Why does my mind feel foggy

Brain Fog: Solutions to Help You Improve Concentration

Most people have experienced mental fog or brain fog. It is often described as a cloudy-headed feeling. Forgetfulness is a common complaint among older adults. As we grow older, we experience physiological changes that can cause glitches in brain functions we have always taken for granted. It takes longer to learn and recall information. We are not as quick as we used to be. Also, lack of sleep, overworking, and stress can cause brain fog. Brain fog can be frustrating, but relief is possible. Do not ignore your symptoms. If left untreated, brain fog can impact the quality of your life and lead to other conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, memory loss, and Alzheimer’s disease.

What is brain fog syndrome?

Brain fog is characterized by confusion, forgetfulness, and a lack of focus and mental clarity. This can be caused by overworking, lack of sleep, stress, and spending too much time on the computer. On a cellular level, brain fog is believed to be caused by high levels inflammation and changes to hormones that determine your mood, energy and focus. The imbalanced levels of hormones make the whole system to be thrown off. Also, brain fog syndrome can lead to other conditions such as obesity, abnormal menstruation, and diabetes mellitus.

Causes

Brain fog is typically rooted in a lifestyle that promotes hormonal imbalances and is exacerbated by stress.

Electromagnetic radiation – from computer, mobile phone, tablets
Stress – reduce blood flow to the brain causing poor memory
Lack of sleep, no exercise
Diet – amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants
Toxins, pollution, chemical substances, and insecticides

Symptoms

Trouble sleeping, insomnia
Headaches
Low energy or fatigue
Impaired cognitive function
Mood swings
Irritables
Forgetfulness
Trouble concentrating
Low motivation, lack of ideas
Excessive absences
Mildly depress

Treatment – ways to end brain fog

Brain fog treatment depends on the cause. Lifestyle modifications can also help.

Spend less time on computer and mobile phone – remind yourself to take a break
Positive thinking, reduce stress
Change your diet
Get enough sleep – 7-8 hours a day, go to bed at 10pm or no later than midnight

Regular exercise
Avoid alcohol, smoking, and drinking coffee in the afternoon
Finding enjoyable activities

Supplements to help stop brain fog

Fish Oil – contains long chain omega 3 fatty acids, DHA. The source is salmon, tuna, mackerel, and sardines. It can improve brain function, motor skills, and vision.
Ginkgo Biloba Extract – widely studied for its effective anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, platelet-forming and circulation-boosting effects. Ginkgo biloba benefits include improved cognitive function, positive mood, increased energy, improved memory and reduced symptoms related to multiple chronic diseases. It can also reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Choline Bitartrate – Choline is chemically related to the B group of vitamins. Choline is important for cell membranes and for the production of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which has a role in memory and muscle control.
Gamma Oryzanol – have been shown to raise the levels of neurotransmitters in central nervous system. It also promotes mood relaxation and restful sleep.
L-Theanine – promotes relaxation and facilitates sleep by increasing level of serotonin, dopamine, and GABA. L-theanine is known as an anxiolytic—it works to reduce anxiety.
Phosphatidylserine – is an important chemical with widespread functions in the body. It is part of the cell structure and is key in the maintenance of cellular function, especially in the brain. Taking phosphatidylserine can improve some of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Also, it helps improve thinking ability, attention, impulse control, and hyperactivity in children and teens with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Inositol – is once considered a member of vitamin B complex. It has a role in nervous system and fat metabolism. It helps in production of healthy cells in the bone marrow and cell membrane production – myelin sheath. Also, it is important for hair growth.
Ginseng Extract – Ginseng effectively regulates the immune response and the hormonal changes due to stress, thus maintaining homeostasis. In addition to suppressing the occurrence of psychological diseases such as anxiety and depression, ginseng also prevents stress-associated physiological diseases.
Soy Lecithin – composed of phosphatidylcholine. It improves memory and learning ability. It also helps reduce the risk of gall stones and improve liver function. Research shows that it helps improve brain function and can prevent dementia.
L-Carnitine L-Tartrate – has an important role in acetylcholine production. It helps improve brain function and dementia. This amino acid can pass through blood brain barrier (BBB) and regulates neurotransmitter level in the brain.
Vitamin C (Calcium Ascorbate) – plays an important role in the body. It is needed to maintain the health of skin, cartilage, teeth, bone, and blood vessels. It is also used to protect your body’s cells from damage. It is known as an antioxidant. Also, it helps regulate body temperature and hormonal production.
Vitamin A Acetate – is an important fat-soluble vitamin. It promotes good vision and counteracts night blindness and eye disorders. Vitamin A aids in proper function of immune system. It is also necessary for normal cell growth and development. Another important role is it is an antioxidant that protect cells from free-radical damage.
Vitamin E DL-Alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate) – fights free radicals and prevents disease development. Certain isomers of vitamin E have powerful antioxidant abilities that have the power to reduce free radical damage, fight inflammation, and therefore help naturally slow aging in your cells and fight off health issues like heart disease, hypertension, aging, and cancer.
Vitamin B Complex – B complex vitamins help your body make energy from the food you eat, form red blood cells, and play an essential role in certain bodily functions. Vitamin B1 is a therapeutic agent for neuropathy. Vitamin B2 helps convert food into energy. Vitamin B3 helps enzymes in the body function properly by helping the body use other B vitamins. Vitamin B5 promotes digestive system and healthy skin. Vitamin B6 involves in immune function and brain development. It aids in the formation of neurotransmitters. Vitamin B12 is required for the formation of red blood cells and DNA. It is important for protein metabolism.

