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Feeling foggy? Hazy? Brain fog is frustrating, we know!

Our top 7 tips to manage it and help you return to optimal brain functionality

Written by Yoommy Nam

You turn up to work late after snoozing the alarm too many times to count, to be told it’s your coworker’s birthday party that everyone prepared a dish for. You’re told it’d been discussed numerous times, weeks prior, and were even reminded of it the day before. You check your calendar in disbelief and yep, it’s definitely written down. You’ve completely forgotten! You run down to the store to find something last minute and just as you get to the checkout, you fumble around for your wallet as the lady at the register glares impatiently at you…. Your wallet’s nowhere to be found.

Running back to the office in embarrassment, you find your wallet placed neatly on your desk in plain view. Then for the rest of the day, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t seem to focus on your work - even when the tasks at hand have been things you’ve been doing repeatedly for years without a hitch. This, my friends, is Exhibit A of what’s often referred to as ‘brain fog’.

What is brain fog, exactly?

Brain fog, otherwise known as mental fatigue, affects your cognitive functions like memory and focus and can manifest itself in extremely low energy levels, difficulty finding the right words to communicate, and a general feeling of functioning in a haze. It isn’t a medical condition itself but is a symptom of various other medical conditions that are worth attending to.

What causes brain fog?

#1 Stress;

#2 Lack of sleep;

#3 Diet;

#4 Dehydration;

#5 Anemia;

#6 Depression;

#7 Diabetes;

#8 Lupus;

#9 Postural Tachycardia Syndrome (when you get dizzy spells from standing up too quickly); and

#10 Medications [1]

Most noteworthy, however, is that recent studies have found significant links between brain fog and inflammation associated with chronic illness. Now that’s not to say you’ll have a chronic illness if you experience brain fog, but it could well be responsible if you do experience days where you’re cognitively impaired.

A recent study by researchers at the University of Birmingham and the University of Amsterdam found that inflammation appears to negatively impact the brain's readiness to reach and maintain an alert state. Using 20 male volunteers, the researchers administered a salmonella typhoid vaccine that causes temporary inflammation against a placebo (water), then measured brain activity while the subjects performed attention tests. The results were anything but foggy: those with inflammation had their attention processes compromised, while those without inflammation weren’t affected.

"These results show quite clearly that there's a very specific part of the brain network that's affected by inflammation… This could explain ‘brain fog’," says Dr. Ali Mazaheri, a senior author of the study[2]. Similarly, 2 other studies - one conducted in 2013 [3] and the other in 2018 [4], both found significant increases in cognitive impairment among patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis - a chronic illness which causes severe joint inflammation.

So, how do you give brain fog the flog?

As brain fog isn’t a medical condition but rather a symptom of one, the treatment of it does depend on the cause. But sometimes, relieving yourself of the fog may just be a matter of correcting your lifestyle choices, such as:

#1 Diet - reduce the intake of processed sugars and artificial additives like MSG or aspartame, whilst increasing your intake of nutrient-dense wholefoods;

#2 CBD - with the strong links to inflammation in mind, many preclinical to advanced clinical trials have shown that cannabinoids - a non-psychoactive extract from hemp or cannabis, can be incredibly beneficial for inflammation.[5,6,7]

#3 Sleep - Getting no less than 8 hours of sleep per night;

#4 Exercising regularly;

#5 Staying hydrated;

#6 Managing stress - by meditating and adequately assessing your boundaries and limitations (more about managing stress here); and of course,

#7 Medical intervention - Finding a great doctor to correctly diagnose the cause, to begin with.

So, the next time you feel like you’re mentally struggling to keep-up, don’t just dismiss it as ‘one of those days’; it may be worth looking into - particularly if it can be avoided. Never forget - health is wealth!

-Truth Naturals team

Yoommy Nam

Yoommy is a contributing writer for Truth Naturals. With a BA in Journalism, she has a penchant for research and an insatiable curiosity. Her twenty-year love for health and fitness also comes with five years of work experience in supplementation. She prides herself on her knowledge of both worldy topics and pop-culture references - look out unsuspecting Gen Z-ers! She enjoys MMA, dance, resistance training, soccer, and any story that informs on the human condition - be it through the written word, film, music, or just a killer chat.