Brain fog is the worst, especially if you value your mind or work a mentally stimulating job. The use of your mind is vital, but the sharpness you experience can vary. Those intellectuals who love using their mind still struggle with brain fog at some point in their life. Practicing different ways to battle a murky mind can effectively support your mental clarity.
Movement
According to Harvard Health, moving gets the blood flowing which supports thinking and memory. People automatically associate movement with exercise. Exercise has many great benefits, especially regarding mental health, but moving doesn’t have to be extreme.
Walking can be enough to get your mental juices flowing. If walking is too much or too boring for you, then try standing. A few minutes of movement of any kind can help maintain your thought process.
To sleep, you must sit or lay down. Your brain is halfway to entering rest mode when you’re not up and moving. Just like when your limbs fall asleep, you shake and move them about until the blood gets going; well, blood needs to flow through your brain, so get going.
Fast
Neuroscientist, Rahul Jandial, reported to CNBC that he practices intermittent fasting to optimize his cognition. Nowadays, people mainly fast for health or fitness purposes, but fasting has always been in practice somewhere in the world. Religions use fasting to fine-tune their internal ear toward their God.
Fasting can develop a type of mental high and has the potential to peak at different hours. Not everyone fasts the same way. Some people fast for days and some for hours, but you don’t have to practice the extreme, especially if you’ve never done it before. Try fasting for one meal or snack and report the results in a notebook. If you weren’t satisfied, then increase the time of your fast to see improvements.
Removing food and drink that are liable to make you sluggish such as carbs, sugars, and fast food can also keep brain fog at bay. To optimize your nutritional intake you could try personalized vitamins. All vitamins play a key role in your health, but Healthline reports that lacking certain b vitamins is partially responsible for brain fog. Having a complete nutrition plan with vitamins while fasting once in a blue moon can help you maintain optimal levels.
Routine
Routine is closely associated with practice because the more one routinely practices something, the easier it becomes. Training your mind to be sharp by completing mental practices routinely can shorten the time it takes for your brain to get warmed up.
Think of Malcolm Gladwell’s research from his book, Outliers. He concludes that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become great at something. When the thing you practice becomes automatic, then the brain doesn’t have to use as much juice to make it happen.
Entering an autopilot mode causes the brain to be free. Work that doesn’t require a lot of brain activity can help free the mind to epiphany mode.
Breaking routine from time to time is just as important to maintain focus and creativity. Be sure to establish a routine, and like a good cheat meal, break from time to time.
Read
Reading is the famous way to support focus and practice mental clarity; however, there are times when even reading can be hard. Regular reading practices can keep your mind sharp. Insider reports that reading strengthens the mind, supporting memory and concentration.
If you don’t normally read, then beginning can benefit you greatly. Do you consider yourself a natural reader? You should try more challenging texts that will stretch their cognitive muscles. By reading a hard text, you’ll find that other reading becomes a breeze.
Avoid
Avoid activities that will disrupt you from concentrating. Be focused. Author of The One Thing, Gary Keller, explains that humans were not made to multitask. By focusing on one thing at a time, productivity and mental clarity reign.
Giving your full attention to something is called being committed. If you are on your smartphone during a conversation, then you’re not committed to the conversation. When you catch a glimpse of the conversation that intrigues you, then you’ll place the phone down, not because it’s exciting, but because you’ve decided to commit.
Deciding to commit to improving your mental clarity is all that’s needed. If your focus is to support your focus, then trying different ways to obtain your goal won’t be a hassle, it’ll be rewarding.