Executive function describes cognitive processes that are essentially the brain’s management system. They are located in the prefrontal cortex and allow multitasking, planning, focus, and memory. With executive function, we can competently regulate our emotions, solve problems, and set goals.
However, many people have executive dysfunction due to neurodevelopmental conditions, brain injuries, degenerative conditions, and many other causes. It can present in numerous ways, including issues with impulse control, being distractible, daydreaming, and having trouble planning. Poor executive functioning also affects mental health in the following ways:
Chronic Overwhelm and Stress
One of the many reasons why people undertake executive function coaching is that they struggle with chronic overwhelm and stress. As executive dysfunction can make planning and prioritizing hard, even the simplest tasks begin to pile up. The constant backlog can make you feel as though you’re always behind, fueling stress and burnout.
Anxiety Loops
Anxiety loops are a constant issue for people struggling with poor executive function. You may have difficulty starting or completing tasks, leading to avoidance. While you can feel less stressed by avoiding tasks, your anxiety can spike later when deadlines for those tasks arrive, and you still haven’t completed them.
Emotional Dysregulation
A core part of our executive functions is helping regulate our emotions. When they’re impaired, even the smallest frustration can have a severe impact on our mental well-being. It’s not uncommon to feel irritable, have mood swings, or completely shut down.
Depression and Low Motivation
To people who aren’t educated on executive dysfunction, it can look like laziness. However, it’s not. Your brain can struggle to initiate action, which can result in guilt, shame, and, eventually, symptoms associated with depression.
What Can You Do About Executive Dysfunction
Executive dysfunction is not something you can ‘cure’ bit you can overcome the challenges that come with it and develop support around it. Essentially, you’re redesigning your habits and environments to support more straightforward everyday living.
Explore Executive Function Coaching
When you know you need to improve your focus, organization, time management, and decision-making to improve your professional and personal life, consider executive function coaching. This coaching is a standalone tool for support with planning and task initiation and completion, but it can also be used alongside therapy or ADHD support.
Externalize Your Brain
Poor memory is linked to executive dysfunction and involves challenges with working memory. You can forget instructions, lose track of tasks, and forget what you’re doing mid-task. Rather than relying on your memory and forgetting things, externalize your brain. Use visual planners and apps, written to-do lists, and sticky notes.
Break Large Tasks into Small Steps
For someone with executive dysfunction, being given a task like ‘clean your room’ can be overwhelming. However, it’s often far more manageable when it’s broken down into smaller steps.
Rather than writing ‘clean room’ on your to-do list, start with tasks like making the bed, folding laundry, and vacuuming the floor. This approach can reduce the mental barrier to starting.
Use Time Anchors
It’s all too easy to tell yourself that you’ll do something later, rather than now. Before long, you’ve said that about multiple tasks, and anxiety and overwhelm have begun to creep in.
To prevent this, use time anchors. This means you’ll perform a task at a specific time for a specific length of time. For example, you might say you’ll fold laundry for 15 minutes at 1 pm.
Consider Professional Support
You won’t always be able to tackle the real-life consequences of executive dysfunction by yourself, and that’s okay. Explore cognitive behavioral strategies with trained experts. They may also recommend medication, especially if your executive dysfunction relates to ADHD.
As challenging as living with executive dysfunction can be, particularly when it affects your mental health, it doesn’t have to be. Several small, everyday changes may be all it takes to enjoy a more seamless, straightforward way of life without significant fear, overwhelm, anxiety, or stress.
Sources
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, May 15). About ADHD. https://www.cdc.gov/adhd/about/index.html
- Zainal, N. H., & Newman, M. G. (2022). Executive Functioning Constructs in Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive, Post-Traumatic Stress, and Related Disorders. Current psychiatry reports, 24(12), 871–880. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-022-01390-9