Understanding and Combating Brain Fog in Society

Sedentary lifestyle, inflammation, obesity, stress, poor sleep, and dehydration contribute to increasing brain fog in society.

### Understanding and Addressing Brain Fog: A Comprehensive Guide
* 🧠 Brain fog is a common and increasingly prevalent issue that can be debilitating, characterized by **difficulties with concentration, memory, and cognitive tasks**.
* 🔬 Research suggests that brain fog is associated with **inflammation, particularly mast cell inflammation**, and **low cerebral perfusion**, potentially caused by conditions like POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome).
* 🌿 Flavonoids, particularly luteolin, have been found to **reduce inflammation and improve brain fog**, with green leafy vegetables being a **good dietary source**.
* 💤 Poor sleep and dehydration are common factors associated with brain fog, with **90% of people with brain fog reporting poor sleep** and **88% reporting some degree of dehydration**.
* 🏋 Exercise, particularly cardiovascular exercise using the legs, is recommended to **improve circulation** and **combat the effects of a sedentary lifestyle**.
* 🧘 Yoga, Tai Chi, and specifically Shirshasana (headstand pose) are suggested for their potential benefits in **improving cerebral perfusion** and **reducing brain fog**.
* 🍽 A healthy diet, rich in **nutrient-dense greens** and potentially supplemented with **luteolin**, is recommended to combat inflammation and support brain health.
* 💊 Medical professionals often struggle to diagnose and treat brain fog, as it is not a recognized medical condition, leading to referrals to mental health professionals despite its **physiological nature**.

so if I'm sitting in this computer chair all day, right, and I'm not like exercising or anything like that, if I'm not physically active, what I've actually seen an alarming amount of is young people that have like blood pressure problems. So I'm talking about 20-year-olds, 25-year-olds that will have symptomatic dizziness when they stand up from their computer chair because they've been sitting in the computer chair all day. There are many people who will offer solutions for life, do this and you will be happy, do that and be happy. It is my opinion that you must understand yourself first. That is why we made Dr. K guide, check it out, nah. So let's talk a little bit about brain fog. So I think brain fog is an increasingly important thing to discuss because it seems to be like rapidly rising. So we know that, for example, 19 out of 20 people on the planet now have basically had COVID. We also know that about 10 percent of people or up to about 10 percent

numbers, probably closer to seven or eight percent, are people who have COVID have brain fog. But we also know that brain fog seems to be increasing like across the board. And the reason that this is such a big problem is because brain fog is one of the worst things to have for a couple of reasons. The first is that if you have brain fog and you go see a medical professional, chances are they'll like punt you somewhere like they'll tell you to go see a therapist or they won't really give you any sort of constructive help, right? So if you go to a doctor and you say, well, like I've got, you know, my brain doesn't seem to be working quite right, well, first of all, like what does that even mean? And then the doctor may order some kinds of tests, right? They may sort of check to see if you have an infection, they may sort of check your blood counts, they may check a couple of things, but at the end of the day, brain fog really isn't a diagnosable condition.

and it also appears to not really be a treatable condition. So a lot of times, what happens when people struggle with brain fog, which by the way can be incredibly debilitating. So when we talk about brain fog, what we're sort of talking about is like difficulties with concentration, difficulties with short and long-term memory, usually more short-term memory. So people are incredibly forgetful. People tend to find that they require a lot more effort to do like basic cognitive tasks. So studying is harder, work is harder. It just seems to be kind of like incredibly debilitating without sort of having any kind of like um, you know, Smoking Gun in terms of what's causing it. So oftentimes we sort of accept that like okay, yeah, if I've got the flu or covid, that's the reason it's hard for me to work. But the problem with brain fog is that it tends to persist for very long periods of time, doesn't have a clear cause, and then even if we go seek help from medical professionals, oftentimes they'll

