Are you forgetting tasks that you must complete?
Is it taking longer than usual for you to complete simple tasks?
Are you frequently distracted?
Are you feeling more tired than usual when working?
What Is Brain Fog?
Brain fog or mental fatigue is a term used when you may not be as mentally sharp as usual. Your thoughts and emotions may feel numb and everyday activities may seem to require more effort. Your thinking is slowed down and how you process information is not the same. You feel like you are not as sharp as you used to be or feel like you are off your game. You’re not sure how to correct it.
Brain fog happens when a person feels anxious and has difficulty concentrating or thinking clearly. It is normal to experience occasional brain fog and anxiety, especially during high times of stress.
The maze of various symptoms you may be experiencing can be different for someone else. This term can be used to describe a range of symptoms. Your symptoms of the brain can include:
• Feeling spacy or confused
• Low energy
• Thinking slower than usual
• Headaches
• You are having difficulty organizing your thoughts or activities
• Losing your train of thought
• Forgetting daily tasks
• Having difficulty finding the right words to put together in a sentence
• Difficulty concentrating
• Insomnia
• Emotional detachment
As a result of experiencing these various symptoms, you may feel like the circumstances and situations you are dealing with make you powerless, irritable, and downcast. These challenges can affect daily life.
What Conditions Causes Anxiety and Brain Fog?
Many conditions cause anxiety and brain fog. The effect of anxiety on various tasks and brain fog may depend on the specific task a person is doing. Anxiety may undermine a person’s thought process, intensifying brain fog. The tasks a person must perform may trigger further anxious thoughts. This can lead to depression, anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Without an outlet, wrestling with anxiety can be mentally exhausting and brain fog can accompany cognitive fatigue.
Stress can exhaust the brain, especially if it is prolonged stress. When your mind is tired, thinking, reasoning, and focusing becomes difficult. Chronic stress can increase blood pressure, weaken your immune system, encourage low-grade inflammation, and trigger depression.
Even the perception of having symptoms of mental fatigue can trigger symptoms of brain fog. Thus, making the struggle with anxiety and stress even more difficult. While there can be serious medical conditions that underlie brain fog, the effects of stress and sleeplessness can bring it on as well. If not reigned in, anxiety can take over the brain, bathing it in stress hormones and exhausting it.
How Can I Overcome This?
Get enough sleep. When we rest, the brain and body clear out the unhealthy toxins that can contribute to brain fog. When we don’t get enough sleep, a certain amount of toxins is left in the brain increasing our risk of brain fog.
Avoid multitasking. Trying to do more than one task at a time drains energy and decreases productivity.
Find the source of your anxiety. Identify and gain clarity as to what is causing the anxiety. Create a plan of what you can control and focus on those issues.
Have fun. Brain fog is a result of mental exhaustion. Doing something that you enjoy creates a mental result and can replenish you when feeling tired.
Talk to a counselor. Talking with a professional can help to give coping skills as well as strategies to assist you in living a calmer lifestyle.
Get help today. Call 443-860-6870 to schedule an appointment.
