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Episode 6: Beware of Brain Fog!
If you suffer from brain fog, you must tune into this episode. Brain fog is a symptom that is often ignored, but that alludes to a scary process unfolding under the surface. Brain fog can easily be equated to a poor nights sleep, busy days or just getting older. I want to help you understand what is actually happening.
[vc_custom_heading text=”In this episode you will learn:” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:30|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”]
[vc_custom_heading text=”Episode Transcript” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:30|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”]
Welcome to Your Living Health, the podcast where we talk about real life strategies to reduce chronic inflammation. Each episode will uncover tools for you to lose weight and achieve optimal health. I’m your host, Carly Lucchesi, I’m a UC Davis trained registered dietitian and I’m also a life coach. Together let’s coach through the science of inflammation, but in a way that is simple, purposeful and fun.
You ready? Let’s Go!
Hey there! You ready to keep learning about the symptoms of inflammation? I know I am. These symptoms are so common, and are easily overlooked, but today I want to shed some light on a symptom that should not be ignored. And that symptom is brain fog my friends. Brain fog can look like reduced cognition, reduced memory function, reduced ability to multi-task, limited ability to find words, and an overall sensation like there’s a curtain between you and the world. Brain fog can lead to reduced productivity at home and work, increased lethargy, strain in relationships, and long term risk of scary conditions like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and dementia.
Brain fog can be a chronic low grade annoyance, or come and go with your sleep quality, after being sick, and with other inflammatory related flairs such as IBS. And what’s interesting is that brain fog also is common with neuroimmune conditions such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, Fibromyalgia, POTS, chronic fatigue syndrome, and celiac disease.
Brain fog is also very common amongst those with mast cell activation disorders and other conditions that lead to a low grade chronic inflammatory response. At this point I’m hoping you’re seeing the trend beneath the surface of brain fog. Yes, you got it, inflammation.
The broad overview is that brain fog is the result of a chronic inflammatory response that leads to brain inflammation and the untimely death of your brain cells. Now let’s dig in a little bit deeper, but I’ll make sure to remain in a place that is simple to understand.
Your brain is surrounded by what’s called the blood brain barrier which has a job of protecting the environment of your brain which is obviously a highly specialized organ. When you experience low grade chronic inflammation, this barrier becomes more permeable (meaning it lets things through that shouldn’t be there). This change in brain environment then triggers MORE activity of a cellular clean up system meant to protect your brain cells because your body knows that these cells are slow to repair themselves. The result of this blood brain barrier permeability is brain inflammation. And when your brain is inflamed, that system that is responsible for removing dead and dying neurons (the same system that is meant to protect your brain) loses the ability to accurately differentiate between the dying neurons and the healthy neurons. So that system that is meant to protect your brain function can instead forcibly remove your healthy neurons with the noticeable side effect of brain fog.
Do you see the importance of this? Brain fog is literally the result of your brain cells dying from an uptick of the trash clean up crew doing a bad job cleaning! This should not be taken lightly!
Now that we know what’s going on under the surface, let’s discuss what I don’t want you to do. You might feel the need to stress and worry when you are experiencing brain fog. But as we know from episode 2, when you don’t properly manage your mind you can promote increased inflammation from the hormonal cascade triggered by stress. So… stressing about your brain fog is absolutely not the answer, because it will only promote more brain fog. Some of you may feel the urge to lean into this non-productive brain foggy state and indulge with some snacks or adult beverages to just end the misery of your day. But as you know from episode 1, more inflammation can be triggered from your system being exposed to reactive antigens. Food, especially indulgent snacks are usually full of questionable ingredients, and alcohol doesn’t need any extra help killing brain cells, it does this all on it’s own.
So what should you do when you have brain fog?
You will need to target the inflammation that is causing the permeability of your BBB in the first place. Your low grade chronic inflammation is caused by many things addressed previously in this podcast. The most predominant triggers include oxidative stress, toxin overload and emotional stress. There are many ways to reduce the overload of these stressors, but today we I am going to encourage the one quick intervention that will specifically target brain fog. And that is fasting.
Fasting is an incredibly powerful way to reduce brain inflammation and chronic systemic inflammation by intentionally creating space for your body to clean itself up. When you fast, you are encouraging your body to reduce the free radicals that are responsible for oxidative stress. You are promoting the systems designed to support liver detoxification. And when fasting correctly, you will be utilizing tools for managing your mind that will allow a calm to the hormone cascade leading to emotional stress. Fasting is a powerful tool that should be strategically utilized by most of you, especially if you have chronic inflammation.
