COVID Brain: Why Focusing Feels So Hard Right Now

[Listen to an audio version of this blog HERE.]

Remember March? When the pandemic threw everyone into a holy panic and stores ran out of toilet paper and bread and produce and….everything? We all hunkered down for a few weeks, held some Zoom happy hours, baked some sourdough, twiddled our thumbs, tried to do work, got laid off from work, tried to study, failed to study, and thought that sooner or later, the quarantine would pass. At the same time, we watched news segments of China, where workers in hazmat suits sprayed the streets with disinfectant. We watched death number spike in Italy, then New York, then California. We held our collective breath and worried about what would happen when the extra unemployment benefits ran out in July. We watched a lot of Netflix, drank a lot of alcohol, and smoked a lot of weed. Eventually, folks started protesting the lock down measures. Businesses went under. Racial protests erupted. And now, the entire west coast is engulfed in wildfires, the East Coast is recovering from a hurricane, and the Midwest is recovering from a rare Derecho. 2020 has zero chill.

One super fun side effect of all this is that we’re having a collective hard time focusing. Maybe you don’t feel motivated to work, work out, or study. Maybe you can’t concentrate on a difficult task for an extended period of time. Or maybe…