My focus is garbage

[Foresight]

Wish me luck fixing this. I sat around for ten years mentally killing myself off and used maladaptive techniques to get by day-to-day. The damage is apparent. Being able to sit, not dissociate and focus is my biggest challenge. Lord help me. I have a professional exam to pass, a very hard one.

Any advice?

 

[Ringo]

I don't think it's the best but it's what I personally do and mostly it works for me, I set a deadline and I won't start doing anything else before finishing whatever I have to do, it's what I do to motivate myself to finish things instead of spending all day doing a simple task just by being distracted all the time, it is a good replacement for simply leaving everything until the last minute and that pressure forces you to work

 

[Jude]

Have you tried therapy? I had similar problems like lack of focus and dissociation. My therapist recommended that I take medication and get tested for ADHD, which helped.

 

[Foresight]

Have you tried therapy? I had similar problems like lack of focus and dissociation. My therapist recommended that I take medication and get tested for ADHD, which helped.

Yes, years ago. Therapists can't help me anymore. I've been on adderal but it gave me palpitations. I'm afraid of those medicines now.

Coffee is my medicine in a way.

 

[Sherri]

Magnesium and vitamin B and D together helps me personally to heal my brain damaged from benzos. Magnesium really helps to heal the brain. I used to take it before exams for weeks before, now as an adult I take it everyday, if you have a doctor maybe discuss this with him/her? Wishing you good luck on your exam.

 

[UseItOrLoseIt]

My focus is shit too. But it got better after I quit smoking weed and started taking cold showers every morning. I'm also going on walks with my dog more often and I've taken up reading again. I think one trick, hard as it may be, is trying to not be inert all the time.

 

[Foresight]

I'm doing pomodoro today. It works for me. 50 minutes on and 10 minutes off.

I'm studying taxes. It's a hell of a career choice but it will give me access to remote work and decent wages. I have a weird love/hate relationship with it.

 

[LoneMisery]

I can relate. Especially when youre so determined to be as focused as possible and our minds just carry us away from our task in front of us.
I feel you, youre not alone

 

[Mixo]

You may want to research l-tyrosine. I took it years ago to get focused and it helped quite a bit for me at the time.

 

[Foresight]

It's kind of crazy for me to be taking a half dead mind and shoving advanced tax law into it. With that considered, I'm doing pretty well today.

I appreciate the suggestions so much. I'm on some supplements so I'll definitely research l-tyrosine. I have magnesium I can start.

 

[xianv111]

As others have said - magnesium can be surprisingly helpful. I'd also say adding rhodiola to the magnesium could be beneficial (I'm quite skeptical of herbs, but this one seems to at least slightly work). If standard ADHD medication is too much for you - I advise you to read about different types of medicines used to treat ADHD. There is quite a lot of them and not every single one is your typical stimulant. I personally found modafinil quite helpful for focus. It doesn't give you the euphoria that comes with an inhuman dosage of caffeine, but is significantly better in terms of improving the attention span :) If you have enough energy - cardio actually should improve your cognitive abilities.

Moreover here is a list of techniques/systems I have found quite useful (some of them might be obvious):
-breaking down everything into absolutely tiny steps and tasks that you can mark done
-avoiding social media (especially platforms with very short videos/pictures - it reduces the attention span significantly) so reading instead of scrolling and watching long movies )
-you might be dissociating in order to fulfill a specific need - analyze which healthier coping mechanism could fulfill that need instead
-setting up timers for the duration of a certain activity