Have you ever felt like your brain is working against you? Like there’s a fog over your mind that prevents you from focusing and paying attention? This phenomenon is called brain fog—it feels like mental laziness and processing slowdown, taking a pause on your day. While brain fog is not a medical diagnosis per se; when brain fog sets in, what should be easy and doable becomes seemingly impossible. The good news is there are plenty of ways to combat it in no time. Here are the best ways to clear brain fog via improved sleep, nutrition and stress reduction—all changes you can make to test your mental functionality—today. Let’s get started to get your brain back on track.
Brain fog is easily experience and caused by a number of common elements. For example, poor sleep—staying up too late, not enough sleep—can render your brain unable to keep up with requisite functions. In addition, stress clouds the issue further and prevents focus when feeling overwhelmed.
Furthermore, dehydration makes people’s bodies feel sluggish and equally unfocused, just as does poor nutrition—excessive sugar or processed foods can take you to an energy high and crash you back down almost immediately. In addition, too much caffeine and alcohol are common—some people even sit for too long and forget to get up.
Get Quality Sleep
Brain fog is exacerbated by a lack of sleep. If you’re running on empty, your brain won’t be operating at optimal levels to focus or process what’s going on around you. Didn’t you find everything moving slowly today after you stayed up late last night binge-watching that new series? Quality sleep clears the cobwebs.
Get between seven and nine hours of sleep a night; it’s not just about the amount of sleep but also the quality. Create a consistent sleep schedule to pave the way for good sleep hygiene. Limit all screens one hour before bed; the blue light emitted keeps many people awake. Instead, pick up a book or listen to soft music. Make sure your room is dark, cool, and quiet; invest in a quality mattress if you can.
Limit caffeine in the afternoon; caffeine stays in your system and disrupts sleep. At the same time, try to have consistent sleep/wake times—even on weekends—to allow your brain to know what it should be doing. Pay attention to what you eat and when; if you’re eating heavy meals before dinnertime, try eating lighter dinners a few hours before bed. All of this will help you wake up functioning and focused.
Drink Plenty of Water
Your brain needs water to function properly, too. Even if you’re slightly dehydrated, you may feel tired or irritable, or you may find it difficult to concentrate—sounds familiar as brain fog symptoms, doesn’t it? It’s easy to avoid brain fog by drinking enough water.
Make it a point to drink most of your water throughout the day. Aim for eight glasses, although you may need more if you’re athletic or live in a hot climate. Keep a reusable water bottle with you at all times to make this goal easier. If plain water isn’t your cup of tea, add lemon or cucumber slices to give it flavor. Stay away from sugary drinks like soda; they might give you that spike you need, but they’ll drop you like a ton of bricks afterward, creating even more brain fog.
Listen to your body for hydration indicators—are you fatigued? Do you have a headache? Is your urine a darker shade than normal? Don’t wait until you’re parched to sip water; have a glass first thing in the morning, with meals, and during breaks. Dehydration also happens from too much caffeine, so for every cup of coffee or tea, supplement with another glass of water. When the brain gets what it needs to perform, it can perform much better.
Eat Brain-Boosting Foods
What we consume impacts how our brains feel. For example, when you eat dessert, do you overindulge and then feel like a slug, drained an hour later? Where the brain is concerned, what you consume goes a long way to managing good anti-brain fog efforts Things like sustained energy and clear thinking are more likely to happen when you eat well.
This means you should eat whole foods. For example, berries and greens have compounds that lend themselves to better brain health and function. Healthy fats should come from avocados, nuts, and olive oil. Protein should come from things like fish and eggs which keep you satiated and focused. Avoid processed carbohydrates like white bread and enjoy whole grains like oatmeal and quinoa so you can maintain energy without crashes.
Integrate mindful meals into your life. If you skip breakfast or lunch, you’ll find brain fog nipping at your heels by midday. Even if it’s more annoying than convenient, consider making a veggie omelet or having a salad with grilled chicken for lunch/dinner; for snacks, think about nuts and fruits instead of chips and cookies. The more often you actually eat throughout the day, the less you risk your blood sugar fluctuating and thereby giving your brain more time to stabilize.
Move Your Body
You don’t just need to exercise your mind—you need to exercise your body! When you exercise, blood flows to your brain, and the cobwebs clear. You might feel like you need to break a sweat to get your head in the game, but even a walk around the block can help.
Try to get 30 minutes of activity most days of the week. Walking is simple and effective. If you spend much time at a desk, set a timer for every hour to remind yourself to stand up and stretch or walk around for just one minute. Yoga and gentle stretching also clear the mind while getting blood flowing. If you don’t “like exercising,” find another activity that works for you—like dancing, gardening, or playing an outdoor sport.
When you sit too much, your brain becomes more impatient and foggier. Therefore, set an alarm once an hour to remind yourself to stand or move for just one minute if you can. The more you do throughout the day, the better you’ll feel, and the more focused you’ll be with decreased brain fog.
