7 Weird Reasons You Can't Focus

Brain fog and monkey mind can be maddening. Here’s why you can’t concentrate and how to clear your head.

- Krissy Brady

When you have the attention span of a puppy (oooh, squirrel!), the fix isn’t always as obvious as pounding an espresso. Distraction or fuzziness may be your body’s way of signaling something’s off, says Niket Sonpal, DO, Assistant Professor at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in New York. Keeping your mind trained on a single task requires your brain to be flooded with a complex cocktail of neurotransmitters and hormones, he explains. Read on for the surprising things that interfere with your ability to keep your head in the game.

1 FOOD SENSITIVITIES

Among the people most likely to have trouble focusing include those with celiac disease (which produces an auto-immune reaction to gluten, proteins found in wheat, barley, and rye) or sensitivities to such foods as dairy and soy, according to a report in