I don’t know about you, but I am having a lot of difficulty concentrating these days. That means my writing suffers from a lack of sustainable attention and focus many days. My focus is darting here and there, trying to find sense, calm, order in a world that is not making sense, is not calm, and is creating chaos. I keep telling myself I ought to be able to focus, yet I struggle. I imagine that many other creatives (no matter what you create) share this inability these days. So for this week’s post, I decided I would research what robs us of focus and if and how we can restore our focus.
What Robs Us of Focus?
Most people respond to this question with electronics as the one and only answer. More specifically, our smart phones. And that is true for many of us. But it goes both wider and deeper than that.
What we choose to surround ourselves with.
Electronics in every room and on your person. Carrying our smart phone or smart watch everywhere means we feel the need to be in constant contact, repeatedly checking social media or email or text messages.
Algorithms that trigger our dopamine with tiny hits over and over power online stores and social media. We crave those dopamine hits, so we keep scrolling. Even being aware of the purpose of the algorithms, it’s difficult to stop scrolling.
Not prioritizing our writing/creative project.
If we don’t prioritize our writing over everything except life and death situations, our brains will always be on the alert for interruptions. By allowing interruptions to our writing time, we fail to guard our time, and we practice being less focused.
How we choose to spend time.
Closely related to prioritizing our writing, if we choose to use our time in things that use up our energy, that’s a focus stealer. Of course, we want to and need to have connections with friends and family. But helping your church or your PTA or whatever with a project uses time, energy, focus, and creativity that you should use writing or creating.
Our environment.
The physical things that surround us affect our concentration even without the internet. Too many things in one space are distracting. Clutter is an easy distraction. You think, oh, I need to …. But even a neat and organized space that has a lot of objects can be distracting.
Noise.
Noise pollution is real. It’s distracting. Noise comes from your “roommates,” the apartment upstairs (or downstairs), or the television/stereo/radio across the room. Loud motors or ticking clocks or dripping sinks are distracting. In urban settings, there is environmental noise 24/7.
Activity levels that do not support our brain functions, nor our body.
Our brains need physical exercise in order to get the blood pumping. We need the physical exercise so we breathe deeper and the blood will carry more oxygen to our brains. Scientists are learning more and more about how exercise helps boost our memory and thinking skills. You can read more at Harvard.edu.
Lack of Sleep.
Sleep is essential to our bodies and our brains. It’s not just that we get rest. Sleep is when our body does its best repair work. Too little or interrupted sleep or poor quality sleep means your body does not get in all the repair work your body needs. That means you do not think, focus, or create as well as you could.
Eating patterns that do not support the brain.
Research shows that diets with healthier fats and a variety of plant foods rich in phytonutrients are good for maximizing our memory and thinking. There’s still a lot we need to learn, but you can read more at Mayo Clinic Health System.
Chaos.
There are many types of chaos. In fact, it’s a part of nearly all the things that ruin our focus. In our 24/7 news world, there is always chaos somewhere. The chaos we can do little on a personal level to change is that caused by governmental decisions and societal changes. From politics we don’t like, to outright war, these sources of chaos can increase difficulties focusing.
When you turn on the news, you are allowing some chaos into your life via the radio, television, or the internet. Some of it is necessary. You need to know about changes that affect your personal safety and security. The only control you might have over this type of chaos is how much and how often you allow this chaos to affect your daily life. (If you are in a war zone, I pray for you, for cooler heads to prevail, and for the life-threatening chaos that surrounds you to be resolved in a way that brings you stability.)
School Systems that Harm Sustained Attention.
Changing classes or subjects every 30-45 minutes barely allows young people to focus on what topic is being discussed. Rote memorization for tests is setting up children to think and act as if knowing this long enough to pass the test is all that’s needed. Not allowing children (even teens) to have regular periods of their choice of physical activity is denying a physical need they have. That need competes for their attention if you do not allow them a break. This can be true for adults as well.
Work Environments that Ruin Sustained Attention.
Your boss may want you to sit at your desk for eight hours a day but also schedules meetings, interruptions by others, and gives you more than one assignment at a time. Those are not conducive to developing sustained focus.
Your work environment, a shared office or a “bull-pen” type of office space, can also significantly affect your ability to sustain focus.
