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We’re All Traumatized Right Now
And it could be the reason you can’t focus on work, school, or really much of anything.
The prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain known as the “thinking center”. The thinking center of your brain is responsible for exactly that — your conscious thoughts and cognitive processes. It’s also the part of your brain responsible for maintaining focus and attention.
Typically, when we’re struggling to keep our focus during a task, it’s likely we are just preoccupied, using our prefrontal cortex to solve problems beyond the one directly in front of us. For example, it may be hard to focus on completing your application for unemployment today if you’re preoccupied with finding immediate funds to pay the rent due in three days.
But it’s not just distraction that’s keeping us from focusing on our tasks— sometimes difficulty focusing is the direct result of experiencing trauma.
Wait, would I know if I’ve experienced trauma?
Not necessarily. It’s not always as obvious as having firsthand experience or observation of a violent or otherwise traumatizing event. We can experience trauma when an event disrupts our long held ideas about reality or who we are as a society. This is called collective trauma.
