Mindfulness.com
Meditation
See all Meditation

Browse

Top articles

How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners

10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation

What is Meditation?

Mindful LivingSleep
CommunityFor Work

Taking an Attention Diet

Melli O'Brien

00:00

00:00

Melli O'Brien

4.8

Duration

Scan the following QR code with your camera app to open it on your phone

Taking an Attention Diet

Personalized support for learning how to integrate mindfulness into your life. Delivered fresh everyday by our world renowned experts. Choose meditation duration:

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today, I'm going to talk about the

idea of taking an attention diet.

So these days it's been said that

our attention is under siege.

There are a few ways in which our

attention is really being pulled at.

First, there's just a massive amount of

stuff to pay attention to these days.

And just the more stuff there is to

pay attention to, the more difficult

it is to choose what to focus on.

And it's not only that is it?

Because these days it's also really

easy to find your attention being

pulled into consuming, what I

would call, just mental junk food.

Whether it's scrolling on your

phone, surfing the web, flicking

magazine pages, or just being

buffeted by marketing messages.

You know, in the same way that a lot of

junk food can harm our bodies, the huge

growth of junk information in the past

decades has really been bad for our minds.

So if you care to experiment with

the idea of taking an attention

diet, here's how it can work.

It's really simple.

The diet has two parts.

One is to consume just less information in

general, but especially junk information.

And then that can open up a little more

space in your life for other things.

And two, you know, it's really

decide to deliberately find highly

nutritious, uplifting sources of

healthy information and build your

habits in your life around them.

So the attention diet works very,

very similar to a nutritional diet

by cutting out a lot of unhelpful

consumption for a period of time.

Your body and mind adjusts and

becomes healthier and stronger.

And often, eventually you just no

longer crave so much for a fix of

the junk because your whole system

has kind of recalibrated how good

it feels to stop consuming it.

So if you're interested in giving

this a try, the kinds of stuff

that you might think of as junk

information is information that's

sensational, emotionally charged,

stuff that really isn't important,

helpful, or useful to you.

And also any of those addictive loops

where you find yourself just scrolling,

clicking, or watching without being

fully conscious of what you're doing.

Now offline in the real world, junk

information might be gossip, unhelpful

relationships or environments or

people who don't treat you well.

So, and the nutritious information that

you might want to increase is information

that's reliable, well thought out,

helpful to you and relevant to your life.

Nutritious information

uplifts you, supports your

personal growth and wellbeing.

And informs you about things

that are really important

for you to know in your life.

Now in the real world, nutritious

connections are often with

people who treat you well, where

there's mutual trust and respect.

People who speak thoughtfully

and kindly and make you feel

better when you're around them.

Similarly, environments such

as being in nature, being in a

supportive community group, these

can make a big difference too.

So if this sounds like it might be of

benefit to you in your life where you're

at right now, I invite you to have a

little experiment with this this week.

You might like to change only one

or two small things in your diet.

But you might also feel like

you want to do a bigger change.

I'll leave that up to you.

But whatever you decide, I

wish you really well with this.

And I hope it leaves you feeling more

uplifted, clear-headed, and happy.

Thank you for your practice

and your presence here with us.

And now let's settle in

for today's meditation.

Get Unlimited Access

Start your mindfulness journey today.

A Mindfulness Plus+ subscription gives you unlimited access to a world of premium mindfulness content.

  • Over 1,800 meditations, sleep, calm music, naturescapes and more
  • Daily mindfulness video meditations 365 days a year
  • 100s of courses and tools to help manage anxiety, sleep and stress

Email Missing

We couldn’t detect your email with the SSO provider you have selected.
or

Mindfulness Guarantee

We are here to make a positive impact on the world. We never want to sell you something that hasn’t helped you live a better life. That’s why if you’re unhappy with any purchase from us, you have 30 days to get a full refund and your money back.

If you subscribed to Mindfulness Plus+ and are unhappy with your purchase, please get in contact with us within the 30-day period and we’ll refund your purchase.


Learn more about our Mindfulness Guarantee.

Mindfulness

Bring balance into your everyday life.

We believe in a world where everybody has access to the life-changing skills of mindfulness.

  • 2,000+ Guided Meditations
  • Daily Coaching
  • Sleep Content
  • Mindful Exercises
  • Mindful Radio
  • 10+ Courses from world-class teachers

Private Browsing

Added to your cart!

Checkout

Claim your free access

Create a mindfulness account and we’ll unlock this premium session in your account forever.

or continue with
By continuing, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Do you already have an account?

Start a free trial to play this session

7-Days free trial, cancel anytime.

Start 7-Day Free Trial

Finish personalizing your account

Complete a few quick questions to make your own personalized mindfulness plan.