A Full-time Job.
For most of us, having a full-time job is an economic necessity. This is one of those focus stealers many of us cannot avoid.
Relationships.
Another unavoidable focus stealer is our loved ones. Connection with other humans is essential to our mental health, so we often change our focus based on what someone else needs. (Parenting anyone?) The more those stolen moments happen, the more we develop the habit of being interrupted, of changing our focus. This robs us of the ability to sustain attention and focus for longer periods of time.
Multi-tasking.
There are those of us who must multi-focus – parents, medical professionals in the hospital setting, and a host of other occupations and trades and situations. But studies have shown that multi-tasking is a myth. We simply cannot focus our attention on more than one thing at a time. What our brains are doing in reality is switching. It switches its attention from one activity to another. Switching means a loss of focus. Repeatedly attempting to do more than one thing at a time trains our brains to lose focus frequently.
Stress.
Studies have shown that not only can chronic stress put you at higher risk for dementia (including Alzheimer’s disease), heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, it can actually damage your brain. Long-term stress decreases the size and function of your prefrontal cortex, the area of brain responsible for learning, memory, and your ability to plan, organize, start, and execute goal-directed behaviors.
Aging.
Our thinking abilities begin a slow decline, starting in our mid-twenties to early thirties. Normal age changes in our brain are subtle. Our ability to process thoughts, to switch focus (multi-tasking), and make quick decisions slows. It gradually becomes more difficult to hold information in our minds, to find words (our speech or written words), and to sustain focus. Scientists studying this phenomenon believe this is because we lose brain cells, making our brains physically smaller, which makes it function slower.
Where Do We Go from Here?
We have created within ourselves a habit of not focusing. Does this mean we can no longer focus ever? Fortunately, it does not mean that. But it means we are going to have to do some work to retrain our attention and focus “muscles.” It means we’re going to have to look at ourselves and our behaviors and be uncomfortable with the fact that these are choices we’ve made.
Unfortunately, many of us aren’t free to make some choices. So can we still focus? And how do we sustain our focus and attention in a world where everywhere we turn, something or someone demands our attention? Many of us think we don’t have a choice. In most situations, there are things we can do, choices we can make that will help us focus. We may have limited options sometimes, but focusing on those limits prevents us from seeing opportunities for improvement. So let’s focus instead on what we have “the right” to do.
The Right to Choose Your Environment
I came from a family where chaos was ever present. Mental health issues, economic issues, abuse, and frequent moves made certain of that. Thanks to professionals, I have had some clarity about my childhood for years. However, researching this blog post, I had a revelation about some of my behaviors. For example, I loathe a schedule. Whether it’s bedtime, or when I work, or even when I feed myself, I resist a schedule most of the time. I am aware a schedule would make certain aspects of my life better, but every time I follow a schedule for a week or two, I end up rebelling against the schedule so much that it falls by the wayside. And trying to get back to a schedule? Forgetaboutit.
Then I read this excerpt from Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. “When I was in my late twenties, I worked obsessively, almost every waking hour. I had grown up in a chaotic environment where there was a lot of instability and some extreme acts of violence, and I think I had learned to cope by building my own mental treadmill of endless production and achievement. But like all coping strategies for unacknowledged wounds, it was never quite enough–I always wanted to be working more, to be achieving more. I was working every hour I could, and I begrudged the time that sleep took from me.” Whoo boy. Did I ever recognize myself in that!
All my adult life, I have created a chaotic environment so that I can use my coping skill of endless production and achievement. That is not a comfortable statement to make in private, much less here on this public page. But I know I am not the only one who does this without knowing it. And now that I know it?
Well, changing such ingrained coping mechanisms will not be easy, but recognizing what I am doing is a start. To help me continue to recognize those behaviors, I have a sign above my desk that says, “Choose stability.”
A chaotic environment doesn’t just come from a damaged childhood. Many of us live with one or more others. Whether they are roommates or family members., a shared environment will never be something you can control 100% of the time.
You can choose to go to a library or any other place that you find calming. Use noise cancelling headphones. Set up a space that is your creative area, even if it’s only a closet. Use a candle or music or recorded beta waves to help you focus. Choose activities and places that support your ability to focus as much as you can.
