[00:00:00] Vesna: Welcome to the Peak Revival podcast. My name is Vesna and today I'm going to talk about how to get rid of brain fog. Brain fog is a symptom that is quite common and it feels like you're borderline getting dementia, getting old, even though you're maybe in your early forties or late thirties. And it looks like forgetting things, not having the concentration to work through tasks it's basically forgetting things all the time. I kind of makes it really hard to work. It kind of feels like you're working with a head full of cotton wool or something like that. So my clients will say to me, I can't get my work done. It makes everything so much harder because it's really then trying to push and use a lot of mental energy because that level of concentration is just not there.
[00:00:44] Besides being very frustrating and making it much harder to work and be productive and getting things done on time and also remembering to do things and not forgetting appointments, forgetting a meeting, forgetting a deadline, right? it can indicate some underlining conditions may be going on.
[00:01:00] So brain fog is a symptom and it's linked to a couple of different, uh, situations. So the first one being excess stress. If you had a period of chronic stress. Brain fog is very, very common. So I see women who are exhausted, anxious, burnt out and brain fog is one of those symptoms that they really struggle with.
[00:01:19] thyroid disruption can also cause brain fog. So that's one of the classic symptoms of thyroid disruption. So thyroid is this gland, which is the queen of the metabolism, but also helps us with memory and concentration. And so if there is any. Disruption like low thyroid function or autoimmune thyroid conditions.
[00:01:38] One of the common symptoms is brain fog. The third common reason is poor gut health. Gut health and thyroid are very much linked. Stress, chronic stress, and poor gut health is also very linked. And so, I'm going to talk more about that as we go. And the fourth one is perimenopause. by the time a woman gets to her 40s, she could have perimenopause, thyroid [00:02:00] disturbances, chronic stress.
[00:02:01] Which really kind of is very typical for what I see because these women are very driven, work very hard and it can create imbalances in the body.
[00:02:09] There isn't a test to test for brain fog, but what you'd be looking at is the conditions that I just mentioned. So if there's a high stress situation. So in the previous podcast, I talked about what pathology tests you can do to have a look at what imbalances are creating your symptoms, what imbalances are controlling your energy, your mood, and your metabolism.
[00:02:29] So stress can be a factor. And so some of those tests are looking at your stress hormones or the adrenal response or stress response system. So this is looking at hormones like cortisol. So, you know, if that's high or low or it's impacted, it can indicate a period of chronic stress, which can can definitely create the brain fog symptom.
[00:02:48] The second one is thyroid. And I did go more into detail in the last podcast, but the thyroid imbalances can be detected on pathology testing. So you've got a standard thyroid panel and you also have your antibodies that you want to have checked as well, because sometimes your thyroid panel looks normal.
[00:03:04] , But your pathology or your antibody tests are all over the place.
[00:03:09] Perimenopause can't be detected on a blood test, unfortunately, and gut symptoms can show up different things.
[00:03:15] So what are the things that you can do to reduce brain fog and get your memory back, get full concentration, feel like you have that mental power to get through your work quite easily and effortlessly and not feel so kind of drained at the end of the day. So number one is really looking after your blood glucose levels, because if there's been a period of stress, what tends to happen is As our blood sugar levels fluctuate, if we miss meals, we take too long to eat breakfast, we're eating things with high sugar or high processed foods, it's going to disrupt our glucose levels, which will also disrupt our stress hormone level.
[00:03:55] And the other thing with our glucose is that it affects our brain, right? [00:04:00] So our brain uses a lot of glucose. We have insulin receptors in the brain, which respond to glucose. So it really does affect our mental health. So what you're eating day to day, what you're doing as soon as you wake up in the morning is having an impact to your mental function for the rest of the day.
[00:04:17] So the number thing that I recommend is. Don't skip breakfast. Don't go hours before having breakfast. Don't wake up and have a cup of coffee first and then wait two to three hours before eating anything. So what you want to do is have your breakfast first, then have any kind of coffee or anything that you want afterwards.