order some tests, or maybe evaluate us, but then they don't really have any sort of like treatment or anything significant they can do to help us, which is exactly why it's so frustrating. The other thing that tends to be kind of unfortunate, in a lot of ways, is that a lot of times, if you go see a medical doctor and they can't find something wrong with you, but you are still struggling, and those the ways in which you are struggling are not testable, right? So, this isn't something like I've got wheezing in my chest or my blood pressure is very high or my heart rate, I've got an arrhythmia or I have a rash or something like that. If it's something like cognitive, what usually medical doctors will do is if they can't sort of find something very specific, what they're going to do is send you to a mental health professional. They'll refer you to a psychiatrist because if we can't find what's wrong with your body, it sort of must be in your head or the

best doctors will still sort of acknowledge that it's psychosomatic, which we'll get to in a minute, but they'll sort of send you to a mental health professional, and then the problem kind of becomes okay. So let's say I go see a therapist, whereas like if you... I don't know if you guys know this, but as you've trained to become a therapist, you get a total of zero hours of training in how to deal with brain fog, right? It's like it's not a DSM diagnosis, so it's not like a psychiatric illness, which is what people are trained in. We're trained in stuff like trauma and anxiety and depression, but brain fog really isn't something that we're taught about. And so then the problem is that the answer that you're kind of given is mental health help, which can be helpful in some ways, but then the other problem is that as we learn... as we'll sort of discover today, brain fog actually is not a psychiatric illness. There's a lot of strong evidence that it is actually

physiologic in nature, and neurologic in nature. So, the solutions that people with brain fog are being given are ones that are actually like not very useful, like scientifically. So let's kind of tunnel down into this and understand a little bit more about what brain fog is and what we can do about it. So the good news is that we do have a lot of research recently into sort of what causes brain fog or what are some of the culprits. And the neat thing about that is as we discover what the mechanisms of brain fog are, we'll also naturally start to discover what are some potential solutions. So let's kind of dive into this, okay? So, brain fog, first of all, appears to be increasing. So, as we kind of tunnel down into this, people, as brain fog has been sort of on the rise, and as people have been sort of getting covered, what we've discovered is that like the interest in brain fog is increasing, the research in brain fog is increasing, and there are a couple of key things that

we've learned the first is that brain fog seems to be associated with inflammation, and specifically Mast Cell inflammation. Okay, now this is important for a couple of reasons. The first is that if things are inflammatory in nature, first of all, we sort of can kind of infer that they're not psychiatric in nature. Or there's that gets a little bit complicated, but there seems to be a physiologic cause, and specifically the target seems to be mast cells. So there's a lot of evidence that shows that mast cells are actually correlated with the extent of brain fog, and what we sort of have discovered is that brain fog appears to be like inflammation specifically within our central nervous system or brain. So I don't know if you guys have sort of felt that, like, you know, if you get the flu or COVID or some kind of infection, and you have this whole body inflammation, or if you have something like lupus, what you're going to experience is some amount of cognitive impairment, right? You don't.

feel quite as energetic. It's hard to study. It's hard to focus. Your short-term memory will be negatively impacted. And so we sort of know that inflammation can cause these problems. And we also know from lots of research that mast cells seem to be implicated. The other thing that's kind of interesting is that this inflammation also seems to be associated with obesity. Now I know that there's a lot of tension on the internet nowadays around fat phobia and things like that. I'm not trying to be fat phobic or place value judgments on people who are overweight. But what we do know, this is something that a lot of people don't realize, is that adipocytes or fat storage cells in our body are not just storage. They're actually endocrinologically active and immunologically active. So that means is that the number of adipocytes or the size of adipocytes that we have in our body correlates with a certain amount of inflammatory activity or correlates with some amount of endocrine activity. So we

know that these are not just benign storage parts of our body. They're actually physiologically active and can actually lead to inflammation. Okay, and we also know that obesity is actually correlated with brain fog. A couple of other things that we sort of have discovered is that when it comes to the Mast cells, the mast cells are actually either on themselves or right next to the mast cells. We have these things called crh receptors, and crh is essentially a stress. It's not a stress hormone itself, but it's a signal that causes the release of a stress hormone. So what we sort of know is that here we've got our crh receptor, and let's say here's a mast cell. And so crh comes in over here, it activates the mast cell. The key thing here is that if we say, Okay, inflammation is one of the causes of brain fog, and it's mediated through the mast cell, what triggers the mast cell? Well, it seems that stress, specifically crh, is one of