The Right to Disconnect
Did you know there are “right to disconnect” laws for employees? A study in Australia revealed Australian workers were doing an average of 5.4 hours of unpaid work per week. Often, the subject’s employer contacted them via text or other messaging systems after normal work hours. This expectation employers have of an employee’s availability at any time of day causes headaches, eyestrain, insomnia, back pain, anxiety, and burnout. Employers’ expectations steal employees’ time with their families and personal lives after work. And Australia isn’t the only place where this happens.
France passed the first “right to disconnect” laws in 2017. Australia, Belgium, Germany, and at least eight more countries have passed similar laws. The laws of each vary on how it handles compliance monitoring and enforcement.
There is no such federal law in the U.S. Though some states have or are working on passing a right to disconnect law.
You may or may not have a legal right to disconnect, but you have choices. You can speak to your employer and negotiate a disconnect time. Or, you can control how often you check your messages and how much of your attention you give to your family or your creative project.
The Right to Let Your Mind Wander
For some of us, you may only have the ten minutes you’re in the shower, but be sure to take those ten minutes. Allowing your thoughts to wander enables your brain to make new connections between ideas, to explore different perspectives and options. That is creativity folks. And that supports your focus when you pay attention to your creative work.
The Right to Eat for Your Health
Educating yourself on healthier food choices is something you can control. We can’t all afford fresh fruits and vegetables or the best meats. One or all those choices may not even be available to us. But making better choices, even if they aren’t perfect, can help you move toward a healthy way of eating.
The Right to Get Enough Sleep
No, it’s not an arbitrary number you get to choose. And please know, that just because you’ve been doing it so long that you have an automatic wake up time, doesn’t mean it’s the best you can do. Science has given us a range that is healthy. Make certain the sleep you get is quality sleep and an amount that is scientifically known to be good for you. If you’ve never tried it before, start with small steps. Go to bed thirty minutes earlier or get up thirty minutes later. Once that becomes a habit, you can add more time. No matter how small a step, get started. Every little bit helps.
The Right to be Healthier through Movement
If you haven’t been exercising or you have medical conditions that make exercise more challenging for you, check with your licensed health care professional before you start. Start with something you know you can reasonably do two or three times a week. Even staring with five minutes of intentional movements, such as stretching, walking, or other gentle exercises, will be beneficial. You don’t have to start where you want to be, eventually. Give yourself permission to start small, get consistent, then increase your time or effort. You will think better, focus better, for it.
The Right to Read
Reading is an important health habit for your brain. It not only provides information and/or entertainment, it builds your vocabulary, builds empathy, reduces stress, improves memory, and best of all, it improves your ability to focus. Yay! So reading books is not a time waster, it’s an investment in your creativity, your focus, and your health.
The Right to Protect Yourself from Stress
None of us will live stress-free lives. Even the Caveman had stresses – what am I going to eat, am I safe from predators, where am I going to sleep, etc. So what’s a person to do? First, learn to recognize your stress levels. There are things you can do that are specific to your personality and the level of stress you’re under. My “Recognize Your Stress Levels” post has links to specific tips at the bottom of the post.
Taking it a step further, develop an awareness of those stress levels before you get to the breaking point. Take action on your mounting stress. Find the ways you release stress and use them (without harming yourself or anyone else!)
The Right to Protect Your Aging Brain
Without an immortality pill, some change is inevitable as we age. But we can protect our brains from aging faster or developing more problems with thinking by taking care of it and ourselves.
The top tips recommended by the Weill Institute for Neuroscience at the University of California include: stay away from smoking, get moderate exercise, routine healthcare so you remain in optimum health, maintain excellent cardiovascular health, build social support networks, do activities that challenge you (gardening, playing bridge, reading, etc.), and eat a variety of healthy foods.
Focus and Attention are Vital for Creativity
You already know how important focus and attention are for your ability to be creative. Now you know it’s also important for your health. What you may not have recognized is how many ways modern life steals your focus. Take a minute and consider your life.
What do you do to increase your focus?
What will you use from this post to grow or protect your focus in the future?
Resources
Weill Institute for Neurosciences
Image Credits
Top two images purchased from DepositPhotos.com