[00:00:00] Vesna: today I'm going to talk about ADD brain fog early dementia like symptoms,
[00:00:42] and if they're slowing you down. So one of the things that I hear from my busy clients is I'm working harder than ever, but I still can't get to the big projects, right?
[00:00:51] I'm running out of time. Through the day, right? I can't get that big stuff done, and I just can't pack any more onto my schedule I don't know what to do And so if you resonate with this or you resonate with like do I have brain fog or is it ADD? Because I'm all over the place then this episode is for you because I'm really gonna share What is happening in the brain and mental performance and focus and how you can use nutrition and some dietary and lifestyle changes to improve your mental capacity.
[00:01:22] So recently I've been experimenting something different with clients because I hear so much of this, right, I'm so busy, I can't get everything done, I'm just doing the get by work. Okay. I can't get the bigger projects done. Right. And so I've created this spreadsheet, which is not something that I normally do, but created this spreadsheet, getting them to track what they're doing throughout the day.
[00:01:43] Now, yes, they are busy women. And this may feel like, if you're listening to this, like, I don't have time to track what I'm doing, but trust me, it's a really important exercise. So I got them to track everything that they were doing. Throughout the day, from the beginning of the day, and even afterwards, what they were doing in 30 minute increments, right?
[00:02:01] do this for seven days and really see if you can see a pattern I actually didn't think that we would get such an amazing insight into what was going on for them, but we did, right? So what we noticed, like the first client, she found that by after lunch, she was extremely tired, like very productive in the first part of the day. Started very early, was very productive after lunch about 1, 2 p.
[00:02:22] m. Absolutely hit a wall and was relying on caffeine to keep going. But what she found was that she was doing not even the tasks that she had to finish from the morning. She was doing. Emails, admin y stuff, answering team questions and she didn't have the ability to get back into deep work, right?
[00:02:43] She didn't have the focus, concentration or mental energy, right? She was very tired. She couldn't get back in there to do the deep work to complete the tasks from the morning on. or to even think about doing the big project stuff., and so what we really started to see there was a pattern, right? It wasn't just after lunch, it was at different times during the day.
[00:03:04] And for some women, Their day was being broken up with lots of email, team questions, admin like work because they didn't have the energy to stay and do deep work, right? So they would jump into a bigger project. They'd spend 30 minutes there and And then they jump out, they'd answer an email, they'd answer something from the team, they'd look at their phone, make a phone call, or answer a phone call, and they would be constantly interrupted.
[00:03:30] And so you can imagine, by the end of the day, they looked at what they were doing, and they could see, wow, I'm really not getting much done, but I'm really doing a lot of admin y kind of tasks, right? And so they weren't able to catch that for themselves. Without the spreadsheet, right? The spreadsheet was a real eye opener for them to see what was going on.
[00:03:47] what we also tracked was how much deep work they were doing each day, and then by the end of the week, how many hours did they spend in deep work? Now deep work was a term coined by Cal Newport, who wrote the book called Deep Work, which is a great book, and it really showed that deep work was that work was really challenged your brain, like really stretched your brain, because it was really, difficult work that you could do for a long period of time without being distracted.
[00:04:08] and it was able to stretch your cognitive capabilities to the limit. And so, you know, Cal Newport said that. Deep work is the new economy right? We need to be able to work deeply to come up with new ideas and new solutions in order to sustain our businesses, our careers, et cetera. Right. And then he also said the shallow works.
[00:04:28] So the work that you do that doesn't require a lot of cognitive focus, and you can actually multitask and do it like emails and messages and admin kind of work, right? That doesn't require all of your mental performance.
[00:04:41] Cal Newport also said that the deep work gives us that real sense of fulfillment and satisfaction with our work. So I don't know about you, but I know I love ticking off a to do list and I love completing work. I get very frustrated if I've been working on something for a long time and I haven't completed things.
[00:04:58] Right. And so you may be feeling like this in your business or in your work or in your day to day that you're not getting stuff done, even though you're working all the time. Right. And that's why this. It's a really important exercise. So what we did for my clients was we really looked at a couple of things like, so one of my clients, it was really easy to supplement her with a supplement, which improved mental activity and acuity really, really quickly, like literally from one day to the next, she was able to work a very long day with productivity, high in the morning, After lunch and even into the evening, right?
[00:05:30] So I prescribed L theanine, which is an extract from a green tea, which helps to improve mental performance. But for the other clients, we really had to work on other things, right? Because the brain, we need to look at the brain chemistry. The brain is burnt out. Okay. And so sometimes something like a supplement like L theanine may give a little buzz, but not really do the job because the brain is exhausted because the body is exhausted.
[00:05:54] And in that case, we're looking at improving digestive function because the gut and the brain are linked. We know that gut derived inflammation the brain, creating brain fog, ADD like symptoms, dementia like symptoms, right, where you get forgetful. Very hard to concentrate and very hard to think, right?
[00:06:13] So that is when, because of the gut, the brain is on fire. And we see this with not just brain fog or ADD like symptoms, we see this with anxiety and depression as well.
[00:06:24] We also want to correct all the systems that break down with long term stress, right? So we want to make sure that the body doesn't have cortisol dysregulation, which will affect your energy and affect your mental energy. We want to look at blood glucose levels as well, because that's a big factor.
[00:06:39] If you would notice, I say with some of these clients, they were crashing in the afternoon, right? So this is that after that lunchtime period. So their, their body and brain was unable to maintain their glucose levels. The brain lives on glucose, okay, and we thrive with lots of glucose in the brain, but it wasn't able to maintain glucose levels, and therefore they felt that crash, okay, and so that's another big part of what I see as women are starting to burn out, right, their sugar levels are going up and down, along with their energy, along with their moods, And along with their focus.
[00:07:11] So if this is resonating with you, if you find yourself saying, Hey, yes, I'm definitely feel so busy. I feel like I work more hours than ever and put more work in, but yeah, I didn't get to the bigger projects. I don't get to the big things, right. I'm still stuck doing everything on this list that, You know, is not the big stuff and I can't get to the things that I really want to do, then I would encourage you to start documenting what you do during the day and look at what needs to be corrected.
[00:07:40] This is really going to catapult your productivity. So one of the clients, we saw such a huge shift and that was the one from one day to the next, it was like she forexed her productivity, you know, and if she's operating at that place every day, she's going to get so much more done in her business than somebody who doesn't address their brain fog or ADD like symptoms or dementia like symptoms.
[00:08:02] And essentially. What we're looking at is a brain that's a little bit burnt out.
