Difficulty Concentrating? Three Tips to Help You Focus

HealthyPlace Mental Health Newsletter

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

• Difficulty Concentrating? Three Tips to Help You Focus
• Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
• From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs
• Stand Up for Mental Health
• Latest Mental Health News

Difficulty Concentrating? Three Tips to Help You Focus

Difficulty concentrating is a common frustration. We live in a busy, bustling world. Additionally, many mental illnesses are associated with difficulty concentrating. For example, depression can affect a person's ability to concentrate. Concentration problems are also associated with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, and psychotic disorders like schizophrenia.

Regardless of what is causing concentration difficulties, there are ways you can help your brain focus. Here are three tips:

1. Practice chunking. Chunking is a technique used by the human brain to facilitate retention. It's why phone numbers are separated into sets of three's and four's. Use the principle to increase concentration. Create to-do lists and then separate your duties into chunks. Tackle one at a time. Then, take a short break to reset your brain.
2. Know yourself. Do you concentrate best with music or in silence? Are you more able to concentrate with our without caffeine? Knowing yourself helps you set yourself up for concentration success.
3. Objectify. Having something physical to touch, like a small rock or other trinket, increases our ability to concentrate. Being able to rhythmically manipulate an object creates positive changes in the brain that actually improve concentration.

No matter what your brain is experiencing, you can use tools to increase your ability to concentrate.

Related Articles Dealing with Difficulty Concentrating

• Managing Concentration Problems with Anxiety Disorder
• Bipolar Disorder Thought Types
• Anxiety, ADHD, or Both?
• What Are the Cognitive Deficits (Symptoms) in Depression?
• Treatment of Cognitive Deficits (Symptoms) in Depression

Your Thoughts

Today's Question: How do you deal with those times when you experience difficulties with concentration? We invite you to participate by commenting and sharing your feelings, experiences and knowledge on the HealthyPlace Facebook page and on the HealthyPlace Google+ page.

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Share our Stories

At the top and bottom of all our stories, you'll find social share buttons for Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and other social sites. If you find a particular story, video, psychological test or other HealthyPlace feature helpful, there's a good chance others in need will too. Please share.

We also get many inquiries about our linking policy. If you have a website or blog, you can link to any page on the HealthyPlace website without asking us beforehand.

Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans

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

1. How Do I Tell My Parents I Need Mental Health Help?
2. Stop Feeling Insecure
3. What I Wish People Knew About BPD and Anger

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.

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From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

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

• How To Cope With Your New Borderline Diagnosis
• Treasure the Moments and Memories in Your Life
• The Experience of Alters in Dissociative Identity Disorder
• Summer Survival Guide for Moms with Mental Illness
• How to Handle Repeated Suicide Threats
• Anxiety and Social Media Addiction
• Learn to Increase Resiliency in PTSD Recovery
• Fear in the Way of Your Decision-Making? How to Move Forward
• How to Fix a Mistake
• Are You Ready to Deal with Binge Eating Disorder?
• Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, and No Kids
• Eating Disorders Break Your Heart in Surprising Ways
• How a Mother’s Death by Suicide Affects Others
• Why Mindfulness Doesn’t Help My Bipolar Disorder
• Withdrawal Symptoms From Stimulants, Marijuana, Hallucinogens
• 15 Ways to Break Up With Your Body Image Issues
• Summertime Mental Illness Stigma

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.

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Stand Up for Mental Health

Thousands Have Joined the Stand Up for Mental Health Campaign

But we still need you. Let others know there's no shame in having depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, trichotillomania, OCD, ADHD, schizophrenia or any other mental illness.

Join the Stand Up for Mental Health campaign. Put a button on your website or blog (buttons for family members, parents, mental health professionals and organizations too). We also have covers for Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

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Latest Mental Health News

These stories and more are featured on our mental health news page:

• Smoking While Pregnant Linked To Schizophrenia In Offspring
• High Blood Pressure Linked To Vascular Dementia
• Infants Whose Mothers Have Taken SSRI Antidepressants Are More Likely To Have Decreased Birth Weight And Gestational Length
• Family Rejection May More Than Triple Suicide Attempt Risk By Transgender Individuals
• Pro-Inflammatory Gut Bacteria Levels Higher In Children With MS
• Antipsychotic Drugs Are Linked With An Increased Risk Of Heart Attacks
• Alzheimer's Linked To Loss Of Y Chromosome In Men
• Cognitive Decline Hastened With Greater Fluctuations In Blood Pressure

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, stumbleupon, or digg) you belong to by clicking the links below. For updates throughout the week:

• circle HealthyPlace on Google+,
• follow HealthyPlace on Twitter
• follow HealthyPlace on Pinterest
• or become a fan of HealthyPlace on Facebook.

back to: HealthyPlace.com Mental-Health Newsletter Index