Why You Can’t Focus and Concentrate + How To Fix

We’ve all been there: some days we would all give just about anything to have the energy and focus to finish our tasks effectively without feeling like our brains are about to blow a fuse and bodies collapse - even when you’ve done nothing but sit behind a desk all day.

Even when we have an urgent deadline, despite our best efforts, we find our minds just wander off. Our brains seemingly die from lack of impetus regardless of how much motivation we have. Things just don’t seem to move forward, even when we start fresh and the task is right in front of us.

Does this sound mighty familiar?!

Focusing and staying on track with a task can be difficult, but it has been made even more challenging in this digital, fast-paced, notification-centric, modern-day world we’re living in. It’s super easy to get distracted. Information is everywhere, distraction is literally at your fingertips, and we feel the need to deal with every new piece of information that pops up. Therefore, you find yourself checking your Instagram notifications or scrolling the latest news every five seconds.

It’s no wonder we can’t accomplish tasks in an efficient time when we literally can’t work without a stream of flickering distractions of emails, texts, posts, news updates, and tweets interrupting our thoughts and attention.

However, concentration is critical for success...

Whether you are studying for an exam, planning your nutrition for the week, or trying to finish a deadline at work, your memory and focus could mean the difference between you succeeding or failing.

According to Medical News Today: “On an average day, Americans are bombarded with an estimated 34 gigabytes of information and 100,500 words. Meanwhile, office workers are interrupted every 11 minutes, while it takes 25 minutes, on average, to get back to the task they were working on before the interruption.”

Since we can’t stop the clock to create more time for getting a task done, the ability to concentrate and direct your mental effort is critical for achieving goals and performing well in all kinds of situations. Plus, honestly, it is also just incredibly frustrating to feel like your brain isn’t working and to spend more time than needed on a task.

Luckily, if you have ever found your mental energy and mind wandering during a challenge and task, leaving you wishing to increase concentration, boost your cognitive power, and have the mental energy to power through without losing focus so easily, we’re here to help!

Focus is like a muscle. Just like you would go to the gym to work and build muscle, the more you work on your focus, the more it will build up, and get stronger. There are some great ways to keep your mind strong and develop laser strong mental energy and increase concentration.

The advice you’re about to read will help you increase concentration and isn’t going to be hard at all. From shaking up your diet a little bit to mindful activities, these strategies will help boost your cognitive power and get you working efficiently.

What is concentration?

Concentration refers to the mental effort and ability to focus your attention and thoughts on a single activity or object in accordance with one’s will. It is to have the capacity to control your attention while simultaneously excluding every other unrelated thought, sensation, and idea from your mind.

There are many factors that can affect your concentration. When you struggle to concentrate on a task or thing, it can lead to irritation, which then makes focusing even harder for you, creating a vicious cycle.

Many adults are now looking to ADD or ADHD as the cause of this wise spread rise focusing issues. This has got more and more adults convinced that they need medication to help them increase their mental energy and increase concentration. The reality of this situation is that most adults aren’t suffering from a disorder that is causing their inability to focus and foggy brain. For many, it’s simply their lifestyle habits and deficiencies in diet and routine that are derailing concentration and mental energy.

That is why there are a few simple changes you can make regularly to increase concentration and mental energy, and reduce mental focus dips as they come, all without completely throwing off your daily routine. Let’s check them out:

Step #1: Eat Breakfast and Make It Healthy

Everyone has heard the saying that is the most important meal of the day. And well it’s kind of true, especially for your mental energy. Numerous studies have shown that the right breakfast can refuel you with mental energy and improve your focus throughout the day and that skipping breakfast may have the opposite effect, making concentrating more difficult.

Breakfast is an essential step in fueling your daily energy and focus and should be made up of slowly released carbohydrates (think: oats, whole grain cereals, and bread) because they provide slowly released energy and clean proteins such as yogurt, lean chicken, and eggs to keep you full. Plus, since protein is the second-largest matter in the brain, it is crucial that you supply your brain with protein-rich foods.

For an added brain-enhancing perk, toss in some anti-inflammatory nutrient-filled fruits.

For example, blueberries are highly anti-inflammatory and rich in antioxidant effects. These antioxidants have been shown in a study to aid in the communication between your brain cells.

Step #2: Sleep to Increase Concentration

Lack of sleep sucks… we feel cranky, lethargic, and well, we can tend to lack focus and energy.

