Previously, we have talked a lot about concentration techniques, to be more productive, methods that you can integrate into your daily professional life to boost your career and your performance, but just as being 100% focused on a work task can help you improve your performance, it can also be harmful to your mental health, and therefore to the results of your work.
Excessive focus can have various negative effects on your day-to-day life, which, hand in hand with burn-out and common exhaustion, can go unnoticed until they are out of control.
Some of the symptoms of damage caused by excessive concentration according to the executive coach and CEO of NeuroBusiness Group, Srini Pillay, are:
Decrease in Energy
Although we may not realize it, focusing on something for a long time can also cause weariness and fatigue. Studies have shown that focusing on internal stimuli, such as our own movements, sensations, or emotions, is more exhausting than paying attention to external stimuli, that is, all those things that happen outside of ourselves.
This means that when we spend a lot of time actively inside our minds, planning something, creating or producing something, we are becoming considerably self-aware, and this contributes to exhausting ourselves more quickly.
Some of the things we can do to combat this decrease in energy due to over-concentration at some point in ourselves is to do something that diverts that attention to an external factor, or try to deconcentrate as much as possible.
For example, taking a 15-minute nap at break time, or instead of thinking about the sensations that a task provokes in us, focusing on the task itself, subjectively changing the approach under which we act.
Performance Deterioration
Just as burn-out affects our ability to concentrate and our creativity, too much concentration can lead us to a kind of state in which we are so focused on one specific thing that our energy is drained and we find ourselves unable to perform at all. work as we did before, periodically noticing a deterioration in the quality of our results.
The brain has certain needs that must be satisfied for it to function as it should, and one of those is the rest time between focus and focus. This allows the brain to “breathe”, to recharge so that the areas responsible for concentration and attention can continue to function properly.
Something that many of us have gone through, perhaps even without being aware of it, is the numbness that we feel after spending a long time surfing the web or consuming content on social networks.
The truth is that by spending a lot of time with our attention on one thing, there are parts of our identity or consciousness that go into the background, be it the emotional, the logical, or some of the more abstract parts that make us up, and we end up feeling lethargic, as in an overdose of stimuli that in turn overshadow and deafen the other information that can reach our brain.
One way to combat this numbness is to take breaks to realign yourself with the purpose that motivates you to do the things you do. This helps to avoid automating yourself, to prevent you from doing things without knowing why or without realizing that you are doing it. And by being aware of the motivation behind the things you do, you can redirect your focus in healthier ways.
Failing to Achieve Goals
Experts suggest that when you focus too much, the circuits in your brain that are responsible for working on imagination stop working, which has a severe impact on your ability to plan things, not to mention how much it can impact your ability to carry out those plans.
It is necessary to deconcentrate to be able to imagine and to be able to rest and keep your mind “fresh”, which will help you to have a clearer focus and to be able to draw up plans to meet your goals that you can really achieve. Hard work and long, drawn-out concentration are not always the path to success.
The parts of your brain that work to focus are also necessary to stimulate your mind, and stimulating the mind is necessary to keep it healthy and functional. Just as it is beneficial for your health, it is beneficial for your work.
Imagining is an ability that almost all human beings have, and it helps keep our brain circuits working properly. So, something you could do from time to time to help your mind drift away from a fixed point is not only to think that you have to achieve a specific goal but to imagine what it will be like when this happens, and allow yourself to dream a little.
Feeling Overwhelmed
All of us at some point in our lives have seemed distracted or unfocused because we are focused on too many things at once. For example, when we’re stressed out, thinking about some project we’re working on and all the things it takes to get it done, we seem to neglect everything else, becoming overwhelmed when we’re brought back to the rest of the responsibilities we have.
So, we experience a mixture of all the sensations described above by Pillay. We feel down, with low performance, unable to perform tasks that in another context we could do without problems, and this only adds more and more stress, harming us in every way.
Instead of having numerous tasks taking up space in your mind, try gradually focusing on just one of them, alternating with moments of rest to let your brain breathe and perform as you need it to.
Whatever your trade or profession is, your brain has needs that you must satisfy in order for it to do the job you need it to do. Among those, there is rest, and it is impossible to make your brain rest if you don’t allow your mind to wander and lose focus from time to time.
So, knowing this, I hope you can let yourself go into the world of imagination from time to time, to return to work recharged!
