Mental Clarity: How To Reduce Brain Fog
If your brain feels cloudy sometimes and you struggle to remember details or concentrate on the present moment, you might be dealing with brain fog.
So, what exactly is brain fog, and how can you combat this cognitive cloudiness to help get your mental clarity back on track? Today, we will explore brain fog, as well as discuss some of the best strategies you can use to improve your mental clarity. Read on to learn more about supporting your brain health and reducing brain fog.
What Is Brain Fog?
Brain fog is a cognitive state where you notice a drop in mental clarity. Brain fog is not a formal medical condition or diagnosis, but rather a symptom that can result from many different factors, such as lack of sleep, poor lifestyle habits, exposure to stress, struggles with mental health, and much more.
If you experience brain fog, you might notice that your brain feels cloudy and it’s generally hard to think clearly. Other symptoms include confusion, memory loss, difficulty following conversations, trouble focusing, difficulty retaining information, headaches, fatigue, and mood swings.
Brain fog can result from various lifestyle factors, and when it strikes, it can take a toll on your productivity and day-to-day functioning.
How Can I Support Mental Clarity?
Fortunately, there are many easy lifestyle modifications that you can make to address brain fog. Let’s explore different ways that you can address brain fog more in-depth below.
1. Get Some Exercise
Physical activity carries many benefits that can bolster your brain health and provide relief from brain fog.
First, exercise prompts your brain to release chemicals that have a positive impact on your mood, which can improve your mental health and help relieve brain fog symptoms such as mood swings and trouble with focus.
Second, exercise encourages the growth of new neural blood vessels, which increases blood flow to your brain and may improve your energy levels to help combat mental fatigue. Exercise also stimulates the areas of your brain responsible for thinking and memory, which can help fight symptoms of brain fog, such as trouble with focus, retention, and recall.
Staying physically active does not have to be an intense routine — gentle walks or relaxing yoga are great forms of exercise that can improve mental clarity!
2. Support Your Sleep
Sleep is a very valuable time for your brain to rest and recharge. A lack of sleep leaves you feeling both physically and mentally exhausted.
Just as your body does not perform as well when you feel physically tired or sick, your brain will not perform as well when you experience cognitive exhaustion. When you don't get enough hours of sleep, or the quality of your sleep is poor, you can be more susceptible to problems with recall, focus, and memory.
3. Manage Stress
It is natural to experience periods of short-term stress in your life — maybe you are nervous about a presentation at work, a first date you're about to go on, or a big change to your normal routine. However, when short-term stress turns into chronic stress, then symptoms such as brain fog can result.
Stress influences your nervous system to raise your cortisol levels, which can leave you feeling mentally fatigued. This mental exhaustion may affect your brain function and make it more difficult to reason, concentrate, and recall things.
If you experience burnout and find it difficult to manage your stress on your own, adding supplements for stress relief, such as Lemme Chill, into your well-balanced diet can help you feel calm and more relaxed again.
Lemme Chill is a mixed berry de-stress gummy with a clinically studied dose of KSM-66 Ashwagandha and a unique botanical blend including Passionflower and Lemon Balm. KSM-66 Ashwagandha can help you reduce stress-related food cravings, feel more relaxed and support healthy cortisol (stress-hormone) levels.
4. Plan Your Day and Prioritize Tasks
When you approach the day with a well-thought-out plan, you set yourself up for smoother transitions between tasks.
You might find it helpful to sit down the night beforehand and make yourself a list of all the things you would like to accomplish the next day. With that list, consider circling priority items or putting them as the first items on the to-do list.
These organization techniques can make it easier to focus on what you need to get done and can also help you remember everything you need to do since you just wrote it down for yourself! Even a little bit of planning can go a long way to provide relief from mental fogginess.
5. Take Time for Self-Care
Your individual wellness is of utmost value and plays a huge role in every aspect of your life — from your relationships to your mood to your career to your sleep patterns.
Self-care should not be a luxury or something you add to your routine only if you have time at the end of your busy day. Rather, self-care should be a familiar part of your day and a practice you engage in to meet your most basic needs!
When you make sure that you take time for self-care every day, you prioritize your wellness and, in turn, help promote your mental clarity. Whether it's journaling, reading, listening to music, painting, or seeing your friends, there are so many different options that count as self-care, and that will help your brain to relax and gain more clarity.
6. Maintain a Balanced Diet
A well-balanced diet plays a huge role in your mental state and your mental well-being. If you do not eat healthily, both your physical and mental energy levels can drop. Your brain does not receive the proper fuel to sustain cognitive functioning, and you can experience side effects such as mental fog.
Pay attention to what you eat and when you eat — if you notice you tend to eat lots of refined carbs and sugars, or that there are often extremely long gaps in between your meals, it may be time to give your eating habits an upgrade. Aim for three well-balanced meals every day, with a small snack between each meal.
Maintaining a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, nuts, and seeds can help you stay on top of your intake of crucial vitamins and minerals.
7. Try Gummy Vitamins
Alongside your wellness routine for self-care, supplementing a well-balanced diet with gummy vitamins for focus can help support overall mental clarity.
When you’re looking for a little extra support, Lemme Focus can help improve your focus, concentration, and attention. It contains powerful nootropic ingredients, including clinically-tested Cognizin® Citicoline and vitamin B12 to support your overall brain health and help you think more clearly. Just two Lemme Focus gummies each day can help you power through your daily tasks. Plus each Lemme Focus gummy contains Organic Lion’s Mane Mushroom and Organic MCT Oil.
8. Create a Productive Morning Routine
A productive morning routine can help you intentionally start your day with focus and clarity. A set group of tasks or practices you engage in every morning to feel productive can help jumpstart your cognition for a clear mind.
Consider adding calming practices such as journaling, stretching, meditating, or walking every morning, as well as writing down your morning routine to ensure sustainability in your cognitive function.
9. Take Breaks During the Day
No one can operate at total capacity all day, and it is unrealistic to think that you can — or to expect yourself to do so. Taking breaks during the day is very important in order to give your brain a rest and improve your state of mind.
Allow yourself some quiet time to "turn off" your thoughts and relax your mind for a little while. Mental breaks help you to cognitively recharge, which can, in turn, help provide relief from brain fog symptoms such as confusion, trouble concentrating or retaining information, and mental fatigue.
The Bottom Line
Brain fog can be a frustrating mental state — the trouble with focus, recall, and memory that often accompanies brain fog can impact your daily activities and overall state of life.
Most of the time, brain fog has identifiable causes that trace back to your lifestyle habits or routines. A lack of sleep, physical inactivity, stress, an unhealthy diet, and a disorganized daily schedule are all factors that can cause, or contribute to, brain fog — but are, fortunately, also factors that you can easily address at home to reduce brain fog and regain your mental clarity.
If you struggle with brain fog, try altering your lifestyle habits to incorporate more exercise, more sleep, and a healthier diet. Additionally, consider switching up your daily routine to include more self-care practices, planned tasks and organized to-do lists, and structured breaks to rest your mind.
If you still struggle with brain fog despite making healthy changes to your lifestyle habits, then it may be time to seek extra support from your healthcare professional. Just know that there are plenty of ways to relieve your fogginess and get back on the path to mental clarity!
Check out our blog for more info on how to support your wellness, from gut health to stress management to nutrients and more!
Sources:
STRESS RELIEF: The Role of Exercise in Stress Management | ACSM's Health & Fitness Journal