In 2016, surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Consumer Reports found that a third of American adults weren’t getting enough sleep and were having trouble falling asleep at night. That is a lot of us not sleeping effectively which means that bad sleep hygiene could very easily be behind any regular concentration issues that occur.

One reason chronic sleep reduction may be so detrimental to cognitive performance is that sleep, well, deep sleep that is, is the brain’s time to clean house. In fact, this is at least one of the reasons we sleep in the first place. The human brain, with its souped up, turbocharged cortex, is a real energy addict.

Our brains are responsible for about 20% of the energy expended at rest.

All this energy use creates toxic byproducts that must be cleaned up. Byproducts such as beta-amyloid proteins are associated with Alzheimer's and memory loss. Beta amyloids have been known to increase during wakefulness and decrease during sleep.

Said simply, when you miss catching your z’s, the lack of sleep can lead to an alertness breakdown and slower-moving thought processing, affecting your concentration. Inefficient sleep has been connected to many detrimental effects on cognitive processes such as reasoning, decision-making, and memory.

So, if you're gaming for better focus, memory, and decision making, protect yourself from routine sleep loss.

The best way to improve your sleep routine is to try setting a consistent bedtime and wake-up time if it’s possible for you, even on weekends. This will help maintain the timing of the body's internal clock, helping you fall asleep faster and wake up happier.

If you want 16 tips for maximizing your snoozing, then check out our article: Get Your Sleep On Better Sleep For A Better You

Step #3: Drink Tea

Many of us turn to coffee for our hit of energy! While coffee is an amazing mood enhancer that can support focus and help people stay alert, tea is a great long-lasting afternoon pick me up that comes without the caffeine crash you usually get from coffee.

Coffee will give you a faster and bigger hit of energy, but tea provides more sustained energy. Why is this?

Tea is lower in caffeine, but unlike coffee, it's rich in L-theanine, a unique antioxidant amino acid that stimulates your brain and provides anti-stress effects. Consuming L-theanine along with caffeine (just like in tea) may help you maintain balanced alertness and focus.

The bottom line is: For immediate energy hit boost, pick coffee. For a soothing longer-lasting energy boost, opt for tea.

For the best way to consume tea for maximum focus and energy, we recommend you try a powerful blend of roasted yerba mate tea with hints of chocolate and mint, combined with adaptogenic super-herbs to support your brain naturally, called Chocolate Hustle tea. This unique elixir is designed to heighten your focus, energy, and clarity. Click here to check out Wise Ape Chocolate Hustle tea blend.

And if you want to enhance your Chocolate Hustle tea even more then come learn a few ways to enhance the brain-boosting benefits of this tea blend over at on our article: Nootropic Stack With Adaptogenic Tea.

Step #4: Remove Distractions

Create an environment for success… by removing distraction and getting comfortable.

Your environment has a big impact on your focus. Knowing what environmental factors can make you more comfortable throughout your workday or whatever task you’re trying to finish will help you maintain better focus and removed impedances in the background of your brain. Create a space as best as you can that is as comfortable as possible by looking at determining factors such as clothes, your chair, the music you’re listening to, the temperature of the room, etc.

Lastly, try to remove the constant bombardment of unnecessary information. Proactively control your devices and stop technology from controlling you, by turning off all notifications from smartphones and your laptop or desktop applications. Setup a set time for checking your email or more pressing notifications. 

Today’s modern-day world is an interruption-based culture that is damaging to our productivity, but we don’t have to let it happen, we can take control of our environment, helping reduce distractions and increase concentration.

Let’s Increase Concentration and Mental Energy for Better Productivity

Sure, you can’t stop time to create enough time to get everything you want to get done in a day. You can, however, increase the quality of the time you do have by improving your productivity and concentration. Luckily, these quick hacks should do the trick in creating a lifestyle that keeps your brain fast functioning and ready to go.

And remember if you want a long-lasting all-natural, organic liquid brain boost, you'll love what we've got brewing. Our Chocolate Hustle is a unique blend of chocolate, mint, and yerba mate designed to promote focus, clarity, and energy.

If you’re worried that your mental difficulties go what we’ve talked about above, please do consult with a professional, for help.

This informative article is written, by Sophia McKenzie. Sophia is head content creator and writer, for several premium websites, where her expertise lies in health, nutrition, and wellness. Her content focuses on providing and sharing doable solutions to help people truly thrive and live their happiest, healthiest, fulfilled lives.