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Strategies to Reduce Brain Fog and Improve Clear Thinking
- hgibbs 6y ago"Check that you aren't dehydrated" ought to be on any such list.
- NathanielK 6y agoFiber too. Nothing quite clears the mind like going for a walk and emptying the tanks.
- trianglem 6y agoKinda sad that the key to always being sharp is to make sure you’re always a little stressed, or uncomfortable or on edge or “out of your comfort zone”.
- rralian 6y agoIt’s all in the wording. I think the point is to avoid momentum and autopilot. But challenging yourself and learning new things doesn’t need to mean unwelcome stress or discomfort.
- zadler 6y agoI’m not sure that needs to be a bad thing. I think the takeaway is that there’s good stress and bad stress. That was my conclusion anyhow; a little stress releases cortisol which is a steroid, too much causes burnout.
- cornhole 6y agoThis is the type of thing that I hate about life. You are looked down by others for being content and your body also punishes you for being content.
- coldtea 6y agoIt's rather that the body punishes you for being too content. One has to be content in moderation.
- the_cat_kittles 6y agoexercise, sleep, eat consistently and drink alot of water
- Darkphibre 6y agoYup! I've also found what I eat is important. Carbohydrates to be a source of brain fog as I get older. I've also found cutting them out to 0g/day seems to increase anxiety for me (studies have shown reducing it below a certain amount... 50g?... definitely increases cortisol, a stress hormone). So finding a good balance in the diet is key.
- mekoka 6y agoThe temptation is great and common to go cold turkey or gung ho and I don't claim to know anything about your particular protocol, but my own observations lead me to believe that the body can adapt to some unusual regiments quite nicely, if you allow it time and space.
- the_only_law 6y agoHow much of this can I replace with a fast acting pill?
- partingshots 6y agoAll of it. Your body won’t last very long though.
- whytaka 6y agoAlso go outside.
- NathanielK 6y agoMore indoor lighting can make a big difference, especially for folks with Seasonal Affective Dissorder. CO2 can also cause brainfog, so measuring CO2 content and cracking open a window can really make working indoors less constricting.
- RandomWorker 6y agorest, for me made a huge difference. Sometimes taking time off to come back stronger is immensely important.
- anotherhue 6y agoFrom the same folks: "So you're an Engineer and you think you're burned out?" https://techteam.thriveglobal.com/so-youre-an-engineer-and-you-think-youre-burned-out/ https://techteam.thriveglobal.com/so-youre-an-engineer-and-y... [am the author]
- fourier456 6y agoAt the end...“This article was written entirely by GPT-3”...are you also GPT-3?
- nickthemagicman 6y agoThe article is written by GPT3? I didn't see that. But that thought came to my mind.
- anotherhue 6y agoI'm fairly sure that I am not. But it is possible.
- dinkleberg 6y agoThe ultimate "tool" for elevated focus for me is napping. A quick 20 min nap completely resets my mind so I don't have whatever random thoughts floating around. If you are more disciplined than me, meditation in place of napping could work. But napping is easier and more enjoyable to me. As for brain fog itself, I think proper nutrition is very important. Our body needs many different micronutrients to operate at optimal capacity and many peoples' diets don't meet these. Lastly, I don't know how true this is, but a chiropractor told me that poor neck posture can result in reduced blood flow to the brain which can reduce your cognitive capacity (i.e. feeling of brain fog).
- bigdict 6y agoSame here. Just falling asleep even for 1 minute wipes the windshield clean.
- dartdartdart 6y agoWhen do you nap? I'm thinking an hour and a half after finishing lunch would be good since it coincides with the afternoon slump
- dinkleberg 6y agoYeah in my experience that’s about the ideal nap time
- underwater 6y agoMental fog, for me, is a physical symptom of stress and exhaustion. It has nothing to do with having a clean workspace. This article reads like self-help fluff. The solutions I've found are get to enough sleep, try not to fill my day with mentally taxing work or meeting and, in a pinch, drink coffee or take paracetamol.
- ma2rten 6y agoMental fog, for me, is a physical symptom of stress and exhaustion. It has nothing to do with having a clean workspace. The first sentence of the article is "mess creates stress". I don't see a contradiction. It could be that article is wrong, but I have heard many people express that sentiment. If you have evidence that it's not true, I would like to see it.