[00:04:35] So I normally recommend about 20, 30 minutes in the morning. That's the only gap to wait until you have your breakfast. And then something like adding collagen to your breakfast, like a collagen smoothie, will help to improve brain health, right? So collagen contains a lot of glycine, which is great for anxiety, but it's also great for brain health.
[00:04:54] brain fog as well.
[00:04:55] The second thing is to eat regular meals, and this goes back again to making sure that there's no fluctuations in the glucose level, which is going to create more stress on the body. And then you want to make sure that you've got enough proteins and fats that again, stabilize the blood glucose levels.
[00:05:10] And the third thing I want to mention here with diet and the glucose is to cut out the fat. Sugar and processed foods, so even if you're relying on them because you're stressed, you're tired, you've got so much to do and you're pushing through it at the end of like 2, 3 o'clock, you're hitting the wall because you're tired, cut that out because that will again disrupt your glucose levels and will create those highs and lows of your energy anyway.
[00:05:32] The other thing to look at is to assess if you have any gut symptoms. Things like bloating, wind, reflux, indigestion, changes in your bowel habits, all indicate that there can be poor function in the digestive system. Now, it is not uncommon to have no symptoms from the digestive system and still have poor gut function.
[00:05:53] So one of the most common things that we see is leaky gut, which is where the Digestive lining is [00:06:00] compromised, which creates a lot of inflammation throughout the body, including the brain. And so this is where we can get brain fog. And this kind of gut derived inflammation makes us feel like, I don't know, like I kind of describe it.
[00:06:11] Like if you're walking around with this inflammation in the brain, it feels like trying to work with a hangover. If you've ever done that. And I certainly have, you know, that you're not getting much done. You're just trying to get through the work that you need to just kind of the get by stuff. Right? And so poor gut function, again, comes from stress, the foods that we eat when we're stressed, the processed foods, the alcohol, the caffeine, even some medications can affect the gut.
[00:06:38] And it creates an environment which causes, uh, imbalances in our pH. We can get gut bugs building up, which create more more fermentation. It affects the microbiome. So, I would be looking at, you know, number one, do you have any gut related symptoms? Those ones that you can identify already.
[00:06:57] Like, do you already feel like, actually, you know what? I am bloated and I do get reflux after I eat, or I don't feel a hundred percent after it, maybe you feel nauseous. Maybe you feel some of those symptoms, right? So whatever symptoms are out, they are an invitation to do a bit more work. And to look at what could be going on there.
[00:07:16] So doing gut repair to correct the nutrient deficiencies that can be creating. The brain fog, one of the most common ones is B12, right? B12 is absorbed in our gut and when we have poor gut function, we have deficiency of B12 which affects our brain, affects our nervous system, affects our mood, but can create brain fog.
[00:07:37] The other thing to look at is allergies with food or food intolerances. So this is a big one. There may be foods that you're having that are actually causing an imbalance in your gut and creating, you know, leaky gut, which then creates inflammation, which is then creating the brain fog. So the most common foods which people have reactions to, are [00:08:00] gluten.
[00:08:01] and dairy. They're the two most common ones. There are other ones, but they are definitely the most common. And so if you're not sure, I always say cut them out, see how you feel, see how your symptoms feel, see how you feel with your energy, see how you feel with your concentration. So just to rehash what you can do to get rid of brain fog is number one, try to isolate the cause.
[00:08:19] Like have a check to have a look at, you know, stress markers, thyroid markers. Are you in perimenopause? What can you correct there? Secondly, look at making sure there's no blood glucose level fluctuations, which is going to place your body under more stress. And so, as I said, you know, brain fog is very common with hot periods of high stress.
[00:08:40] So we can use food and habits and lifestyle changes. to reduce cortisol and the effects of stress on our body, even though our life is very busy. And the third thing is to make sure that is there any gut involvement and any thyroid involvement? So have you had your thyroid checked? Have you done all the recommended tests that I talk about in the previous podcast?
[00:09:01] And what can you do to assess? Can you assess your gut situation? Do you have some of those symptoms and can you look at doing a gut repair protocol?
[00:09:10] so do some of your own investigations and let me know in the comments below, which one really stands out for you. That could be the most likely possibility that's causing you the brain fog.
