MAINTAINING MENTAL HEALTH: FIVE TIPS TO BEAT BRAIN FOG
CLEAN UP YOUR SLEEP ROUTINE
Without adequate sleep, your brain becomes sluggish and slow, and you will struggle to learn and retain new information. Adopting good sleep hygiene habits (eg regular sleep schedule, seven to nine hours a night, tech-free bedroom), will help to clear brain fog.
HAVE A LAUGH
If you are chronically stressed, it is practically impossible to think straight or stay focused. Making even the simplest of decisions can become overwhelming. You become forgetful, absent and find it tough to take in new information. Laughter is nature’s natural stress-buster. Schedule fun and laughter into your day. Create a laughter stash of favourite videos, films, memes or jokes that you can turn to as soon as you feel stress rising.
CHALLENGE YOUR BRAIN AND YOUR BODY
Without challenge, your brain will shrink with each passing year and your brain function will suffer. Without physical exercise, you compromise your cardiovascular system — the very system that your brain depends upon for vital oxygen and energy. Challenging your brain and exercising your body regularly will help to ensure that your brain has sufficient resources and adequate oxygen and nutrients to think faster, sharper, better.
DECLUTTER YOUR BRAIN
Get as much information as you can out of your brain and on to paper or electronic devices. Clearing the clutter in your brain will help you to think more clearly and will also free up much-needed cognitive resources. Writing down the stuff that you are struggling with will make some room for you to think more clearly.
ONE THING AT A TIME
Focus on one thing at a time. Attention is a limited resource. Where possible, avoid spreading it too thinly across multiple tasks. Doing one thing at a time will feel less stressful. You will be less likely to make mistakes and less likely to feel stressed or overwhelmed. Strictly speaking, multi-tasking is a myth. When you try to do two tasks at the same time, your brain is rapidly switching back and forth from one task to the other and your attentional resource has to be split across the two tasks. As a consequence, you will perform each task more slowly and make more mistakes.