the key things that induce Mast Cell Activation, which then in turn leads to brain fog symptoms. Okay, you may say, well, like what's the point of all this, all right, like I don't understand why we're learning this science. Well, the reason we're learning the science is because hopefully as we start to understand the mechanisms, this will also open the path to understanding how we can sort of combat brain fog. Okay, the next thing that's kind of really interesting is that brain fog is also associated with a condition called POTS. So, POTS is Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, which is essentially a condition that has to do with low blood pressure, specifically that is postural in nature. So, if you want to get kind of a quick understanding of what it feels like to have POTS, if you are laying down in bed and you jump upright out of bed, first of all, don't do this if you've got blood pressure problems because you could fall over, but if you jump right up, what you'll sometimes notice is that if

you stand up. Suddenly, you'll start to get a little bit of dizziness, and what this sort of what was responsible for the dizziness is that as we stand up, the blood flow to our brain actually decreases, and it takes a few seconds for our heart and our vasculature to kind of adjust to the effect of gravity because remember that when we're laying down, right, so we're not really fighting against gravity. But when we stand up now, our heart and blood vessels actually have to pump blood this way to sort of get to cerebral to increase cerebral perfusion or to get blood flow to our brain. So some of y'all may have experienced that if you stand up. Suddenly, you'll feel dizzy for a second or two, and then your body essentially compensates. What happens in people with POTS is that their ability to compensate is somehow impaired. So when they stand up or sit up, they tend to have low blood pressure, which impacts their cerebral blood flow. The key thing here is that we know that brain fog is associated with

low cerebral perfusion, which is a fancy way of saying we know that people with brain fog actually have less blood going to their brain. Okay, so there's or it requires more blood flow to complete particular cognitive tasks. So, the other way to kind of think about it is if you've got one person with brain fog and one person without brain fog, the amount of blood that this person needs to complete a memory task is higher versus the amount of blood that this person needs is relatively lower. So, people with brain fog, there seems to be be something around cerebral perfusion as a cause of brain fog. Another thing that's really interesting is that as people have sort of looked at certain chemical compounds and they've essentially found that flavonoids and specifically something called luteolin seems to reduce inflammation, has a neuroprotective fact and appears to improve brain fog. Okay, now we got to talk about flavonoids and luteolin for a second. Something has been happening recently with our diet. So, we know that for example people are eating

more processed foods, which is a part of the problem. But one of the reasons why I think that brain fog is actually getting a lot worse is because of the way in which our food is actually grown. So over the last, let's say, 20 to 50 years, we've started to use a lot of fertilizers. And I'm not like anti-GMO or anything like that, but we have selected for vegetables. And so flavonoids are oftentimes found from green leafy vegetables. So the rate at which vegetables are being grown is actually increasing. So you used to take, let's say, like six months to grow a crop of spinach. And now we've really accelerated their growth rate using certain kinds of genetic modifications and fertilizers. And the result of that is that sure, it grows really quickly, but the nutrient density is actually decreasing. So we know that with some kinds of food, specifically, so in some ways the nutrient density is exactly the same that it used to be, but in other kinds, there are some kinds of nutrients

which the faster you grow, the plant, the less the plant kind of absorbs particular things, or is able to create particular things. And so, what we're actually finding is that there's a correlation between rapid growth or rapid growth of a plant is inversely correlated with its nutrient density. And this is something that I sort of discovered kind of in an interesting way. So, I went hiking last year in Alaska, and I found some wild raspberries. And the wild raspberries were like really, really small. They're like not nowhere near the size of like the raspberry that you get, you know, at a grocery store. And so, we were picking wild raspberries and eating them. And like they were super sour. Like they didn't taste, you know, as they didn't look as beautiful people. They sort of like tasted incredibly sour. But there was something oddly delicious about the wild raspberries that when I went back and like got my, my Supermarket raspberries, like sure they were big and they were juicy and they were sweet. But there was something that I could almost

