Online calculator can predict your risk for stroke - A collaboration between doctors at the University of Virgina Children's and the University of Florida, Gainsville.

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Struggling to Focus? How to Improve Your Attention Span When ‘the World Is Sick’

If your mind wanders off before you finish reading this sentence, you’re not alone.

Months into the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are still learning to live with an ambient thrum of stress, anxiety, fear, grief and anger. For many people—especially those recovering from the virus or juggling work and child care—brain fog and inattention have been collateral damage. In a recent survey of 300 American workers, about 40% said they feel less productive than usual during the pandemic.

Todd Braver, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, says that’s completely normal. Lots of research has shown that concentration, memory and cognition suffer when people are under stress and anxiety, and that’s especially true when it builds for months, Braver says. The brain is good at responding to short bursts of stress, but it’s not as good at operating under constant, low-grade pressure.

“Our brains are hard-wired to be vigilant about this potential threat, so that’s using up the same resources we might need…for work or social interactions,” Braver says. Even if it’s happening subconsciously, “you’re diverting some of your capacity to try to deal with the anxiety.”

Sound familiar? Here’s how you can improve your concentration and attention span, even, as Braver says, “while the world is literally sick.”

First, cut yourself some slack

A historic pandemic is unlikely to become the most productive period of your life, nor should you feel pressured to make it so. Take these tips as guidance for getting through work and life obligations as best you can under challenging circumstances—not as a call to do more than you must.

“Take time for self-care and self-compassion,” Braver says, and lean on basics like sleep, healthy eating and exercise. “Appreciate that nobody is operating at 100% of their full capacity. We’re all doing the best we can.”

Set goals

In lab settings, offering feedback or a gentle reminder to stay on-task can help study participants focus, says Gordon Logan, a psychology professor at Vanderbilt University who studies attention and performance. Outside the lab, “you have to create your own feedback,” he says.

Setting specific goals can help do that, Logan says. Instead of vaguely promising yourself you’ll “focus” or “be productive,” decide exactly what you want to do—whether it’s working on a task for 30 minutes straight, or writing a certain number of words by the end of the day. Having a specific goal can help you check in and guide yourself back to the job at hand when your mind starts to drift.

Take breaks—ideally outdoors

Many social scientists believe workplace fatigue is “not so much a physical thing, but it’s more that you’ve been doing the same thing for so long that the reward you get out of it is diminishing,” Logan explains. Taking breaks that fully remove your mind from work can help counter that, he says.

Ideally, Braver says, you’d take these breaks outside, surrounded by a nature, since a growing body of research says green space “has a rejuvenating effect on attention.”

Brief breaks to socialize also give your brain a much-needed change of pace, Logan says.

Practice mindfulness

Braver recommends making mindfulness a daily habit, but it can also be a good spot treatment for inattention. If you feel your focus waning, drop everything, take a comfortable seat, close your eyes and focus on your breath for a couple minutes. Braver recommends counting your breaths going in and out, or slowly bringing your attention to each part of your body, one by one. “It’s not a magic pill,” Braver says, but it can help your brain reset.

Do one thing at a time

“We never do well with multi-tasking,” Logan says. “There’s always a deficit.” Especially when you find it difficult to focus, it may be beneficial to devote all your energy to one task.

That means resisting the compulsion to toggle back and forth between social media, news sites and work. Commit to reading news and checking your timeline at specific points throughout the day, Braver suggests. Not only will this help you concentrate, it may also ease your stress a bit, potentially turning down some of the background noise that makes it so difficult to focus in the first place.

Adjust your schedule

“People’s productivity waxes and wanes,” Braver says. “Four hours of maximum productivity gets as much done as eight hours of fluctuating.” If you have the luxury, take advantage of remote work and talk to your manager about adjusting your hours. If you know you do your best work in the morning, for example, you could front-load your day and sign off earlier, or vice versa.

If that’s not an option, you can still try to schedule strategically. Logan knows he works best in the afternoon, so he books calls and meetings for the morning, then tries to get substantive tasks done in the hours after lunch. “We’re often driven by the schedules that we find ourselves with,” Logan says, but it’s often more effective to shape your own daily plans.

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Phase 3 trials of Russian Covid-19 vaccine to start in Philippines in October

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Should we screen all adolescent girls and women for anxiety?

