Imagine this. You're at your desk with a hot drink going cold, staring at a multi-coloured Outlook calendar that looks, frankly, ambitious, and you actually want to get things done. For real, the intention is there.
Yet, in the last half hour you've re-read the same email twice, opened at least three tabs, almost immediately forgetting why, and reorganised your to-do list into a Kanban board and colour-coded all the cards instead of doing a single task on it. Your brain is pacing the proverbial perimeter like a caffeinated duck rather than actually sitting down to work. 🦆
The productivity industry will tell you that you are the problem. Obviously you need better systems, stronger habits, earlier mornings, and more willpower to get things done, not to mention a fully integrated Notion setup, and possibly a 5am ice bath after your 4am workout (obviously you got to bed by 8pm last night, right?). 🙄 The unspoken message is always that you are, on some fundamental level, defective, and that the fix is to squeeze harder.
However, nobody selling you a course on how to be a better you will tell you that lacking focus isn't purely a discipline problem. Willpower, although real, is not an infinite tap you can crank open if you just believe hard enough. A lot of the time, "I can't focus" is your nervous system waving a little flag, crying that it needs something, and that something isn't another oat-milk flat white.
So instead of wondering why you're so lazy (you're not, btw), try asking yourself what your body might actually need, given that your focus isn't focusing.
(New here? This is what I mean by anti-wellness wellness.)
Here are four possibilities, all backed by actual research, and none of which involve a Gantt chart.
1. Your brain and body may be asking you to move
Let's start with the one that sounds like a punishment. Go for a run, or a walk, or an angry stomp, or do an aggressive little dance in the kitchen. Whatever. Just move your damn body for twenty minutes. 💪
It may feel, when you can't concentrate, like exercise is the last thing for which you have bandwidth. I mean, you could be putting that time to better use, right? But this isn't a wellness-influencer "just go for a hot girl walk, bestie" suggestion. 😒 Moving your body measurably changes what your brain can do next.
In a 2015 study, researchers had healthy adults do a single bout of vigorous aerobic exercise and then tested their brains. Acute exercise improved performance on tasks that depend on the prefrontal cortex, the bit of your brain responsible for exactly the stuff you're faltering at right now, namely planning, decision-making, holding things in mind, and not becoming distracted by a shiny rectangle (Basso et al., 2015). This is because exercise ramps up arousal, blood flow, and the brain chemistry that keeps your prefrontal cortex online, so you come back with thoughts that feel less sticky and a brain with a texture marginally less like scrambled egg, not to mention alleviating some of the associated stress (Basso & Suzuki, 2017).
You just have to move, and let your brain reboot while you're not thinking about it.
2. Your brain may be asking for sunlight
Go outside, and leave your phone (and its bottomless supply of other people's opinions) at home (so no, not a Productive Walking Meeting, and not just "getting your steps in"). Relish your time outside like a Victorian baby being aired (this was actually a thing!). ☀️
Morning light is the single strongest signal your body clock uses to work out what time it is, determining how alert you feel for the rest of the day. Get that light at the right time of day and the whole system runs to schedule; get it at the wrong times (dim mornings, bright screens at night), and you reliably wreck your sleep, alertness and mood (Blume et al., 2019). It's the bright, blue-wave-enriched morning light that sharpens alertness and mood, while suppressing melatonin (the hormone that makes you feel like a sedated houseplant; Choi et al., 2019).
When you get proper daylight into your eyes early in the day, it signals to your brain, in no uncertain terms, that it's daytime and focus is back on the menu. Modern life has inverted this elegant system; we spend our brightest hours indoors under weak artificial light, then blast our eyeballs with bright screens at midnight, feeling baffled when our brains can't work out whether to concentrate or nap. 😵💫
3. Your brain and body may very well be hungry... and thirsty...
Controversial nutritional advice incoming: eat some actual food, and stop treating coffee as a food group. ☕
Your brain runs on a fairly steady supply of glucose, and is pretty fussy about it. Spike your blood sugar with something beige and sugary, and you'll experience a glorious high followed by the 3pm crash under whose influence you'd sell state secrets for a nap on the pavement. 🥱 What your brain needs to focus is stable fuel, the slow-release kind that doesn't send you up like a firework and down like a sack of wet sand.
A meta-analysis by Gaylor et al. (2022) on breakfast and cognition found that a low-glycaemic-load breakfast is linked to better episodic memory a couple of hours later, once the initial sugar hit has worn off and the crash would otherwise hit. You probably also need to drink some water; dehydration is the sneakiest focus-killer of the lot. Being just 2% dehydrated (easily done on a coffee-only day) is enough to impair attention and short-term memory measurably (Adan, 2012).
