FOCUS ISSUES

Issues with focus when it comes to the academic industry, is usually blamed on: ADHD, learning disability, procrastination, health issues, lack of time management, and distractions. Although the previous obstacles may be what is blocking you on the  visible surface, when it comes to your subconscious mind, it’s probably something deeper but much simpler than what you have been told. Stress is the main culprit behind focus issues and we will explain why, meanwhile let’s look at the general symptoms behind focus issues.

• Procrastination – which is not doing what you need to do and choosing to do nothing or something else which is unrelated to the task at hand, mostly starts with stress and anxiety. If you go to the part of this article that focuses on depression you will see that procrastination has a similar cycle, why? Well because procrastination is a component of depression. Depression means not wanting to try, due to previous failures, making fear of failure one of the heavy hitters when it comes to loss of focus.
• Perfectionism – wanting to do everything in the outmost and excelling manner relates to stress. Stress is trying to control too many things all at once while trying to do so with excellence. When a person gets used to doing something in excellence at all times, this person will suffer from high levels of stress  and then transition into anxiety, and in extreme cases, probably an Obsessive Compulsive level of Anxiety. Productive procrastination is a transition to replace the current task with another task that is also on  your to-do-list. For Example, you have been planning to study all Sunday long, but when you wake up in the morning you convinced yourself that there is no food in the fridge and went to the supermarket, when you came home you decided it was too messy and organized your whole house, then you made food and all of a sudden its close to the evening and you state there is no time to study. You indeed made yourself productive today, but did not complete your ultimate goal. This is reinforced in your subconscious, making it easier for it to happen again next time.
• Lack of Discipline or Motivation- There is a strong saying in Japan which states that one day the disciplined will excel the prodigy. Discipline has to do with an established sequence you will carry out whether you feel motivated to do so or not. The problem with motivation is that it requires initial willpower, and willpower is not infinite, in fact, willpower drains on daily basis, and most people wake up with more willpower and drain it rapidly in the morning doing things that are not optimal to their needs. This is why people will often be more successful if they do the things they don’t want to do in their first half of their day and then save the ones they want to do for later, this makes sense with your physiology since dopamine levels in the brain, can highly influence your motivation.
• Distractions – Most distractions are ok when executed at  an proportionate and controlled level, but  whatever distraction is present in your life, you  are definitely aware of which distraction or distractions may be hindering your focus, and therefore, there isn’t much explaining to do in this section. Some examples of distractions are: going out to drink and party, binge watching Netflix or the news, pornography, sex, drugs,  and screen compulsivity.
• Sleep Issues – Many people take sleep lightly. Lack of sleep actually shortens your life span. It takes about 5 cycles of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep to repair at a cellular level which accounts for around 7.5 hours of sleep. Many individuals nowadays are not getting 7.5 hours of sleep, and if they are, it is not descending all the way  down to the 5^th stage of sleep which is REM. Lack of sleep affects your mood, energy levels, memory, focus, neurotransmitters, and even metabolism.