- Brian_K_White 6y agoThe rest of that same article says in several different ways that stress is necessary stimulation. So much for that. There have been observational studies (vs plain declarative opinion pieces like this one) that correlate clutter with intelligence, creativity, and productivity. The mechanism probably doesn't work the same way for everyone, and so clutter probably isn't good for everyone, but that also means it isn't wrong for everyone either. So much for that. The article is essentially garbage.
- manmal 6y agoI think you‘ll find a hundred other things more stressful than a messy environment. Fighting with the partner, illness of a relative, someone yelled at me on the street, I slept too little,...
- malux85 6y agoSaying "x is more stressful than y" does not negate that y creates stress
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- goodmachine 6y agoWhen I see the words "Brain Fog" I expect to see quacks with 'cures' close by. Yep, there they are.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- TheAceOfHearts 6y agoIf you have persistent brain fog go get your full bloodwork done and check your hormone levels. If anything is off, discuss it with your doctor and get it to an appropriate level.
- franchommee 6y agoFor me, it was gluten. Switched to a gluten-free diet and the mental dog went away
- m463 6y agoNow it could actually be gluten, but fewer simple processed carbs like bread (and pasta) helps. With the pandemic I've had lots more dietary control and was more likely to notice what caused a certain effect. I've given up sugar and it helps tremendously. It takes a while. Also getting enough good sleep.
- tbalsam 6y agoGluten, dairy, and corn for me. Turned out to be MCAS. Supposedly more common than people would expect (and yes, it's an actual ICD-10 disorder), but a total bear to diagnose as it's a diagnosis of exclusion and that's very expensive and a lot of time. I think a lot of people end up falling into the Candida/Naturopathic woo along the way due to the seemingly higher presence of provider empathy. Not that dysbiosis or supplements don't have a lot to do with helping some of the day to day, but it seems to be a downright strange obsession for some folks to the exclusion of actually treating the root of the symptoms (were it even possible, in some cases). I think your smack dab on the sugar and refined carbs stuff too. That seems like it'd be good for everybody. I know I might be in a slim and tiny minority here, but I'm definitely in favor of a sugar tax on foods with added sugars/raw sugar/sugary substitutes that are sugar under a different name (fructose, dextrose, etc...) by itself...
- wpietri 6y agoThis is my experience too. I found that in the stress of the pandemic I was eating more and more comfort food. I did a reset where I cut back slowly to zero refined carbs (e.g., sugar, flour, juice), walked 10k steps per day, and then shifted to eTRF (stopping eating for the day in the early afternoon). My energy levels and mental clarity are hugely better. One thing I didn't expect is that the nature of hunger changed for me. I experience a lot less hunger now that I'm eating less and for a shorter portion of the day.
- bigdict 6y agoDrink a glass of water and seriously engage in a different activity for 20-30 minutes has worked very well for me.
- johnchristopher 6y agoA different activity: physical/mental or switching context ?
- pyrophane 6y agoThrive Global is Ariana Huffington's vehicle to repackage the last several years of self-care fads and sell them to corporations under the guise of improving employee productivity. It doesn't have anything of value to add to the conversation, as this article makes clear.
- vga805 6y agoWould you like to actually engage with the content of the article? Edit: my snark was unwarranted, as commenters helped me realize. Apologies.
- tbalsam 6y agoHe is.
- goodmachine 6y agoWould you actually like to engage with the content of the comment? Rated: informative
- 4eor0 6y agoRight, because social media points can’t be gamed.
- wpietri 6y agoWhy would one engage with the content of an article from a vendor one thinks produces self-serving garbage? That's not to say that's what the article is, just to be clear. But given our incredibly finite amount of time alive, I think it's important to have good filtering heuristics on how one spends one's time. As an example, people who criticize Qanon as bonkers often get asked to just watch a few (long) Q-fan videos. If somebody asked me to do that, I'd say no. I have an infinite number of better ways to spend my time. All of that goes in my "garbage content" bucket. I know all I care to from the reports of others who have dug around in the bucket. If you'd like to convince somebody they've mis-bucketed something, I think a better approach is to say exactly what you see as redeeming about the content of the article.
- curation 6y agoBrain fog is caused by passive acceptance of our interregnum.
- tbalsam 6y agoHow do we as a community feel about some of the tinfoil hatting going on in HN lately? I understand this is a watering hole for folks of all ideals and walks of life, but a comment on a fluff piece about physical symptoms being somehow linked to the more conspiratorial edge of the news cycle is much lower than I think we have been as a community. I could be wrong, though, I'm absolutely open to hearing different thoughts and opinions across the spectrum (minus some of the the strange conspiracy stuff as of late -- I'd assert that it's always been a dull roar but definitely has popped up in more strength recently).