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Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses, affecting up to 40% of women and 20% of men in the course of their lifetimes. Women and adolescent girls are at particularly high risk for the development of anxiety disorders, due to differences in their brain chemistry, psychosocial contributors such as childhood sexual abuse, as well as the hormonal effects of estrogen and progesterone. Since anxiety disorders are so common among women and girls, could early detection lead to improved outcomes?

The US expert recommendations

In a recent clinical guideline, the Women’s Preventive Service Initiative (WPSI) recommends screening all women and adolescent girls ages 13 and older for anxiety disorders, including pregnant and postpartum women. The WPSI is a national coalition of 21 health professional organizations and patient representatives that researches and disseminates evidence-based recommendations for women’s preventive health care services. Their universal screening recommendations are based on a systematic review that demonstrates moderate to high accuracy of screening tools, but clearly acknowledges that no studies have evaluated the effectiveness or harms of screening. While these new guidelines recommend a wider net for screening, as a practicing psychiatrist I believe we should not recommend further screening until the potential harms have been evaluated.

Why are the recommendations changing?

Although the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends routine screening for depression in adolescents and adults, no recommendations for the screening of anxiety disorders have previously been made. The WPSI’s recommendations are based on studies demonstrating the accuracy of screening instruments, as well as confirmation of the benefits of treatment of anxiety disorders with cognitive behavioral therapy and medications.

Are anxiety disorders on the rise?

According to the media, it seems that anxiety disorders have been increasing in recent years, attributed to various causes: the COVID-19 pandemic, greater performance stress at school or work, social media use, etc. However, we do not have robust epidemiologic data suggesting that the prevalence rate for anxiety disorders has truly increased, due to the imprecision of data collected before the introduction of psychiatric classification systems. Studies conducted with the same population and same methodology over time, such as the National Comorbidity Survey and data from the European Union, have not demonstrated an increase in anxiety disorders. We do know, however, that more individuals are seeking treatment for anxiety, and that more people are willing to speak about their anxiety. We also know that prevalence rates in different countries and cultures are more likely to be due to differences in how the data were collected, rather than due to cultural differences.

Risks of screening

As with all other screening tools in medicine, screening tools for anxiety have limitations in diverse populations. Non-Western populations are not represented in the studies used to build screening tools, which results in decreased accuracy in populations in which their use has not been validated. Among people living within the United States, anxiety symptoms also present differently based on ethnic, racial, and cultural contexts; for example, anxiety may present as physical or spiritual complaints. Among immigrants in particular, the effects of migration, legal status, and experiences of discrimination may result in psychological distress and anxiety that are not accurately reflected in anxiety screening tools. The risks of screening for anxiety in populations in whom the screening tools have not been validated include errors in diagnosis and inappropriate treatment (or lack of treatment).

Even among populations in whom anxiety screening tools have been validated, universal anxiety screening for women and adolescent girls poses the following concerns:

• redirecting resources away from the treatment of people with known anxiety disorders, who already receive less than adequate treatment
• the high cost of identifying people with mild anxiety who may not benefit from treatment
• inappropriate treatment of people based on a false diagnosis as a result of a positive anxiety screen
• overprescription of medications, with an increased number of people suffering from medication side effects
• consequences of carrying an improper diagnosis.

Both the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care and the United Kingdom National Screening Committee do not endorse questionnaire-based screening for mental illnesses, given concerns about potential harms and resource use.

The take-home message

The new WPSI guidelines recommend screening all adolescent girls and women for anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorders are particularly common among women, but they are often unrecognized and undertreated. Universal screening for anxiety in this population may help to identify those suffering from anxiety disorders, resulting in earlier evaluation and treatment. However, future research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of such screening and to assess for potential harms.

The post Should we screen all adolescent girls and women for anxiety? appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

PM Modi to launch National Digital Health Mission and a unique identity number

As first reported by ET on August 1, Modi is likely to unveil a national digital health ecosystem which would digitise personal medical records, connect diagnostic centres, medical institutions and state medical councils, provide a villager an easy appointment at the district hospital and verify all doctors.

from Top Health News | Latest Health & Healthcare Industry Information and Updates: ET HealthWorld : ETHealthworld.com https://ift.tt/33WKnlF
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PM Modi to launch National Digital Health Mission and a unique identity number

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