Why You Can't Focus: The Truth About Distraction, Nervous System Dysregulation, and Reclaiming Your Attention in Midlife with Dr. Zelana Montminy

The Resetter Podcast with Dr. Mindy

Dr. Mindy Pelz

Alternative Health, Science, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2026

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Have you ever blamed menopause for your inability to focus — only to wonder if something bigger is going on? I know I did. For years I thought brain fog was just about hormones, but this conversation cracked that wide open for me.

I sat down with Dr. Zelana Montminy, positive psychologist and author of Finding Focus, and what she shared genuinely stopped me in my tracks. Focus isn't a character flaw. It's a biological state. And most of us, especially women in midlife, have been operating in chronic nervous system dysregulation for so long, we don't even know what regulated feels like anymore.

In this episode, we unpack why distraction is so often dysregulation in disguise, how the cultural expectation of multitasking has wrecked our brains, and why the "brain fog" you're experiencing might have less to do with estrogen and everything to do with decades of cognitive overload. We also talk about grief — the big kind and the micro kind — and how unprocessed loss quietly tanks our ability to show up and focus.

If you're a woman in midlife wondering why you can't seem to finish a thought, this one is for you.

🎧 New episodes weekly on The Resetter Podcast. For more resources related to today's episode, visit the podcast page here: https://drmindypelz.com/podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	On this episode of The Resetter Podcast, I bring you Dr. Zelena Montmini.
0:06.9	And she goes by Dr. Z.
0:08.3	And I actually stumbled upon her information on Instagram because I started to notice that her
0:16.0	content had a very different message than most creators that I see.
0:22.6	And this is a really important conversation,
0:26.6	and I really want you to listen all the way through,
0:28.6	and I'll give you some of the highlights so you know where we're going.
0:31.6	But Dr. Z is a behavioral scientist.
0:34.6	She's a best-selling author.
0:36.6	She's a speaker whose work explores
0:39.1	how stress and modern life are reshaping
0:43.0	our attention and nervous systems.
0:46.0	She is the author of the 21 Days to Resilience
0:49.4	and a newly released book called Finding Focus.
0:53.7	And what I wanted to do and why I wanted to bring her to you
0:57.6	all is I wanted to talk about distraction. I wanted to talk about nervous system overload in this
1:03.9	modern day. What can we do to start to bring some regulation back to our nervous systems in a world where we're checking
1:12.5	social media all day long. We've got the news on 24-7. We're in constant go mode. How do we start
1:21.1	to regulate ourselves? And so what you're going to hear in this conversation are some real
1:26.6	practical tips.
1:28.3	And I would say first, we had to go through some of the things that many of us are doing on a daily basis
1:35.3	that are putting us into a disregulated state.
	...

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