like tell a difference between like the nutrient density between the wild raspberry and the one that I could get at the supermarket. So there is some evidence that as um you know we're sort of having more and more rapidly growing foods, that there's a correlation with sort of a decrease in nutrient density. And this becomes really really important because when it comes to absorption, we only absorb about 10 percent of flavonoids from our diet. So what that means is that our body is very very inefficient at absorbing some of these compounds, which in turn means that if we're reducing the nutrient density from our Foods, it makes it like sort of like since our our absorption is so low, if we kind of cut the nutrient density in half, we're ending up with a lot less of these compounds in our diet. And then as a result, we're sort of having less of this inflammatory protective effect in neuroprotective effect. A couple of other things that we've sort of found that are

associated with brain fog are poor sleep. So, about 90 percent of people with brain fog will report having poor sleep or insufficient sleep. And then, the last thing that's kind of interesting is that we also know that dehydration appears to be correlated with brain fog as well. In one study, 88 percent of people who had brain fog qualified or reported some degree of dehydration. This is kind of interesting, right? Because now we're starting to see that first of all, and I want to show you all one other thing just directly from a paper. There's also some evidence that, so just to kind of the last thing is what about things like depression? So, there's actually some studies that have specifically examined psychiatric comorbidities and brain fog. And what they've actually found is that psychiatric comorbidities are not associated with the cognitive impairment of brain fog, at least in certain inflammatory conditions. This is a paper about chronic fatigue syndrome. So, we know that brain fog that's sort of

caused by these, like a sort of mysterious inflammatory conditions, appear to be not psychiatric in nature, which is really, really important. I think this is actually what's really unfortunate is because like a lot of times, doctors will send people to mental health professionals to deal with brain fog because they sort of don't know what else to do. And if we can't figure out what's wrong with you, let's send you to a therapist because they'll be able to sort it out. But as we take a look at this, what we actually find is that there's a lot of physiologic sources of brain fog. So now let's take a look at these six things and try to understand a little bit about okay, like if these are the causes of brain fog, and that's it, you know, we're not quite there yet. So this is just some evidence that implicates these are some of the mechanisms. What does that tell us about why brain fog is getting worse? Now that we sort of know these are the things that are involved with brain fog.

you know what's going on in our society with all these things. The first thing is that obesity is on the rise. Okay, so what we're going to do is just take a quick look at these and very simply try to figure out: is this getting worse in society or not? Is obesity getting worse? Absolutely. Is general inflammation getting worse? Absolutely. Is stress getting worse? Absolutely. Now here's an interesting one: what about blood pressure, right? Is blood pressure on the whole getting worse? And what we actually discover is that as we are getting to a more and more sedentary lifestyle, what we're starting to do is have a deconditioned cardiovascular system. So if I'm sitting in this computer chair all day, right, and I'm not like exercising or anything like that, if I'm not physically active, what I've actually seen an alarming amount of is young people that have like blood pressure problems. So I'm talking about 20 year olds, 25 year olds that will have symptomatic dizziness when they stand up from their computer chair because

they've been sitting in the computer chair all day, and so we're seeing that this kind of stuff. This sedentary lifestyle is actually getting worse as well. Um, the other thing that we sort of mentioned already is that there's, let's say, vague, non-conclusive, but strongly suggestive data that our diet as a whole is getting worse. And this isn't just about processed foods. This is also about the lack of nutrient density in a lot of our fruits and vegetables. Is sleep getting worse? Absolutely right. So, as technology usage gets worse, we've got issues with blue light, impaired melatonin production, low-quality sleep, right? Not to mention all these other things like lack of physical exercise and stress and stuff like that. That sleep on the whole is getting worse. And what about dehydration? Are we as a whole getting dehydrated? And this is one where I'd say like I'm not really too sure. So, we do know, for example, that in one study specifically on pots, that 88% of people are associated or who