Every brain changes with age, and mental function changes along with it. Mental decline is common, and it’s one of the most feared consequences of aging. There are ways you can help to maintain brain function: reducing the use of smartphone, tablet, and computer, getting enough rest, eating healthy food, and taking essential supplements that prepared by a team of experts. These can help improve memory, reduce stress, and maintain emotional balance.

5 Steps to Improve Brain Functioning

What is brain fog? Brain fog makes you feel unlike yourself, can affect your work and relationships, and can leave you feeling destabilized. Head over to our free quiz —which helps you connect the dots between your brain fog and your overall health—then read on to find out how to start feeling like yourself again.

Brain health is not only critical to mental capacity but is also paramount to emotional wellbeing. Your feelings and your thoughts are intimately connected and to feel good, you have to think good. At Parsley Health, we’re all about optimization, and we have many members that come to us looking for better mental focus, clarity, and brain power.

What does brain fog feel like?

Brain fog can show up in a variety of ways. Mostly it feels like your head contains cotton candy where there once was dense intellectual nervous tissue. The lights are on, but there’s nobody home.

You might be unable to concentrate for long enough—on work tasks, conversations, or even on the words you’re reading right now. You may have difficulty making up your mind, small decisions are a big deal, you need more coffee to focus, more snacks to stay awake, and more booze at night for temporary relief from the fog. In more severe cases, you might have headaches, problems with your vision or even nausea.

Brain fog causes: understanding how you are impacted

What causes brain fog? Brain fog can be a symptom of a nutrient deficiency, sleep disorder, bacterial overgrowth from overconsumption of sugar, depression, or even a thyroid condition. Other common brain fog causes include eating too much and too often, inactivity, not getting enough sleep, chronic stress, and a poor diet. These are some of the most common causes of brain fog that we see at Parsley Health.

Hormonal changes and mental fuzziness

Hormonal transitions are common throughout your life, whether during pregnancy, postpartum, menopause, or just unexpected changes in your environment and lifestyle. And oftentimes these periods leave your brain feeling fuzzy and confused—one study found that 60 percent of women have difficulty concentrating during menopause. In some cases, changing mood or sleeping habits could be contributing to your foggy head feelings, but it could also be due to the fluctuating hormone levels while your body tries to restore balance.

Impaired sleep

Poor sleep hygiene, like an irregular sleep and wake time, getting less than seven to eight hours of sleep a night, or blue light exposure before bed disrupts your natural circadian rhythm aka your internal body clock. This contributes to brain fog in a few different ways. In the case of blue light exposure close to bedtime, the blue wavelengths decrease the hormone melatonin that is essential for deep REM sleep. Both REM and non REM sleep is required to consolidate and process memories from the day. During the hours of 10pm and 2am is when your body and brain detoxify the most, so remaining in an active state during this time disrupts the body’s natural detoxification process and can contribute to fogginess.

