How to beat brain fog?

Brain fog (confused and disorganized behaviour) can have many different reasons, but all of this makes you feel weird and crazy, can affect your relationships and work. Brain health is not only paramount to emotional well-being but also critical to mental capacity. Your thoughts and feelings are deeply connected, and you have to think good if you wish to have mental clarity, focus and brainpower.

Brain fog can affect you in a variety of ways. It feels like having cotton candy in the head replacing the intellectual nervous tissue. When the lights are on, the visibility of stuff in your mind is blurred for you, when the reality is clear, but your perception confines itself within a pot of ambiguity!

You might be unable to concentrate on work tasks or conversations. You may have difficulty in making small decisions, making up your mind, feeling like having more coffee to focus, more snacks to stay awake, or grab anxiety-relieving distractions from the fog! You may get headaches or problems with your vision, or, in some cases, even nausea!

What are the causes of brain fog: 

Brain fog can be caused by nutrition deficiency, bacterial overgrowth (due to overconsumption of sugar), sleep disorder, an underlying thyroid condition or even depression. Other brain fog causes include inactivity, eating too much, lack of sleep, poor diet or chronic stress.

Hormonal changes: 

Hormonal transitions are normal throughout life, whether during menopause, during pregnancy, post-partum, or just due to unexpected changes in your surroundings or lifestyle. Often these instances leave you to feel confused and fuzzy. Sometimes mood swings could be contributing to foggy head feelings; it could also be due to fluctuating hormones while your body tries to restore balance.

 

Impaired sleep:

Poor sleep hygiene, like irregular sleep cycle, getting less than seven hours of sleep a night, or exposure to blue light at bedtime disrupts your circadian rhythm (your internal body clock). It contributes to brain fog in several ways. In the case of blue light exposure (close to bedtime), the blue wavelengths suppress the height of the melatonin hormone, which is essential for deep sleep. Both REM sleep and non-REM sleep are required to process and consolidate memories from a day. During the early phase of midnight, the brain and body detoxify the most, so keeping yourself in an active state during this time, disrupts the body’s natural detoxification process, contributing to fogginess. In the same way, an untimely wake time (that doesn’t fall at the end of the sleep cycle) can also affect your cognitive functioning and cause you to feel more foggy and tired during the day.

The sleep analyzing apps, which tracks your sleep, wakes you up at the perfect time (for you to feel rested), actually use your movement throughout the nighttime to track the stage of your sleep and set the alarm for the end of your sleep cycle, ensuring you won’t be disturbed in mid-sleep phase (unlike the conventional alarm).

Impaired sleep

Young woman lying in bed, looking towards through the window – black and white photo.

Food sensitivities and Diet deficiencies: 

Vitamin B12 contributes to the red blood formation and maintenance of the central nervous system. That’s why the deficiency of B12 impairs your energy level and elicits overall fatigue. A vitamin D deficiency can also cause brain fog, as it is associated with impaired cognitive functioning with underlying inflammatory pathways. Specific kinds of food allergies and related sensitivity testing can also determine if these could be contributing to your brain fog.

Food sensitivities and Diet deficiencies

Stress: 

Stress may seem like a relatively harmless term, but chronic stress possesses the negative power of wreaking havoc on your body. When your body goes through perceiving a stressful situation, it initiates the activation of the sympathetic nervous system (or flight or fight response), which in turn triggers the release of a hormone “epinephrine” (also known as adrenaline) and norepinephrine, diverting the energy away from body’s typical functioning, and toward the stressor. It leads to unclear thinking capability, exhausting your brain when you try to focus harder. Learn to reduce your stress levels over time through the interventions like exercise, dietary changes, or meditation may help when your brain feels blurry.

Stress

Meditation: 

Certain medications (both over the counter and prescriptions) are known to cause side effects in brain fog. Before turning to medications, you should prefer the interventions that can solve your underlying issues. In case the medication is necessary, you can ask your doctor to prescribe medicine without sedative effect.