have brain fog. Also, will sort of endorse some degree of dehydration, and this is also important from a blood pressure standpoint because proper hydration is one of the most important ways to keep our blood pressure up. Specifically, when someone has been in like a car accident or something like that to keep blood going to people's brain. What we'll sort of do is use two wide bore IVs to pump in Saline or blood products into people. So, one of the ways that we maintain blood pressure in the brain is by actually like injecting people with saline, right? So, we sort of give them bunches and bunches of fluid, and as we increase their fluid, it maintains their cerebral perfusion. So, what we're sort of seeing in society today is I think we're seeing an increase in caffeine intake, which is dehydrating. And this is especially a problem for people with brain fog because what we sort of found is that some people will treat brain fog with things like stimulants, but what I've really found is that a lot

of people who are struggling to focus. What are they going to do? They're going to drink coffee, right? So we see that brain fog is oftentimes associated with a higher level of caffeine intake. And generally speaking, a lot of our diet has become unhealthy, and people may not be drinking enough water. It kind of depends on who you are, where you are, but one of the things that I've definitely seen with brain fog is an increase in caffeine intake that's almost compensatory. That can result in some amount of dehydration. And as we get dehydrated, what we're actually doing is potentially making our blood pressure worse. Okay, so now the question becomes, all right, so if this is like what's associated with brain fog, like the quick question is, okay, what do I do about it, right? And this is where the sort of frustrating thing, sometimes when you go to a medical professional and they don't know what's wrong with you, is they'll tell you to just be healthier, right? They'll say, okay, if you've got brain fog

like why don't you just do the diet and exercise right? Just exercise more, diet more, spend less time on your screen, just get better sleep. We're kind of giving these like general ideas about, you know, like what you should do to get healthy. Like those are just the generally healthy things to do, and it can be quite devastating because a lot of people will have brain fog, and they'll go to doctors, and they'll go to therapists, and people aren't really able to help them much. Um, the good news, this is good or bad news depending on how you look at it, is that a lot of times, you know, when people have brain fog, they actually end up in my office because, you know, so prior to doing this whole healthy gamer thing, my primary area of interest was actually evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine. So I was focused a lot on sort of scientifically valid meditation techniques, yoga techniques, herbs, things like that. So I had a clinic where people would refer their patients to me who were interested in like more

natural remedies. So what I sort of found as a clinician is that when people would get referred to me a lot, right? So what would happen is like someone, some doctor would be like, Okay, okay, oh yeah, like this person is complaining of these vague stuff. Like let's send it to Dr. Kenoja because Dr. Kenoja handles these people well. So there's a psychiatrist. This person has something wrong with their head, right? So let's send them to a psychiatrist. They would come to me and the thing is I'm a psychiatrist, right? So I'm a psychiatrist. So I'm trained in evaluating people for mental illness. And as these people come to my office and I kind of evaluate them and they've got this vague like brain fog sort of stuff, what I sort of quickly conclude is that I don't think this person has mental illness. I don't think this person is like ill in their mind. I don't think they have anxiety. I don't think this is a depression. This isn't

bipolar disorder. It's not like their mood is very bad. Kind of is the root cause oftentimes. What we'll see in brain fog is that their mood is bad, but that's secondary to being unable to do things. So it's hard for me to study, it's hard for me to work. I, you know, I'm not doing as well, I'm not progressing, my energy levels are low, I can't think, I can't concentrate. That's what causes the low mood. It's not like the low mood comes first, it's a consequence of. Then I'm kind of stuck in the situation where these people are coming to me for help, and it's like, you know, I'm kind of the last stop right on the train to Nowhere, let's say. And so, so I'm, I'm sort of trying to figure out, okay, how am I going to help these people. And the good news is that actually, like, I've had really good success. I can think of maybe one or two patients and if you're