An untimely wake time that doesn’t fall at the end of a sleep cycle can also impair your cognitive function and cause you to be more tired and foggy during the day. Apps like Sleep Cycle use your movement throughout the night to track what stage of sleep you’re in and sets an alarm to go off at the end of your sleep cycle, ensuring you won’t be disrupted mid deep sleep, as a conventional alarm clock tends to do. Note that hitting the snooze button once your alarm goes off won’t make you feel more rested, but instead increases the likelihood of you falling asleep, only to be disrupted again.

Diet deficiencies and food sensitivities

Vitamin B12 contributes to the formation of red blood cells and the maintenance of your central nervous system. It’s why a deficiency in B12 is sure to impair your energy levels and elicit an overall feeling of fatigue. A vitamin D deficiency can also be behind brain fog as decreased vitamin D levels are associated with impaired cognitive function. An unidentified food intolerance can also contribute to the foggy head feeling you’re experiencing. For example, gluten intolerance can lead to cognitive dysfunction via inflammatory pathways. Advanced blood work that looks at your nutrient levels as well as an elimination diet or food allergy or sensitivity testing can determine if any of these could be contributing to your brain fog.

Stress

Though stress may seem like a common and relatively harmless term, chronic stress can wreak havoc on your body. When your body perceives a stressful situation, it activates the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), or the fight-or-flight response. This response triggers the release of epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, and norepinephrine, and ultimately diverts energy away from your body’s typical functions and towards the stressor. This can make it difficult to think clearly, harder to focus, and could exhaust your brain. Learning to reduce your stress over time through interventions like meditation, exercise, or dietary changes, may help when your brain feels foggy.

Medication

Certain medications—both prescription and over the counter—are known to cause brain fog as a side effect. Though your head feeling cloudy while taking medication may be made out to seem normal and expected, it’s not. At Parsley Health , we believe in lifestyle interventions that solve your underlying issues before turning to medication. But if medication is necessary, your doctor can help you determine if your medication is compromising your brain health and work with you to find the right remedy—whether that’s changing medications or lowering your dosage.

Depression and anxiety

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

Thyroid disorders

Whether you feel tired all the time, lack focus and mental clarity, or deal with mood changes, a thyroid disorder may be at the root of your symptoms. This butterfly-shaped gland at the front of your neck is responsible for producing and releasing hormones that control everything from metabolism and heart rate to breathing and menstrual cycles and are frequently linked to brain fog. This is especially true with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune immune disease where your immune system attacks your thyroid, inhibiting it from producing enough thyroid hormones and creating an inflammatory state. But whether your thyroid gland is producing too much thyroid hormone (hyperthyroidism) or too little thyroid hormone (hypothyroidism), this could be causing your brain fog. Other symptoms of a thyroid disorder can include weight loss or gain, fatigue, muscle weakness and digestive issues.

If you think a thyroid issue may be at play, talk to your doctor about a thyroid test . Many doctors will look at your TSH levels, but in reality there are other thyroid markers that can give a better picture of what’s going on. At Parsley Health , doctors routinely check Free T4, Total T4, Free T3, Reverse T3, anti-TPO antibodies, and anti-thyroglobulin to assess your thyroid health.

Heavy metal exposure

Heavy metals are everywhere in our daily lives—our food, beauty products, and even teeth fillings. The most common sources of heavy metal exposure are arsenic, mercury, aluminum, lead, thallium, and cesium. And while limited amounts of these metals won’t necessarily cause toxicity, heavy metal accumulation resulting from chronic exposure overtime can cause immune dysfunction, hormone imbalance, fatigue, brain fog, and high blood pressure. Testing levels of heavy metals in your blood is a good way to ensure your body is toxin-free, and regularly incorporating detox practices like heart-rate raising physical activity or weekly sauna sessions is a great start to keeping your levels under control and reducing any symptoms.

Brain fog treatment: How to get rid of brain fog

At Parsley Health, we work with our members to get to the root cause of their issues and resolve brain fog for good. As part of your brain fog treatment, your doctor will work with you to understand your complete health history, symptoms, and then order the appropriate lab work to test things like your thyroid function and heavy metal levels. With this information, your doctor can craft a personalized health plan to address your brain fog and any other symptoms you may be experiencing. These are a few recommendations our doctors and health coaches may have to help you get rid of brain fog.

