Why can't I focus?

Concentration has been defined as "the ability to direct one's thinking in whatever direction one would intend". Poor concentration yields poor results. And achieving poor results causes us to worry about why things are not happening the way we wished. This reflects in our performance in other tasks as well. Not just that, this vicious circle causes strain in relationships leading to irritability and anger. There are a number of physiological and emotional factors that are responsible for lack of concentration.

Some physiological conditions are:

• Lack Of Sleep
• Insufficient Exercise
• Vitamin deficiency or hormonal imbalance
• Medicines like antidepressants, antihistamines, and mild sedatives can cause you to feel light-headed at times
• Poor eating habits, extreme dieting, and excessive indulgence can stop you from being active and impact clarity
• People with attention deficit normally have extremely active minds that make them lose focus very often.

Some emotional conditions are:

• Poor job satisfaction can lead to procrastination, poor concentration, and poor performance at work
• Excessive stress makes it harder to focus on other tasks at hand
• Technology overload leads to unnecessary distraction.
• Changing habits like smoking, heavy smoking, as well as sudden nicotine withdrawal has been attributed to difficulty in concentration
• Anxiety overload makes it harder to concentrate on other tasks, because the mind is pent upon sorting out the problem at hand

Find out which conditions affect your concentration and deal with them systematically to improve your focus.