Brain health · Sanctum

Inattention and the wandering mind

You miss half of what is said. You lose the thread mid-sentence, lose your keys, lose the point of the email you opened thirty seconds ago. Your attention does not sit where you put it. It drifts, and you only notice once it has already wandered off.

This is not a lack of intelligence or effort, and it is not that you do not care. A brain that runs differently on attention cannot always choose where it lands. The focus is there, it just goes where it wants, not where you need it, and steering it back takes constant, tiring effort.

Because you can clearly concentrate on some things, people assume you could concentrate on anything if you tried. So the drifting gets read as carelessness, laziness or not listening, and the real difficulty, that attention is not under reliable control, is missed.

We look at how your attention actually behaves, not whether you can focus at all, because that distinction is the whole point. None of this is a diagnosis. It is what we explore with you.

Written by Dr Asad RaffiConsultant Psychiatrist · Founder & Medical Director