Manage Stress
Stress is excess anxious energy leading to having too much going on in your head, preventing clear thinking. One of the biggest causes of brain fog (and unfortunate increases of brain fog if already present) is stress, so it’s vital to manage it as best as you can.
What’s stressing you out? Work? Your family? Find the source of stress (or at least the biggest concern), and try to alleviate it. Write yourself a to-do list so you can cross items off one by one—it makes big tasks smaller and more manageable. Find 5-10 minutes to dedicate to yourself during the day whenever you can—take a walk or break and breathe. Take deep breaths—inhaling for 4 seconds, holding for 4 seconds, and exhaling for 4 seconds. It will relieve some tension. When you’re stressed, do this as many times as necessary.
Sometimes a little perspective from family and friends can help clear the brain. If stressors are too high or judgment is too foggy, maybe personal boundaries need to be set—saying no to additional work projects or ensuring time for personal hobbies. A less stressed mind is a clearer mind.
Organize Your Day
An unorganized schedule only makes a cluttered brain more cluttered. When one has too much going on, it’s easy to become foggy and distracted. Organizing can help make focus easier.
Try planning what you’re going to do the day before. Create lists of things you need to accomplish— “send work email” or “grocery shopping.” This can be on a piece of paper, a notes app, or a planner—whatever is easiest. Segment your day; give yourself an hour to get something done and then take 5 to reset your focus. This will keep you on track and avoid overwhelming distractions.
Keep your current project area clear and organized. A messy desk only distracts you more and manifests mental fog and clutter. Spend a minute each day organizing materials and clearing away excess papers. Set alarms or place sticky notes for important reminders. Less fog, more clarity from a clear set plan and environment.
Limit Multitasking
Putting too much on your plate at once overloads your brain even further and makes fog even foggier. Even switching between texting someone and writing an email only fractures focus and diffuses intention.
Instead, take things one at a time—even if that means blocking extra distractions. If you’re working on a report, close your email and silence your phone for 30 minutes. You’ll get it done faster and better. If things come to mind that you want to get done that aren’t related to your report, write them down for consideration later so you don’t forget to address them. Your mind can focus without overlap, so it will work much harder to clear the fog.
Take Regular Breaks
Your brain cannot sustain focus for hours on end, and if you’re trying to power through, you’re only making yourself more exhausted and more in a fog. Stopping—even for the briefest of moments—can help you feel recharged.
Consider the Pomodoro Method, where you work for 25 minutes and take a 5-minute break. Stand up from your desk—stretch, hydrate, or close your eyes and breathe for a few. Don’t pick up your phone and scroll through social media, as that complicates the brain even more. After four 25-minute segments, have a longer session, and take a longer break of 10-15 minutes. These welcomed respites can help your brain refocus.
Incorporate Mental Engagement
If you’re always working with low-engagement activity, you could succumb to more brain fog; mental stimulation can be a good thing to help clear your thoughts and recalibrate focus.
Do puzzles and crosswords. Engage your mind. Find something new to learn—a new recipe or new phrases in a different language—or create something—read a book outside your genre comfort zone or find a new podcast. Switch things up to avoid boredom. Take up a new hobby you’re interested in—drawing or gardening—but keep in mind that mental engagement should be balanced with mental downtime.
Limit Alcohol and Caffeine
Substances that disrupt cognitive function include alcohol and caffeine. When you’re playing drinking games with either of them, you’re bound to find yourself in a world of brain fog instead.
While some people think that a drink helps them sleep at night, what it does is complicate sleep and prevent deep sleep durations. Sure, one drink might make someone sleepy, but it renders restless sleep where people wake up the following day in a fog and without clarity. Limit alcohol intake, and when you have it, have it with water and not close to bedtime.
Caffeine can be energizing, but too much creates jitters and anxiety, which only adds to the fog. Plus, consuming caffeine later in the day interferes with sleep, as well. Limit yourself to one or two cups of coffee or caffeinated tea in the morning and switch to water or herbal tea throughout the day. Less is more when it comes to a clear mind.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, bringing all these ideas together to manage brain fog isn’t too challenging once you realize what’s causing your problem. If you’re not sleeping enough, it’s easy to get distracted, so sleep is essential. If you’re dehydrated, your brain becomes foggy, so drink up. Eating foods that fuel the brain helps keep you focused, as does moving your body, which encourages blood flow and releases endorphins that help keep you calm. Stress is the enemy of focus, so make time for stress reduction. When setting up your daily routine, try to schedule plenty of breaks but avoid multitasking; puzzles and games are helpful activities to promote engagement and focus.
Ultimately, promoting sobriety and reducing caffeine intake will help avoid crashes that derail good intentions. Choose one or two of these suggestions per day for a week and see if you feel more focused and engaged. If so, congratulations! Sometimes, it’s the little things that make a big difference. Cheers to a clearer head!