When it comes to studying or getting a job done, focus is everything. When we can really focus, we get more done in an hour than we can accomplish in three or four hours when our minds are exhausted and drifting. Working when our minds are focused and fresh is actually pleasurable. Working when we’re feeling burned out and scattered is torture. Wouldn’t it be great if we could understand what it really takes to focus, and bring focus to all of our work? Not only would this allow us to work more efficiently, accomplishing more in less time. It would also give us more time for sleep and recreation, both of which will recharge our batteries and allow us to be even more productive. So what’s the key?

1. Chronic Stress Destroys Focus and Attention

Chronic stress not only undermines physical and emotional health; it also seriously impairs your ability to focus and execute tasks. In Healthy Mind, Healthy Body, we talk about how, in the short term, the stress response actually helps your body cope with physical challenges like infection. The same thing holds true for focus and attention. Have you ever had the experience of trying to get an assignment done ahead of time, only to find that you simply could not get focused and motivated? Try though you might, your mind simply wouldn’t stay on task. So you put the assignment off until the last possible minute.  Once the deadline is looming large and the pressure is on, you sit right down, focus, and knock the assignment out.

The reason that you can focus so easily and work so efficiently at the last minute is that the panic you feel as your deadline approaches kicks your sympathetic nervous system, the master regulator of the stress response, into gear. Your stress chemistry (cortisol, adrenalin) starts flowing, mobilizing energy and resources and upping the levels of brain neurotransmitters like dopamine and epinephrine which are major players in attention. As a result of these chemical changes, you suddenly find yourself full of energy and able to concentrate on your assignment. So far so good. In the short term, psychological stress (like a looming deadline) can activate the stress response, and the stress response can really help you focus and work at your best.

The problem occurs when stress becomes chronic. Your body can only maintain this elevated level of function for so long. After time, the stress response starts to seriously deplete mental and physical resources. This ultimately leads to mental (and/or physical) burnout. Ever notice how you cannot for the life of you focus on anything serious after meeting a major deadline or finishing a group of cumulative exams? This is because your stress response chemistry and the chemistry of attention have been seriously depleted, and your body and brain need time to recover. But if you never get a break from stress, brain and body just keep wearing down.

A simple principle to take away from this is to be sure to take breaks to keep yourself mentally fresh. Just five minutes off every 90-120 minutes, a full 45-60 minute break for lunch every day, and a day completely off from every type of stress (work, housework, even heavy exercise) every week will all help your stress response chemistry recharge and stave off burnout. Real vacations are critical as well. If you don’t give yourself a week or two every six months to a year  to really get away, relax, and recharge, your productivity will invariably suffer.

The deeper lesson is to recognize that major stress in your life – regardless of the source - will compromise your ability to function and interfere with whatever you are trying to achieve. Many of the stressors in our lives are within our control. Learning how to control them is critical to living a happy, healthy, and productive life, not to mention maximizing focus in our work. Stress Busting and Maximizing Emotional Health can help you to identify stressors and, hopefully, provide some useful advice on dealing with them. The point we’d like to make here is that making a personal commitment to being less stressed is one of the most powerful things you can do to become more focused and more productive.