracted world that it’s basically elite training.
Whenever you’re watching a movie, a show or anything:
Just watch.
Nothing else.
No side-quests.
No background scrolling.
No “quick check” during a slow scene.
No grabbing your phone every time your brain twitches.
Just sit there and be with the story.
Because this is how you re-teach your mind the lost skill of single-tasking - The ability to keep your attention anchored to one stimulus without escaping the moment.
When you resist the urge to multitask:
your attention span stretches
your brain stops searching for micro-dopamine
your nervous system actually relaxes
you re-learn how to focus on one stream of information
It’s mindfulness disguised as entertainment.
You start appreciating the tiny details: the pacing, the cinematography, the emotion, the story beats — things you normally miss because you’re halfway inside your phone.
And here’s the magic: Every time you choose to stay present instead of checking out, you build attentional endurance, the same way you build muscle with reps.
One simple act: Do one thing at a time. Even if that “one thing” is just watching a show on your couch. It’s not the activity that matters, it’s you learning to be more present
6. Spend more time talking to people in real life than online
This one can’t be stated enough.. & not just as a way to improve your focus, but as a way to improve your well being in general..
Talk to humans in real life.
Not through group chats. Not through memes & voice notes. Not through digital drip-feeds of half-attention.
Real conversations. Real eye contact. Real presence.
Hang out with your homies.
Sit at a table with them.
Laugh, argue, debate, complain - without phones acting as emotional crutches.
Meet new people. Say yes to a random invite. Join something. Show up somewhere.
Let your brain practice the unpredictable richness of human interaction.
Visit your family.Touch base with the people who knew you before algorithms learned your preferences. Let the emotional bandwidth of real connection recalibrate your nervous system.
Understand that texting gives you micro-social dopamine (tiny hits that leave you unsatisfied and craving more) - Whereas in-person connection gives you oxytocin + serotonin stability (the neurochemistry of calm, belonging, and grounded presence).
Talking online scatters your attention.
Talking in person anchors it.
Every IRL interaction trains your ability to read subtle cues, your emotional regulation, your conversational flow, your listening focus, your presence, etc.. (stuff digital life & isolation in general has quietly been eroding for years.
Your brain evolved for in-person connection. Your attention thrives on it. Your mental health deepens through it.
The rule is simple: Spend more hours with humans than with apps — your mind will thank you.
7: Eat like it’s the 1900s
Here’s a radical idea in an age where every meal has become “content”: Eat like you’re in the 1900s.
A table. A chair. A plate. Some silence.
No YouTube. No Netflix in the background. No doomscrolling between bites. No “I just need something to watch while I eat.”
Just you and the food.
Of course I’m not saying you can’t make some exceptions (weekends, late nights, friends gathering, etc..) But still you must realize that “your nervous system never gets a break.”
Your attention never gets a moment of stillness - Even eating which is in fact one of the most sensory-rich experiences became an excuse for overstimulation.
When you eat without distractions, your senses actually switch on, you notice texture, temperature, flavor, you chew slower, your digestion improves, and your brain gets a rare window of calm
A type of a mini-meditation. A moment where you are actually present with something physical and real. Don’t rush. Don’t shovel food while scrolling like you’re trying to escape your own thoughts. Sit. Eat. Taste. Pause.
It sounds old-fashioned because it is —and that’s exactly why it works.
8. Take long drives on open roads
This one isn’t talked about enough…
Go for long drives — no destination, no playlist, no stimulation war. Just the open road.
Driving is one of the last built-in focus rituals we have left. Why? coz your brain is forced into single-channel attention. Can’t scroll. Can’t multitask. Can’t “quick check.”
The movement of the car + the repetitive visual flow of the road does something powerful to your mind: It unknots it.
Long drives activate the same mental circuits as silent walks — the default mode network — the brain’s backstage, where ideas connect and problems solve themselves.
And because your eyes are occupied and your hands are engaged, your brain finally gets to drift in a clean, natural way: thoughts line up instead of clashing, ideas surface from nowhere, emotions you’ve been dodging finally catch up, and clarity replaces mental chaos
It’s meditation for those who struggle to sit still
Roll the windows down. Let the wind hit your face. Let the road noise drown out the digital noise. Let your mind roam without interruption.
Do this once or twice a week and you’ll start noticing better thinking, calmer emotions, stronger focus, less compulsive phone checking, and more creative ideas
9. Meditation & Breathwork — the “manual override” for your nervous system
Listen;
Number 1 reason most people are so addicted to cheap dopamine, which later fucks up their focus & concentration is that they can’t sit alone with their thoughts
The idea is simply too scary..
So they prefer relying on those distractions to escape & not to face the things they should be facing. & that’s why big part of fixing your focus & concentration comes from making peace with your thoughts.
Thus the next point is on the importance of meditation & breathwork. A manual override for your attention system. Not mystical. Not woo-woo. Just neuroscience in action.
When you meditate even 5–10 minutes a day you’re training the exact circuits that modern life is destroying:
sustained attention
peace with your thoughts
impulse control
awareness without reaction
emotional regulation
the ability to notice a distraction and not chase it
It’s reps for your mind. The same way lifting builds muscle, meditation builds peace & attentional strength.
Breathwork is the fast-acting version. It shifts your state within minutes.
A couple cycles of slow inhales and extended exhales tells your nervous system:
“You’re safe. You can focus. You don’t need to freak out.”
It lowers cortisol. Stabilizes your heart rate. Calms the noise. Sharpens the mind. A type of reset button you can use anywhere — in your car, bathroom, office, whatever.
Plus; you don’t need some elaborate ritual or 40-minute session to benefit. In fact I wrote a complete guide breathwork - from the basics you can start with to the more advanced techniques (you should really go through it)
My point is meditation & breathwork work because they teach you the most valuable skill in a distracted world: to sit with yourself without running away.
Once you can do that, everything else — reading, deep work, focus, discipline — becomes ten times easier.