Focus Is Hard When You Live with Mental Illness

Here's what's happening on the HealthyPlace site this week:

• Focus Is Hard When You Live with Mental Illness
• From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs
• Video: 5 Bipolar Quotes I Connect With
• Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
• Mental Health Quote

Focus Is Hard When You Live with Mental Illness

Mental illness disrupts our ability to focus. This isn’t surprising, as mental illness affects the brain, the hub of focus and concentration. Different mental illnesses affect the brain differently, so problems focusing don’t look the same for everyone.

This sampling highlights different ways mental illness disrupts our attentiveness:

• ADHD adults struggle to focus. ADHD makes it hard to choose just one thing to concentrate on at a time.
• Depression slows processing speed and creates brain fog, zapping desire to attend to even one thing.
• OCD and anxiety disorders can cause ruminating and hyperfocusing on a single worry or fear.
• PTSD creates a hypervigilance for danger that severely limits the ability to focus elsewhere.

Your brain can learn and grow. Think of what difficulties you are having. Then, choose exercises that fit your needs:

• Engage in physical exercise that allows you to read a book or magazine while doing it. The movement paired with a concentration activity improves focus.
• Do short exercises a few times a day in which you concentrate on something. Gradually increase the time you spend doing this.
• Practice mindfulness. Shift hyperfocused thoughts from your head to the concrete world, and use your senses to immerse yourself in the moment.

Knowing how your mental illness impacts your concentration allows you to create a custom plan to sharpen your focus.

Related Articles Dealing with Focus and Mental Illness

• Depression and Attention, Concentration Problems
• Managing Concentration Problems with an Anxiety Disorder
• Anxiety, ADHD, or Both?
• Increase Focus with This One-Minute Meditation
• ADHD Adult Struggle to Focus
• ADHD and 5 Ways to Stay Focused and Productive at Work

Your Thoughts

Today's Question: How do you improve your focus and concentration when mental illness interferes? We invite you to participate by sharing your thoughts, experiences, and knowledge on the HealthyPlace Facebook page.

From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

On all our blogs, your comments and observations are welcomed.

• A Natural Disaster. No Bipolar Medications. Crisis Time.
• Focusing on Success Over Failure in Schizophrenia
• Create a Mental Health Recovery-Friendly Home
• Living the Aunt Life: Why Being an Aunt Enriches My Life
• Bipolar Doesn't Make You Unworthy of Love
• Abusive Behavior Vs. Normal Behavior: What's the Difference?
• Overthinking Simple Tasks Due to Schizoaffective Anxiety
• What Is Self-Worth?
• Quieting the Inner Critic in Complex PTSD
• Life Without Anxiety? Picture It with Visualization
• Finding Little Things to Reduce Anxiety
• Mental Health Apps for Coping with Depression and Anxiety

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments at the bottom of any blog post. And visit the mental health blogs homepage for the latest posts.

------------------------------------------------------------------

From HealthyPlace YouTube Channel

I'm Hannah. I Have Bipolar 2

5 Bipolar Quotes I Connect With

I am obsessed with bipolar quotes – quotes and sayings in general - and I think many of us living with bipolar disorder really connect with words. In this video, I share 5 of my favorite bipolar quotes and explain how they relate to my life with bipolar 2. (Watch Hannah and subscribe to the HealthyPlace YouTube channel for more great mental health videos.)

------------------------------------------------------------------

Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans

Here are the top 3 mental health articles HealthyPlace Facebook fans are recommending you read:

1. Is This Schizoaffective Hypomania or Am I Happy?
2. Substitute Addictions in Recovery: What You Need to Know
3. I Hear Voices with My DID But I'm Not Always Honest About It

If you're not already, I hope you'll join us/like us on Facebook too. There are a lot of wonderful, supportive people there.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Mental Health Quote

"I felt so much that I started to feel nothing."

Read more depression quotes.

------------------------------------------------------------------

That's it for now. If you know of anyone who can benefit from this newsletter or the HealthyPlace.com site, I hope you'll pass this onto them. You can also share the newsletter on any social network (like facebook or stumbleupon) you belong to by clicking the links below. For updates throughout the week, follow HealthyPlace on Twitter or become a fan of HealthyPlace on Facebook. Also, check out HealthyPlace on Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest, where you can share your mental health pins on our Share Your Mental Health Experiences board.

back to: HealthyPlace.com Mental-Health Newsletter Index