Geo,
What helps me is standing up straight and looking at a statue or an icon. I usually kneel for my Rosary, but especially in the morning, I find standing in front of my little altar in my room helps me to wake up in the morning. Prostrations help, as do bowing and other reverential gestures, because they get my body into what my spirit is trying to say to God. If you have a bad back or other physical malady, maybe you can do something that is appropriate for you...crossing yourself like the Byzantines do, or whatever else.
St. Teresa of Avila (my God, I love her) once said, - with classicly robust vocabulary - that her mind was like a wild horse that she could not tame. She just could not pay attention at times. It was this fact that made her very much an iconodule; she loved pious pictures and exhorted her nuns to look at them, to recollect their minds and to help them get in the spirit of prayer. Her method of recollection is also very helpful.
One thing about the Desert Fathers is that many of them did not pray long, but they prayed often. This is what keeps the attention on God, keeping the commandment to pray always, yet not slipping into long-windedness and tiring the soul; even the soul, being one with our body, needs rest from the sometimes stressful activity of prayer (especially when it is dry, and arid) and maybe a nice walk, or reading, or whatever else helps you to meditate or recreate yourself, may be in order.
Maybe you should ask a Priest or maybe, if you are so blessed, a Confessor, about how you can improve your prayer life?
... psychological power just thinking of it. 