watching this, I'm still sorry about not being able to help you substantially, but for the most part, I'd say about 80 to 90% of the people that I've worked with who have brain fog, I've actually been able to help pretty substantially. And it wasn't like I therapized them. What we actually found is that by targeting all of these different dimensions, it can be actually you could sort of figure out a good plan to sort of improve your brain fog. So a couple of other things, so another medical disclaimer that this is something that what I'm going to share with you all now is stuff that I have found useful in my clinical practice. I myself used some of these interventions. Like so, I had pretty bad COVID about a year ago and was also noticing some amount of brain fog. So I kind of went through my own like brain fog regimen, and I found that like I basically am completely recovered from that. But remember that this is not medical advice and that each and every

one of you should really talk to a dog doctor about all of these things, and sort of try to figure out a customized plan. But here are a couple things that work. The first is yoga or Tai Chi, and specifically I found Shirshasana to be very effective. So, Shirshasana is a headstand pose. So, it's this particular asana where you're upside down, right? So, it's a yoga posture where you're upside down. It's definitely something that requires some degree of training, so I wouldn't try that at home. You really need a good teacher to teach you how to do it. But Shirshasana is literally like you're just doing a headstand, right? So, your head is at the bottom and your feet are at the top. And the cool thing about Shirshasana is that it really trains your body to maintain blood pressure to your brain. So, it really like wreaks havoc on your cerebral vascular system and your vascular system. Not in a negative way, but it sort of trains you to be like upside down.

as you're upside down, it trains your body a little bit to handle blood flow a little bit better. So, yoga or any kind of yoga or tai chi, I think will probably be effective. There's also good evidence that yoga and Tai Chi have like anti-inflammatory and stress-reducing effects. So, I'd recommend yoga or Tai Chi specifically. Probably slightly more recommend yoga over Tai Chi. And that too, some of the yoga postures that you should do are ones that have postural changes. So, bending down and touching your toes, you know, doing your the hand above your head, maybe doing something like downward dog or Parvatasana or things like that. But yoga is actually really good at like having your body move in particular ways that require you to maintain blood pressure. So, yoga or Tai Chi is number one. Second thing that we have to consider is obesity. So, this is where some amount of exercise is actually really important. But we're going to tunnel down into what kind of exercise. So, it's not just reducing obesity for its own sake.

although we do know that adipocytes are pro-inflammatory, right? So we talked a little bit about that. But specifically, the kind of exercise that we want to do is going to be cardiovascular in nature, and ideally has you using your legs. And why is that? So there are a couple of really important things to understand about sedentary lifestyle and the impact of sedentary lifestyle on specifically our leg muscles, our heart is here, okay, and our heart pumps things, and generally speaking, our blood tends to pull at the bottom of our feet, right, because of the effect of gravity. So there's one really interesting thing. If you look at your body, what you'll sort of find is that even if you look at the back of your hand, okay, it's kind of out of focus, but if you look at the back of your hand, you can see veins, right? Even if you look at like your head or your neck, you can see veins. So veins tend to be pretty peripheral when it comes to the top half of your body, but if you

look at your legs. It can be very hard to see your veins, and the reason for that is because a lot of times, our major veins in the legs are actually on the inside of the leg. We actually rely on our skeletal muscle, the muscles in our legs, to pump blood back to the heart. So anytime I walk, what the contraction of the skeletal muscle, anytime I take a step, is actually helping blood come back to the heart. So one of the things that I found is that with a sedentary lifestyle, we're walking less. As we're walking less, we're getting more blood kind of pooling in our lower extremities. So we're seeing increases in stuff like varicose veins and stuff like that, and all of that is associated with a sedentary lifestyle. So any kind of exercise, specifically that involves walking and a high level of cardiovascular like workout, is actually really good. So this is one of the situations where, you know, I wouldn't recommend specifically like bench pressing. So bench pressing will increase

your cardiovascular weight but like getting gigantic muscles on your arms is not actually or your chest is not actually what we're really shooting for here. What we really want to do is engage that skeletal muscle in our legs and ideally start to exercise and get to a decent heart rate, right? So essentially cardiovascular activity using the legs is what we want to target. So that'll also have the added effect of hopefully reducing our obesity and a couple of other things. The next thing that we want to do is really think a little bit about our diet. So remember that there's actually studies that show that, let me just show you all a quick paper, so brain fog inflammation and obesity key aspects of Neuropsychiatric disorders improved by ludiolin. So we know that some of these flavonoid compounds, specifically something called ludiolin, which I think is extracted from usually olives. And this is a potentially another reason why the Mediterranean diet has like positive anti-inflammatory effects, is because of the prevalence of olive oil. So you may have ludiolin in