Anxiety and Depression:

Anxiety and depression impair cognitive functioning, affecting attention, executive functioning and memory. Research suggests that this could be linked with either physiological effects on the brain or the loss of motivation and energy associated with mental health conditions, making it difficult to function properly. If you struggle with anxiety or depression, talk to your doctor about treatment options.

Thyroid disorders: 

Whether you feel like your energy is draining out without reason, lack focus, feel tired or get mood swings, a thyroid disorder may be the root cause of your symptoms. The butterfly-shaped gland in front of your neck is responsible for producing and releasing hormones that control everything from heart rate to metabolism to menstrual cycles to breathing rate and are most of the time linked with brain fog. It is especially true in the case of “Hashimoto’s thyroiditis,” which is an autoimmune disease in which your immune system attacks your thyroid, inhibiting it from producing adequate thyroid hormones, resulting in creating an inflammatory state. But whether your thyroid hormone produces an excessive hormone (hyperthyroidism) or too little hormone (hypothyroidism), this could be causing uncertainty and confusion for you in the form of brain fog. Other thyroid disorder symptoms include weight gain or loss, muscle fatigue or weakness, and digestive issues.

Thyroid disorders

Ask your doctor for a thyroid test if you doubt having it. He will assess your thyroid, and in some cases, anti-thyroglobulin and anti-TPO antibodies will be examined as well.

Heavy metal exposure: 

Heavy metals are everywhere, including our food, beauty products and even teeth fillings. The most common sources of heavy metals are mercury, arsenic, lead, thallium, aluminum and cesium. While limited amounts of these metals won’t cause toxicity, accumulation from chronic exposure can cause immune dysfunction, brain fog, fatigue, hormonal imbalance, and high blood pressure. To keep heavy metal levels under control (and hence reducing the symptoms), one should regularly incorporate detox practices like increasing physical activities (for increased heart rate) or weekly sauna sessions.

How to improve focus (getting rid of brain fog) : 

The important approach for resolving this problem is to get to the root cause of the issue. Complete health history and symptoms are to be kept under consideration during this process to craft a personalized health plan. Here’s how to get rid of brain fog so you can feel at ease.Following are the few recommendations to manage this problem of brain fog:

How to improve focus (getting rid of brain fog)

Giving digestive system a rest:

 For retaining good nutrition and balancing good weight lossintermittent fasting is a fine approach that is beneficial for reducing pounds; instead, the calorie restriction and long periods between meals decrease neurodegenerative diseases and promote neurological health. Intermittent fasting promotes a process known as ketogenesis, which stimulates regeneration of the brain. But ketogenesis is a tricky process, and it should be done under the instructions of a professional who will leverage the contents and timings of your meal for a better focus.

  • Move it or lose it :

Neurodegenerative disorders such as mild cognitive dysfunction or Alzheimer’s disease are more prevalent in the sedentary population. Increased activity levels are associated with better memory, elevated mood and a sharper mental acuity. Exercise releases chemical messengers called cytokines and other chemicals called endorphins, responsible for exhilaration and happiness. These chemicals rejuvenate and bathe the brain. Try to engage in little enjoyable movements every day. Dance, walk or run. Everything that floats your mood is a good option to be practiced.

  • Be an efficient sleeper: 

A classic mistake people make with their brains is that they try maximizing their time by staying up late at night (whether dealing with their work or whatever looming project deadline to manage). It backfires because the cognitive abilities decrease with sleep deprivation. Try to sleep for at least 7 hours nightly. It will increase work quality for you.

  • Balance active workouts with active tune-ins: 

Several exercising techniques stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, the main centre for the “Fight or Flight” response. You can manage to balance this by incorporating yoga and meditation into your routine.

  • Feed your brain: 

Your brain tissue is comprised of protein and fat. Does it make sense if your diet is low in these food groups? Sugary processed food is not good for your brain. Sticking to plant-based food, foods enriched with omega-three fatty acids, anti-oxidants and coenzyme Q10 boost the body’s natural energy production as well as processes related to regeneration.