4. Your brain and body may need a hug
Go and cuddle your dog, cat, or furkid of choice, someone with a pulse and no KPIs, who is utterly convinced that you are the centre of the universe. 🐶
This may sound ridiculous, but it is extremely well-documented and evidenced that human-animal interaction is associated with lower cortisol (your primary stress hormone), lower heart rate and blood pressure, less self-reported anxiety, and better mood, with the bonding hormone oxytocin doing a lot of the heavy lifting (Beetz et al., 2012). In one study where blood samples were taken, owners who spent a few minutes stroking their dog showed a rise in oxytocin and, over the following hour, a measurable drop in heart rate (Handlin et al., 2011). Gentle touch and connection tell your autonomic nervous system it's safe, and a nervous system that feels safe is one that can finally stop scanning for threats and get on with some deep work.
This is the point the "grind harder" cult completely misses. Focus doesn't respond to force, it responds to safety, and you can't white-knuckle your way to calm. No pet? A hug from a human, a warm shower, or a proper conversation with a loved one all nudge the same system. The point is connection over cortisol.
Seeing a trend here...
Notice what all four of these have in common? Each one tends to your basic biology, instead of cracking a whip at you like a slave driver, to go harder and faster.
When you can't focus, you're probably tired, or wired, or under-fuelled, or running low on the daylight your circadian system evolved to expect, and the connection that tells your body it's safe. In the absence of these, it searches for the nearest escape route, which is usually some shitty processed snack loaded with sugar and E-numbers, and/or a lengthy doomscroll. That productivity cult will tell you to be more disciplined, but maybe you should start listening to your body, giving it what it needs, and letting focus appear on its own.
Next time you catch yourself staring blankly out the window wondering where the last ninety minutes went, instead of reaching for that Kanban board, reach for your running shoes and go for a trot, reach for a sunbeam, or a decent lunch, or the comfort of a warm creature. The most effective focus hack might be the least productive-looking thing you do all day. ✨
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The research referenced in this post:
Adan, A. (2012). Cognitive performance and dehydration. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 31(2), 71–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.2012.10720011
Basso, J. C., Shang, A., Elman, M., Karmouta, R., & Suzuki, W. A. (2015). Acute exercise improves prefrontal cortex but not hippocampal function in healthy adults. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 21(10), 791–801. https://doi.org/10.1017/S135561771500106X
Basso, J. C., & Suzuki, W. A. (2017). The effects of acute exercise on mood, cognition, neurophysiology, and neurochemical pathways: A review. Brain Plasticity, 2(2), 127–152. https://doi.org/10.3233/BPL-160040
Beetz, A., Uvnäs-Moberg, K., Julius, H., & Kotrschal, K. (2012). Psychosocial and psychophysiological effects of human-animal interactions: The possible role of oxytocin. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 234. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00234
Blume, C., Garbazza, C., & Spitschan, M. (2019). Effects of light on human circadian rhythms, sleep and mood. Somnologie, 23(3), 147–156. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11818-019-00215-x
Choi, K., Shin, C., Kim, T., Chung, H. J., & Suk, H.-J. (2019). Awakening effects of blue-enriched morning light exposure on university students' physiological and subjective responses. Scientific Reports, 9, 345. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-36791-5
Gaylor, C. M., Benton, D., Brennan, A., & Young, H. A. (2022). The impact of glycaemic load on cognitive performance: A meta-analysis and guiding principles for future research. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 141, 104824. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104824
Handlin, L., Hydbring-Sandberg, E., Nilsson, A., Ejdebäck, M., Jansson, A., & Uvnäs-Moberg, K. (2011). Short-term interaction between dogs and their owners: Effects on oxytocin, cortisol, insulin and heart rate: An exploratory study. Anthrozoös, 24(3), 301–315. https://doi.org/10.2752/175303711X13045914865385
P.S. If your brain is too fried even to attempt any of the above, that's usually the sign you most need to. The free Reclaim Your Boring protocol offers seven days of low-effort, screen-free nudges to give your overstimulated brain a rest.
P.P.S. Still knackered despite "resting" every night? You might be confusing scrolling with rest. They are not the same thing, and your brain knows it.
P.P.P.S. I post about burnout, mild anxiety and the general chaos of being a person online, minus the toxic positivity, over on Instagram. Come say hi. 🦆
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