the Mediterranean diet at a high level as well so people can also supplement with ludiolin. But this is definitely something that I would encourage you to talk to your doctors about because luteolin can be biologically active with other compounds like medications and things like that. But we sort of know that supplementing with flavonoids and luteolin can actually have a positive effect on brain fog. So the other simple way to kind of think about this though is that if you eat nutrient-dense greens, that'll also do the trick. So it's not just a healthy diet in general, it's sort of thinking a little bit about okay what are the dietary inputs that I need to kind of compensate for the brain fog. And the specific thing about luteolin and flavonoids is that they seem to have very positive effects on the parts of our brain that appear to be affected by brain fog. So remember this, this Mast Cell active Innovation, this high level of inflammation, there's very strong anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidation, and neural protective effects of flavonoids.

and ludiolin so that's something that I would definitely recommend that you all talk to your doctor about. The last thing to generally consider um is to remember like two super basic things. The first is sleep and caffeine. So sleep is incredibly important. So just about every person that I've worked with with brain fog has needed to have some kind of improvement in their sleep. So if you're not sleeping properly, sleep is just the general time that our brain uses to heal itself, right? So if we're like not sleeping properly or our sleep is disturbed or we have too many substances on board if we use marijuana to help us sleep, if we use alcohol to help us sleep, even if we take exogenous melatonin. I'm sometimes a little bit concerned about the high level of exogenous melatonin use, even though from a medical standpoint it's very, very safe, but I think good sleep is huge for brain fog. The last thing to consider is, once again, hydration. So this is where you just got to be drinking lots and lots.

and lots of fluid. So if we're talking about this blood pressure effect, we got to remember that like fluid intake is very, very important for maintaining a healthy blood pressure. So you've got to really look at what, what's your liquid intake over the day. Are you drinking lots of soda? Are you drinking lots of caffeine? Are you drinking enough water? How often are you urinating? What is the color of your urine? You generally want to be urinating like a light yellow color. If your urine is completely clear, your fluid intake may actually be too high. If your urine is very concentrated or you're not urinating very frequently, there's a decent chance that you're not drinking enough. So these are the last kind of two things to consider. So it's unfortunate that brain fog has been really expanding very rapidly. I almost get the sense that there's like a silent epidemic of brain fog that's happening in our society today. And the most devastating thing about that is that as it's affecting more and more people, the solutions that we're offering

people with brain fog don't seem to be working very well. So if you go see a medical professional, it's a good thing to do by the way, because they can rule out other causes, right? So if it's something like anemia, Mia, or vitamin B deficiency, there are a lot of things that can kind of contribute to brain fog-like symptoms. The downside is that if it's true brain fog, then chances are it's not one of those vitamin deficiencies, and you should rule all those things out. But then your doctor has sort of left it like kind of like I don't know what to do. And then sometimes what they'll end up doing is just referring you to a therapist or just telling you like, oh, eat healthy and exercise, which is actually part of the solution, don't get me wrong. But then the other problem is that once you get referred to a therapist, the therapist may be able to help you in some ways, but the real problem is that brain fog is not a psychiatric condition, it's

actually a physiologic and neurologic condition, and so oftentimes what our medical system actually does is sends people to the wrong professionals. And then when therapy or Psychiatry kind of doesn't work for you, then you're sort of left feeling like, okay, well, I've tried everything. Where it was, it turns out that you actually tried, you started with the worst thing, right? Because it's not a mental illness. And then people feel really, really hopeless. Then you kind of come back to your doctor and you say, hey, the therapy isn't working. And then they're kind of like shrug their shoulders and we don't really know what to do. So my hope today was to share, share with you all a little bit about, you know, what are the mechanisms of brain fog, what are we sort of, what are we starting to understand about it, and some of the stuff that I found to be somewhat useful for some of my patients as well as for myself in terms of my own post-COVID recovery. Remember that your mileage may vary and that this is

absolutely a situation where you want to talk to a medical professional first to get evaluated for all kinds of these other things right. And if you do that, hopefully what we'll start to see is that your brain fog will actually get better. And I would say that like 80 to 90 percent of the people that I've worked with with brain fog, with some combination of the stuff that we just talked about, will actually get better. So hopefully that helps you.

