9 Steps I Took To Eliminate Brain Fog
Have you ever been stricken with fear that maybe, just maybe, your milk has escaped the fridge?
You searched but couldn’t find it. You don’t remember finishing the gallon yesterday. You don’t even have ninja cats. But now you’re left wondering if milk itself can grow legs, kick open that fridge door, and run itself out the window.
Never happened to you? Just me?
Well if it does, in that moment of panicky confusion, just look up. The top of your fridge may hold the answer to where you placed your 2% Skim milk during your episode of brain fog.
Now, your brain fog blooper-reel will look different than mine. It may not involve almost filing a missing-milk’s report, but odds are it shares some of these themes:
- poor memory / poor recall / forgetful
- sudden difficulty learning
- dull, hazy, spacey, or cloudy
- slow to process
- unmotivated
- socially dumber
- blanking on the “easy stuff”
For 14 years of my life, I either summoned the fiery and overeager antagonist — caffeine — or I occupied one of the above head spaces. And I suppose I could’ve kept the streak going, except that too many people started asking me “did you just wake up?”
Clearly I wasn’t hiding it well. And trying to push through the fog was exhausting. So I did something I knew I could do well, I superglued a single question to my consciousness:
“Can I transform my stubborn brain fog into persistent clarity?”
I let the question marinade. And over time this question became the backdrop of a mental transformation that I embarked on. What I learned pursuing this question was that clarity takes 10x longer than I expected, it takes one really bad weekend to lose, and there’s even more bad news before we get to the good news.
Bad news: You’re leaving $$ on the table. Einstein once explained that “the power of compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.” Compound interest is an investment term that is described as “the interest on interest.” So, the money you earn on the money you’ve earned.
I believe the same concept applies to your work. Your mental capacity controls the % return on your work and your projects. Your finest moments — your creative breakthroughs, your discipline, your clearest insights — they all depend on an unencumbered brain. Just because you can’t measure what comes from stacking your finest moments atop one another doesn’t mean that it’s not compounding. Welcoming brain fog in your life means tolerating low return on everything else you do.
Bad news: brain fog becomes a lifestyle. Or, if you insist, a brain-style. There’s nothing taboo about relying on external coping mechanisms to sweep your brain fog under the rug. Even if everyone knew that you can’t hack it without your coffee or wakefulness drug or endless distractions, it’s becoming increasingly ok to need something else to function just well-enough. As the world around you welcomes the sapping forces that bring upon brain fog, you’re at risk of sliding into a willing mediocrity that is completely normal to you.
Bad news: geek squad can’t help you. How nice would it be if you could drop your brain off at the nearest Best Buy, and have it ready for pick up, spick and spam, good as new the next day? But that won’t be happening here. You’ll be doing some work.
Good news: there is a fix. You probably weren’t born with brain fog (barring any serious health issues). It’s something that found its way into your life. So getting rid of it isn’t about finding something you’ve never had. It’s about not messing up a good thing.
*Note: If you have issues like “chemo brain” or thyroid issues or [fill in serious medical issue] that is causing your brain fog, these steps might be limited to you. These steps will be most useful for the common brain fog sufferer. Please consult your physician before trying anything.
I. “Why Do I Feel This Way?”
I find it hard to believe that our tribal ancestors suffered from brain fog the way we modern folks do. Their environment was probably empty of all the trappings: excess sugar and generally poor diet, sitting all day, staring at screens, medications upon medications, or stimulants and the rebound that comes with them.
But not us. We’re on a different playing field.
Inputs that invariably affect our biochemistry and neurology are being spit at us from all angles and at all minutes of the day.
Within any given hour a person might quickly scan 1000 words on their Facebook wall, snap a picture or five, like 10 more of them, throw back an espresso, see some sexually triggering advert, repress that feeling, pop a nootropic, and still not have stood up from his or her adjustable desk.
So while it seems to sneak up on us, brain fog doesn’t “just happen.”
It may be random or inevitable at times, and we may not see it’s chronology so clearly, but there was a cause. Your brain is like a delicate symphony — each instrument can either support or sabotage the entire orchestra. It needs certain things to go right, and certain things to not go wrong.
- It needs enough serotonin to have a generally calm and positive mood.
- It needs enough dopamine to make you feel there is reward in life.
- It needs low enough cortisol so you’re not trembling with anxiety.
- It needs stable enough blood sugar so you don’t need a nap every time you eat.