1. Give your digestive system a rest.

Intermittent fasting is all the rage in the nutrition and weight loss world. But it’s not just beneficial for dropping pounds, calorie restriction and longer periods between meals can also promote neurological health and decrease neurodegenerative diseases . To treat your brain fog and gain back some mental clarity, start with trying to extend the time between the last meal of the day and the first meal of the next day. Shoot for 12 hours. This promotes a process called ketogenesis, which can stimulate brain regeneration. But ketogenesis can be tricky and should be practiced under the guidance of someone who knows what they’re doing. Work with a Parsley Health doctor and coach to leverage both the timing and contents of your meals for better mental focus.

2. Move it or lose it.

Neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s dementia and even mild cognitive dysfunction are more prevalent in sedentary populations. Increased activity levels are clearly associated with sharper mental acuity , a better memory and an elevated mood. Exercise causes the release of helpful chemical messengers called cytokines as well as chemicals that are responsible for elation called endorphins. These chemicals bathe and rejuvenate the brain. Try to engage in some type of enjoyable movement every day. Walk, run or dance. Whatever floats your boat will surely also float your mood.

3. Be an efficient sleeper.

The classic mistake people make with their brains, whether it’s dealing with work, school or whatever looming project deadline, is that they try to maximize their time by staying up late and/or getting up early. This typically backfires because cognitive abilities decrease with sleep deprivation. Sleep at least seven hours nightly, preferably eight or even nine when possible. The quality of your work will increase while the time it takes to produce such quality work will diminish.

4. Balance active workouts with active tune-ins.

Many types of exercise stimulate the sympathetic nervous system which is responsible for “fight or flight” responses. Unfortunately, your body doesn’t know the difference between running on a treadmill or running from danger—both look like stress. Stress manifests as brain fog. In order to reduce stress, you need to flex your parasympathetic nervous system, which is engaged during rest and relaxation and helps to calm your body and your mind. You can do this by incorporating more meditation and yoga into your routine.

5. Feed your brain.

Your brain is made up of a lot of fat and protein. Does it make sense that our diets are low in both of these food groups? Not so much. Sugary processed stuff is not your brain’s fave food. Stick to plant-based Paleo (mostly vegetables, enough protein, and always some good fats). Get plenty of omega-3 fatty acids (for their anti-inflammatory powers), a lot of antioxidants and coenzyme Q10 (essential for energy), and boost your body’s natural energy production and regeneration with essential vitamins and minerals.

Praise to the mind - Balmont. Full text of the poem - Praise to the mind

Literature

Catalog of poems

Konstantin Balmont - poems

Konstantin Balmont

Praise to the mind

Madness and reason are equivalent,
Like light and equal in the world.
There are two paths in them while we are captive in the world,
While our chambers are closed.
English mind - both bright and foggy,
Like the sea around countless islands. The shameless mind of a Frenchman, the mind of a German -
Construction, heavy and dull,
The Russian mind - frenziedly youthful,
The Scandinavian mind - prophetic and blind. The Spanish mind, as if all crimson,
Hot, like luxurious the color of carnations,
Italian mind - sweet as deceit,
Refined, like a Madonna's face. Like a sword, like a powerful voice - Latin mind,
Hellenic mind - the language of demigods,
Indian mind, nightmarishly gigantic, -
Arch of the rainbow, richness of all tones. I see: the waves of the world are multi-foam,
I'm standing here on the ringing shore,
And whoever you are, Spirit, before whom we are captive,
My greetings to everyone - both brother and enemy.

24 lines

Silver Age

Poems by Konstantin Balmont - 24 lines

Poems by Konstantin Balmont - Silver Age

Other verses of this author

Perhaps

perhaps through the years, maybe through days,

with you we will be together and we will be alone.

About love

I am not one of those

I am not one of those whose name is legion,

I am not from the realm of nameless spirits.

short

But if

But if you are snow

and if frosty,

On love

Snowflake

Light fluffy,

Snezhinka white,

Silver Age

and no

Yes and no - everything is mine here,

Silver Age

When?

Oh, excitement of life! Oh light and love!

When will we meet again?

Short

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Foggy Mind - Today I died.

Foggy Mind

Short Story

My delirium under the yoke of dark thoughts. There was only one step left. Only one. Last. And let the flight to the bottom begin, where the minotaur is waiting for the victims. ____ This is a collection of short essays that do not carry a particularly important meaning and were created at the behest of the momentary...

# delirium # choice # short story # darkness # thoughts # insanity # essays # self-destruction # suicide # the author ran out of ideas # fatigue

from _dakmak_

Today, April 14, 2019, I died.

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