How to concentrate?

Good study habits are what separate the good students from the mediocre. It's natural to not want to study; especially when there are video games to play, friends to gossip with and TiVo to watch. After a good study session, you will enjoy all those activities even more. Besides, developing your concentration is it's own reward in that it helps make you a calmer, smarter person for life.

Here are some tips:

Pick a spot to study. If you find the right place and keep coming back to it, you will condition your brain to focus when the time comes to crack the books. Find a place where you can spread out your materials. Think about whether you concentrate best in complete seclusion or with some background activity. Any location you pick should be well lighted and ventilated.

Choose a time to study. Everybody has points in the day when they are sharpest, whether be in the calm morning hours or after a workout. To develop good study habits, start at the same time each day and plan your other activities around this period.

Minimize distractions, including cell phones, email and social networking sites. Noise is okay if you need the sound of music or television in the background; if you need total silence, invest in ear plugs. If you are distracted by shiny objects, keep your head down so you see only the page in front of you. Just think, the better your concentration, the sooner you'll be done.

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I have this happen at times when I am overly stressed. To help myself in this I will just stop what I am doing and go for a bike ride. Fresh air will clear your head. Then you can think better. Also he might be drinking to much caffeine. And you can have this problem if you aren't eating enough.

This is a very common problem. Meditation is a very good cure but very few are willing to practice it. Atleast among students. So maybe he can do this easy thing.
Touch the tip of thumb finger to the tip of index finger. He can practise this whenever and wherever possible with both hands or one hand. Suppose he is watching tv, he can just hold out both hands in that mudra, that is called a mudra and it will improve his concentration by a great deal. Atleast 20 minutes per day initially whenever possible would benefit a lot. Later on he can hold out that mudra for longer.And when he sits to study also he can keep one hand like that and use the other hand to turn pages etc. I gained my concentration like this. Even I used to have very poor concentration.

This is a question of discipline of the mind. If he wanders during reading have him try reading for shorter periods of time. If he is studying for testing then have him hand write the questions, this causes both side of the mind to get involved.
He can also read a bit then write questions to be asked about what he just read. It should not take long if he does this, he is training his mind and unless he has a great deal of stress or a drug problem this should work quickly. Another thing he can do is read out loud to himself and then ask himself questions about what he read.
Good luck to him