- It needs enough hydration so you don’t feel weak, brittle, and dry.
Phew! Your body needs all that to not feel like a zombie.
It’s no wonder moments of peak performance are so damn rare. They depend on a type of harmony that our surroundings, our impulses, and our bad habits are at odds with. If we’re going to achieve more of those moments then we’ll have to perform some surgery on our behaviors.
Scalpel please.
II. VIA NEGATIVA
There’s a term I love, and it’s become one of my favorite ‘personal development tools.’ It’s called “Via Negativa”
It was recently popularized by Nassim Taleb in his bestseller Antifragile, but was originally coined by Christianity as a way to explain God by explaining what he is not. Taleb adapts the term to describe it as a way to improve one’s life by focusing on what not to do and what to stop doing.
But this can be tricky. If you’ve just gotten lung cancer then it’s common sense to stop smoking. In our case though— if you’ve just gotten brain fog — what to immediately stop isn’t so clear. It requires tinkering and educated guesswork and patience.
Fortunately there are places to start. What I choose to subtract from my life was a best guess at what would crank the lever of my own mental performance. I encourage you to examine these options on a case by case basis, identify what might work for you, and let it rip.
It will either change your life or you’ll find out that it doesn’t — both important to know.
ACTION 1: Quit Caffeine
effectiveness: 4.5 out of 5
This was a YYYUGE win. It single handedly increased my baseline of dopamine (reward chemical) and serotonin (calm/tranquil), it normalized adenosine (made less tired throughout day), and decreased cortisol (anxiety).
It’s been more than worth it. Gone are the days where I wake up feeling like I was hit by a truck. I don’t “crash” midday anymore, and I feel more centered and in control. Even if brain fog does pay me a visit, it’s more manageable and less acute .
Make no mistake, the withdrawal phase was tough. Some people have a harder time quitting caffeine than they did heroin! Having failed more times than I succeeded, it eventually required that I get real surgical about the triggers that caused me to “not live without my cup of coffee.”
PROTIP: to kill the caffeine addiction, beat brain fog, and gain persistent clarity (without the withdrawal nightmare), I invented this step-by-step eCourse to guide you (plus a reader’s discount).
ACTION 2: Quit Binging On Carbs and Sugar
effectiveness: 4 out of 5
I used to eat a pint of Ben n’ Jerry’s every weekend. My record is 3 pints in one night (and I won’t tell you what else I ate that night). I stopped that and overhauled my diet over time. Most days I have low carbs, medium fat, and high protein.
It turns out the body interprets this type of heavy carb dosing as a sign to slow down and get sleepy. Your insulin gets involved and your body starts rushing blood away from your head, and toward your stomach to increase digestion.
Many people know this as they’ve celebrated thanksgiving (no, it wasn’t the turkey that made you sleepy), but incorporating it more sternly into your diet can make a world of difference. Give it a try. And oh yea I lost 15lbs.
Action 3: Less Alcohol
effectiveness: 2 out of 5
This could have been a 4 out of 5 if I was a heavy drinker. However, my drinking was mostly limited to weekend NYC partying.
Drinking alcohol may seem inconsequential to your sober-state sharpness, until you account for the down stream impact that one long night of drinking has on your next day: heavy drinking night → eat like crap → poor sleep → hangover → increased impulse → coffee craving to reduce hangover→ brain fog has been reset.
When I do spend a night drinking, my sleep is always crap and I wake up at least slightly disoriented. Examine this one for yourself.
ACTION 4: Stop Chronic Sitting
effectiveness: 3.5 out of 5
Why do so many things go right when we move more? Perhaps a neuroscientist can answer that.
Daniel Wolpert explained in his TED talk, a talk with over 1.7 million views, that our brains didn’t evolve to think. They evolved to move better.
“The brain evolved, not to think or feel, but to control movement.”
Interesting. So most types that are reading this, the types that sit behind a computer por mucho horas each day, are making their brains work for reasons it didn’t primarily evolve for?
Change this, I must.
Instead of cramming loads of work into long sitting sessions, I instituted ‘movement’ breaks every 30–60 minutes. Usually it involves a quick walk or some stretching. It was hard at first, and I still sometimes forget to unglue myself from my seat, but there’s a clear improvement in clarity each time. The improved blood circulation combined with a mild endorphin increase and respiratory activity seems to do the trick. And the longer the better.
