How do you improve concentration during prayer?

Salaam alykum,

You can do different things, here are just a bunch of suggestions off the top of my head:

– Take your time, stay in sujud longer, recite your Fatiha and other Surah clearly and slowly, think about the words, and if you don’t know what they mean, look it over in The Qur’an, and remember the general outlines while you are reciting the words.

– Close your eyes during prayer. While it is preferred to keep your eyes open, if it helps your concentration, it is considered perfectly permissible to do so, and it’s something I do a lot, actually. (For evidence of this, please refer to this post, insha Allah)

– Make prayer a time for you to share your fears and worries with God. This isn’t just a time for you to show devotion, but it’s also a time to “catch up” with God. Sure, God knows what’s going on with you all the time, but, we’re human and telling someone feels good, ask for guidance on these issues.

– Make prayer a sort of “time out” from other stuff. Are you overwhelmed by things? Take a step back, pray, even if there isn’t a prayer you have to pray at the time, pray two quick rakaat, just for yourself, for your mindset. If you make prayer part of your process of feeling better, you can hold onto it stronger. I mean, we stress eat, or go to Tumblr to worry about things. Why should prayer be different?

– Go to a quiet place, if you can, to pray. Make sure you’re not near a TV or your computer, sometimes those things can keep your attention, even when you’re praying, because you’re thinking about that email or whatever.

I’m sure there are more, but these are just the things that I can think of, off the top of my head, so I hope this helps, insha Allah.