What kind of health advice is good for improving focus on a mentally intensive task when there are too many distractions that cannot be eliminated?
Eat less? This can be good if you are eating too much and the fullness makes it hard to concentrate.
But not too little, because then you run out of energy for your brain.
If you do moderate exercise, rather than intensive exercise, this is probably ideal because (1) because you don’t consume a lot of energy during the exercise.
You can get a few inches more of concentration.
Pull out eat more or eat less as a factor.
Rather than take naps in the middle of the day, you may want to instead make sure all your breaks are moderate exercise like going on a short walk. Then make sure your nighttime sleeps are a regular amount, not too much and not too little. Take a short break every hour, and a few longer breaks during the day. Then figure out how much you need to eat and how frequently to satisfy this regime. Keep your electrolytes balanced.
More exercise / less exercise. Take a short break for light exercise every hour, and a few longer breaks during the day. It could be as simple as walking around. Moderate exercise is probably best because it avoids exhausting you but also still helps your brain regenerate neurotransmitters.
So considering everyone covered everything I would otherwise say here, I think the decision tree to improve concentration should be something like this.
- More exercise / less exercise
- More music / less music
- Meditation
- Vitamins / supplements / replenish electrolyte
- Eating more / eating less
- Sleeping more / sleeping less
- Less caffeine / more caffeine
- Other drug XYZ
In any case, start with the least expensive, least risky, and most effective mitigations first.
And then with those high-level constraints in place, you can o.
You might consider eating less because moderate exercise helps your body metabolize more types of energy sources.
You might consider sleeping less because with moderate exercise, the additional energy sources and regeneration of neurotransmitters causes your brain to not tire out as quickly and not require as much sleep time to regenerate.
Meditation - Tai Chi is a good way to take a moderate exercise break between the hours.