I try not to question why this works too much. It just works — I can go on a 3 hour hike and feel ready to do anything — inspired, energized, and healthy — but a 3 hour computer session will turn me to a zombie with bloodshot eyes. I chalk it up to nature.
ACTION 5: Remove Distraction
Effectiveness: 3 out of 5
This involved eliminating Facebook for all of 2016, having nearly no apps on my phone, and making it very hard to get sucked into online distraction (by using Stayfocused).
How did this help? Generally, it made me less addicted to dopamine hits (that technology is so good at triggering), and it made me “bored” enough to move my body more and hunt down better outlets for my creative energy.
This adds up to make a big difference. So close those 30 browser tabs and try to restrain social media usage by 80%. You just might notice your attention and spiritual energy has been transmogrified.
You’ll feel more sane too.
III. Via Positiva
I consider myself a bit of a minimalist. I don’t live out of a backpack, but anything I buy has to justify its worth. This tendency transfers into my behavior-life too. I feel that most habits and behaviors I add to my life should earn their stay. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but consider the ethos of each addition. I can vouch for all of them.
ACTION 6: Meditation
Effectiveness: 4.5 out of 5
Meditation is the one thing that affects everything else I do. I mostly stay away from the religious and mystical aspects of it, because I’m too in love with its practical use case.
Imagine your mind state being like the weather. It can be rainy, stormy, sunny, cloudy, or any other variation. Also imagine that meteorologists don’t exist. Blend it together and you have most people’s inner life— they are in a mood they don’t know how they got in, and they feel trapped by it.
Meditation trains you to see the weather coming, it trains you to operate within it, it trains you to not be a slave to it, and it trains “slow the game down” and be in this moment.
This isn’t a magic pill, and I would never recommend one. It doesn’t happen over night, it requires dedication, but meditation will help you in many areas of your life, including the ability to outwit brain fog and become better at getting sh** done without being at 100%.
ACTION 7: Get Sufficient Sleep
Effectiveness: 4.5 out of 5
If there is a single predictor of sluggishness and brain fog throughout my day, it’s lack of sleep. No matter how much I try to be the CEO-Hero-type that only needs 4 hours of sleep, it just doesn’t work like that. Maybe I don’t have enough anxiety coursing though my veins to feel “awake” with only 4 hours, so 7+ hours is a must for me to function well.
Put this in the 80/20 category of things to prioritize. Stabilize your sleep schedule as best you can. If you’re having trouble with this, try Melatonin or 5-HTP or Holy Basil (all of which I vouch for and use occasionally).
ACTION 8: Refill Your Vitamin B-12
Effectiveness: 3.5 out of 5
I couldn’t believe that B-12 helped me as much as it did. It turns out that most people are walking around deficient in one vitamin or another.
Caffeine also exacerbates this issue by making the average chronic consumer more vitamin deficient. Combining Vitamin B-12 with quitting caffeine provided me strong results since it plays a vital role in concentration, energy, and general neurological support.
If you’re looking for a good option, absolutely check out Jarrow’s formula. They pack in the best quality and the best bioavailability hands down.
ACTION 9: Try St. John’s Wort
Effectiveness: 2.5 out of 5
While I’m still experimenting with this one, I’ve noticed it helps elevate my mood whenever I’m feeling a bit too blah. With a quick google search you’ll find that it’s used by many to help with depression and apathy. That said, it’s definitely not something to use too much without a doctor consultation. However it does seem to be something worth trying out to get you over those hazy humps.
IV. Applying
“Well that wasn’t a comprehensive guide,” you might be saying. “I don’t even know exactly where to start.”
Start with what you think the most consequential change would be. Ask yourself “can this be affecting my biochemistry or neurology significantly? “
The steps I took are known to have obvious effects, and so that’s where I started. It might seem obvious, but when it comes to Via Negativa, don’t remove anything that is essential to life. Water, food, breathing, and other things should stay. And when it comes to Via Positiva, don’t add anything without doing sufficient research (google is your friend) or consulting your doctor.
P.S. If you liked this article, give it a ♡ because we need less brain-fog zombies out there.
P.S.S Is there something you’ve tried that’s reduced your brain fog? Please comment below and help others find that out too.
Matt Cartagena is co-creator of Overcoming Caffeine Withdrawal, an eCourse designed to help people win the battle on caffeine addiction. He is also a Ghostwriter for world-class Thought Leaders.