- redis_mlc 6y agoSociety is a conpiracy, by definition, regardless of century. The rest of the world is laughing at the US 2020 election results. They see a sitting President who can draw 500,000 supporters per rally, and in comparison a senile candidate hiding in his basement who can't draw 15 to a rally, and just laugh. And well they should.
- 01100011 6y agoAs a former Redditor I can't complain too much, but I feel like there was a big wave of reddit-like comments and voting that started around 18 months ago or so. HN used to be a refuge from dumb jokes, dumb comments, personal attacks, and the overall negative tone you find on other discussion forums. HN is still better than reddit, but there are some topics I just avoid now, or make more liberal use of the [-] to collapse a toxic thread.
- tbalsam 6y agoI agree -- even when the threads here were massively pseudointellectual back in the day, it was a welcome tone shift. Maybe we can hold the line and hope for some change from dang and the crew. Or maybe it'll pass (though I'd rather not hang my hat on that one there). It's a good site, so hopefully we can hold onto the old "90's practitioner's watering hole" in some way or fashion going forward as a community.
- vga805 6y agoSobriety was a big one for me.
- ilaksh 6y agoThese are all actually interesting self-help tips but they are not related to a medical condition like brain fog. If you have persistent brain fog and can't attribute it to fatigue or something like that, obviously you need a doctor.
- johnchristopher 6y agoBeyond the mushy feels good and free advices from the article you might also want to check yourself for physical problems such as dehydration, Lyme disease, sleep apnea, chronic fatigue syndrome, poor diet, poor sleep, depression and other causes a googling for “brain fog“ should return.
- lazide 6y agoFrankly, pretty much all of these items (albeit often phrased differently, but objectively same pattern/issues) lined up with adult ADHD as well. Adults are hard to diagnose, as they'd generally accumulated a lifetime of habits and coping mechanisms that can mask the underlying patterns, with various degrees of success. Some of the how to do better items listed in the article are classic coping mechanisms, and do help - if you can do them. If you've struggled with doing these methods, or persistently fall back on old habits besides trying them, and it's causing you some distress - you might want to check out https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/adult-adhd/symptoms-causes/syc-20350878 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/adult-adhd/sy... Nearest as anyone can tell right now, it affects ~ 4-5% of the adult population, men and women in equal amounts, but is poorly understood and often attributed to other causes. Women in particular.
- chiefalchemist 6y agoAlso add: - Get enough quality sleep. The brain needs that down time. - Exercise to the point you break a sweat as many days per week as possible. - Mind your diet. Too much sugar and carbs do more harm than good.
- oedmarap 6y agoI can only speak from personal experience, but I've removed fog almost entirely by removing sugar and carbohydrates from my diet (Ketogenic), and doing intermittent fasting (IF). My energy levels are always elevated, I sleep better, and the clarity of thought that comes with a Keto + IF combination is something I only wish I had known about when I was younger. Whilst I'm speaking anecdotally, the benefits are grounded in science and is something that anyone can try. Once you get over the initial "keto adaptation" period the rewards will be well worth the effort. Also, intermittent fasting (and even just removing sugar) is something that can be done separately if you're not a fan of low/zero carb lifestyles.
- DC1350 6y agoThis looks like an article you would find at the bottom of the page alongside a gif showing how much weight you can lose by switching to an all banana diet.
- Tycho 6y agoI think team work is good for inducing extended periods of focus. I can’t remember ever feeling distracted when I was trying to win a game of football. Unfortunately most work is quite solitary.
- karmakaze 6y agoI didn't find anything here that wasn't already common, TL;DR Give up the clutter Multi-tasking doesn’t work Give up the urgent distraction Stop feeding your comfort Don’t sit still Stop consuming media and start creating instead "Stop feeding your comfort" isn't immediately clear from title alone: Comfort provides a state of mental security. [...] But in the long-term, comfort is bad for your brain.
- amelius 6y agoWhat exactly is "brain fog", and is one person's brain fog the same as another person's brain fog?
- babarganesh 6y agoI found a conceptual way to do manage my mental workflow that really does seem to help. I don't really know how to phrase the details, but I started thinking of my brain as an information processing system - in the absence of bugs, throughput depends on managing caches, threads/concurrency, and queues. if you think about your brain that way, you can kind of sense where there are issues with these three things as you think through problems.