Why Your Brain Fog Never Goes Away (and How To Get Clarity)

https://healthygamer.gg/

Content, coaching, and community from Dr. K's brain into yours.


HealthyGamerGG

Brain fog is increasingly common, with up to 10% of COVID patients experiencing it, along with a rising number of people in general.

It is a debilitating condition that affects concentration, memory, and cognitive function, often persisting for long periods without a clear cause.

Medical professionals struggle to diagnose and treat brain fog, leading to frustration and often resulting in referrals to mental health professionals, despite it not being a psychiatric illness.

The Causes of Brain Fog and Potential Solutions

Brain fog is increasingly being researched and is associated with inflammation, specifically Mast Cell inflammation, indicating a physiological rather than psychiatric cause.

Inflammation, particularly within the central nervous system, and its correlation with obesity, is a key factor in the development of brain fog.

Additionally, brain fog is linked to Mast Cell Activation triggered by stress, as well as the condition POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), which is related to low blood pressure.

The Impact of Blood Flow and Diet on Brain Fog

Dizziness upon standing is caused by decreased blood flow to the brain, which is also linked to brain fog and impaired cognitive function.

The use of fertilizers and genetic modifications has led to rapid growth of plants, reducing their nutrient density and the availability of flavonoids in the diet.

This decreased intake of flavonoids, which have anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects, is believed to contribute to the worsening of brain fog.

The Impact of Lifestyle Factors on Brain Fog

Poor sleep and dehydration are highly correlated with brain fog, affecting about 90% of people experiencing this cognitive impairment.

Psychiatric comorbidities have been found to not be associated with the cognitive impairment of brain fog in certain inflammatory conditions.

Obesity, inflammation, stress, worsening sleep quality, and dehydration are all lifestyle factors that are on the rise and potentially contributing to the increasing prevalence of brain fog in society.

Managing Brain Fog: Understanding the Causes and Solutions

Brain fog is often linked to high caffeine intake and dehydration, leading to worsened blood pressure.

Medical professionals commonly recommend general healthy habits, which may not be sufficient for addressing brain fog.

Psychiatrists specializing in alternative medicine have had success in treating brain fog through a holistic approach, addressing its root causes and providing natural remedies.

Yoga, especially Shirshasana, can help improve brain fog by training the body to maintain blood flow to the brain and providing stress-reducing effects.

Cardiovascular exercise, focusing on the legs, is important for reducing obesity and improving blood circulation, which is beneficial for brain function.

These natural interventions can be useful for reducing brain fog, but it's important to consult a doctor for a customized plan.

Managing Brain Fog: Tips for Improving Circulation, Diet, and Lifestyle

Sedentary lifestyle can lead to poor leg circulation and contribute to brain fog, so focusing on cardiovascular exercise and leg muscle engagement is important.

Flavonoids like luteolin, found in the Mediterranean diet and supplement form, can help reduce inflammation and improve brain fog.

Prioritizing good sleep and staying well-hydrated are also crucial for managing brain fog effectively.

Fluid intake is crucial for maintaining healthy blood pressure and can impact the color of urine.

Brain fog is becoming increasingly common in society, often with ineffective solutions offered within the medical system.

Brain fog is not just a psychiatric condition, but also a physiological and neurological one, leading to inappropriate referrals and a sense of hopelessness for patients.

Evaluating and adjusting fluid intake, as well as seeking medical evaluation for other potential causes, can significantly improve brain fog for the majority of individuals.