Have you ever found yourself spacing out while practicing? Where you suddenly “come to” and realize that your fingers have been moving, but you have no idea what you’ve been working on?
Maintaining focus and concentration is a common challenge in the practice room.
When asked, my advice has generally been something along the lines of making sure you have clear goals for each practice session and for each repetition. Or, practicing at a more personally optimal time of day, taking a nap, or making the most of your practice breaks.
But as useful as these strategies can be, they all take some time, planning, or effort. Meanwhile, there’s one pretty obvious thing that has been conspicuously absent from my list of suggestions. So obvious, in fact, that once you find out what it is, you may be tempted to stop reading.
But this should probably be the first thing we try if our mind starts feeling fuzzy and we’re having difficulty staying on-task.
What is this thing exactly?
A drink of water.
Yeah, I know. Totally boring. But here’s the thing. We all know how much of an impact hydration can have on physical performance, but we tend not to think of its impact on mental performance.
And research suggests that being slightly dehydrated could have a more noticeable impact on our ability to concentrate, make decisions, and problem-solve than you’d think.
How much of a difference, you ask?
A meta-analysis
A pair of researchers scoured the literature for all the studies they could find related to cognitive performance and hydration. Altogether, there were 33 that met their criteria (e.g. healthy adult subjects, measured before/after changes, etc.).
After combining all the data from these studies, they found that being mildly dehydrated (which is probably where you’re at if you’re thirsty) had a significant impact on some aspects of cognitive performance.
Lower-order processes, like reaction time, weren’t affected all that much. But higher-order processes like attention, executive function, and motor coordination – the kinds of processes that are needed for effective practice – did take a hit.
Ok, but how meaningful of a difference was there? Are we talking about a tiny, statistically-significant-but-practically-trivial difference? Or a difference that’s meaningful enough to affect our productivity in the practice room?
A couple clues
There aren’t any studies (that I’m aware of) that have looked specifically at the impact of hydration on practice room effectiveness or on-stage performance. But there are a couple in some other areas of performance that could give us some inkling of the potential impact.
Card games
One study had a dozen participants engage in a variety of card-game-like challenges ranging from easy to difficult.
They were first tested on a typical day, asked only to make a note of whenever they drank water.
Then, weeks later, they were tested again – but while deprived of water.
Some weeks later, they were tested a third and final time – but with water provided to make sure they were properly hydrated1.
As expected, being dehydrated led to a significant drop in performance. Specifically, they made about 12% more errors. But when they were properly hydrated on the final test, their performance went back to normal.
Exam performance
In another study, this time of 447 university psychology students, researchers found that those who brought water to an exam scored about 5% higher (i.e. half a letter grade) than those who didn’t.
It’s possible, of course, that it wasn’t necessarily the water that was directly responsible for the grade difference (here’s a fun website that illustrates the danger of relying too heavily on correlational data), even though the researchers did control for students’ academic performance in previous coursework. Nevertheless, the finding is consistent with what other researchers have found in similar studies.
Take action
So how much water is enough? And how often should we be hydrating?
Well, the NCAA’s recommendations for athletes are:
I’m not sure what adaptations would have to be made for musicians. But a friend once experimented with drinking a glass or two of water a couple hours before performing, and then a few sips shortly before. It’s hard to quantify the difference, but they reported feeling much better on stage, and thought it was an important element to add to their day-of-performance gameplan.
Everyone’s ideal hydration “formula” will obviously be a bit different, but I’d be curious to hear if you’ve ever followed a hydration plan for performances, rehearsals, or practicing. What have you found most helpful for you?
Or, perhaps more intriguingly, has anyone experimented with having a student drink some water before a lesson to see how that might affect their level of concentration and focus? Especially if they’re coming from a long day of school, after which their brain is already a little fried?
12 Responses
I have gone and gotten a glass of water for a student several times who was unable to focus or yawning. He comes straight from school where he barely drinks all day. It makes a huge difference for him!
Ah, cool. Thanks for sharing, Amy!
Thank you for another useful post. One possible mechanism: “[water] increases the activity of the sympathetic — fight or flight — nervous system, which raises alertness, blood pressure and energy expenditure.” https://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporter/index.html?ID=9047
So what about food? More specifically: to snack or not to snack?
Good question…I’ll have to look and see what I can find, but anecdotally, I remember reading about a chess player who was advised to eat a certain number of almonds every so many minutes during chess matches to keep their energy up.
Dr. Kageyama,
You wrote, “A drink of water. Yeah, I know. Totally boring.”
Do other liquids such as juice (no added sugar), soda/pop, or milk have any hydration benefit?
Thanks!
Hmm…not sure. This is just a guess, but I’m assuming juice and soda would be less than ideal, as regular ‘ol juice still has quite a bit of sugar in it. Milk is kind of an interesting one though, as there is some research on the effectiveness of chocolate milk as a post-workout recovery drink in lieu of Gatorade and other sports drinks. Of course, that has more to do with physical recovery though, than mental focus or concentration…
Same question for coffe and tea. Thanks!
I’m by no means an expert on caffeine, but as a mild stimulant, caffeinated coffee and tea would probably enhance concentration – though presumably through a different mechanism than water. Of course, I wouldn’t feel very comfortable recommending coffee/tea specifically for the purposes of enhancing concentration, given the negatives of being over-caffeinated…
Based on recent medical advice for a family member, coffee & tea contribute to dehydration. An EXTRA glass of water was recommended for each cup of a caffeinated beverage.
This is pretty interesting. I noticed this a couple of months ago in the practice room and at my lesson. I usually have a cup of tea before my practice and then sip on water through out. When I don’t do this I feel more agitated with my playing and tire out quickly. On lesson days if I forget my bottled water I definitely know my finger response is slower and it is harder to focus. Plus when the lesson is done I am terribly thirsty. Thanks for the article
This is huge. When they come from school, where most aren’t allowed to drink (or go to the bathroom) they are almost all very dehydrated. I begin lessons with simple questions. If they can’t answer them, I walk straight to the kitchen and get them a large glass and wait for them to drink. Within about 3 minutes they can function again. At the end of the afternoon of a good day of lessons my sink is filled with glasses. Bad lesson days are days I forgot to get them water.
At my workplace (a smelter, which is a very hot environment) there is a huge focus on hydration and I personally notice a big difference in my mental clarity and focus from being hydrated. Our occupational hygienist advises us to drink between 40 to 80 mL per kg of body weight every day, depending on if you’re just in the office or out doing heavy manual work. Caffeine and alcohol are diuretics so will actually reduce your hydration level. Weak juice or cordial is fine but water is best.