But fasting is going to look different for everyone, and we’ll go over ways to fast in much more detail at a later time. But today, I want you to intentionally plan a fast for tomorrow lasting between 14-16 hours. Use the overnight hours to your advantage. You’re not eating anyway, why not count those first! I like to fast from 8:00pm until 12:00pm the next day which is a 16 hour fast and an 8 hour eating period. I think 14 hours is a great place to start, especially if your brain and body are not used to fasting. Your body might resist a little at first, but it will eventually settle into the routine of things which is when you can start extending the fasting window slowly.
So in conclusion, brain fog is a symptom that is very common but that should not be ignored. Brain fog begins with chronic inflammation which leads to brain inflammation, and this triggers dysfunction within your brain’s protection system leading to the untimely death of your brain cells. In addition, brain inflammation if left unchecked increases the likelihood of acquiring cognitive related diseases down the road. A simple intervention is fasting, beginning with a fast between 14-16 hours starting with 1 day per week, and building to at least 5 days/week. And of course, we will dive more deeply into fasting in future episodes. With that I thank you so much for wanting to reduce your brain fog, and I’ll talk to you next week!
If this has been helpful to you in any way, I ask that you leave me a review so that others can have easier access to this information. For those who have comments or ideas for future episodes, please take a few minutes now and type them out, I promise to read every single one. If you’re looking for some 1:1 guidance, head over to yourlivinghealth.com and book your free introductory consult. Again, thanks for your support of this podcast and I’ll talk to you soon.
Resources:
Galea, I. The blood–brain barrier in systemic infection and inflammation. Cell Mol Immunol 18, 2489–2501 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41423-021-00757-x
Salucci S, Bartoletti Stella A, Battistelli M, Burattini S, Bavelloni A, Cocco LI, Gobbi P, Faenza I. How Inflammation Pathways Contribute to Cell Death in Neuro-Muscular Disorders. Biomolecules. 2021 Jul 28;11(8):1109. doi: 10.3390/biom11081109. PMID: 34439778; PMCID: PMC8391499.
Theoharides TC, Stewart JM, Hatziagelaki E, Kolaitis G. Brain “fog,” inflammation and obesity: key aspects of neuropsychiatric disorders improved by luteolin. Front Neurosci. 2015 Jul 3;9:225. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2015.00225. PMID: 26190965; PMCID: PMC4490655.
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By Carly Lucchesi, RDIf you suffer from brain fog, you must tune into this episode. Brain fog is a symptom that is often ignored, but that alludes to a scary process unfolding under the surface. Brain fog can easily be equated to a poor nights sleep, busy days or just getting older. I want to help you understand what is actually happening.
[vc_custom_heading text=”In this episode you will learn:” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:30|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”]
[vc_custom_heading text=”Episode Transcript” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:30|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”]
Welcome to Your Living Health, the podcast where we talk about real life strategies to reduce chronic inflammation. Each episode will uncover tools for you to lose weight and achieve optimal health. I’m your host, Carly Lucchesi, I’m a UC Davis trained registered dietitian and I’m also a life coach. Together let’s coach through the science of inflammation, but in a way that is simple, purposeful and fun.
You ready? Let’s Go!
Hey there! You ready to keep learning about the symptoms of inflammation? I know I am. These symptoms are so common, and are easily overlooked, but today I want to shed some light on a symptom that should not be ignored. And that symptom is brain fog my friends. Brain fog can look like reduced cognition, reduced memory function, reduced ability to multi-task, limited ability to find words, and an overall sensation like there’s a curtain between you and the world. Brain fog can lead to reduced productivity at home and work, increased lethargy, strain in relationships, and long term risk of scary conditions like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and dementia.
Brain fog can be a chronic low grade annoyance, or come and go with your sleep quality, after being sick, and with other inflammatory related flairs such as IBS. And what’s interesting is that brain fog also is common with neuroimmune conditions such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, Fibromyalgia, POTS, chronic fatigue syndrome, and celiac disease.
Brain fog is also very common amongst those with mast cell activation disorders and other conditions that lead to a low grade chronic inflammatory response. At this point I’m hoping you’re seeing the trend beneath the surface of brain fog. Yes, you got it, inflammation.
The broad overview is that brain fog is the result of a chronic inflammatory response that leads to brain inflammation and the untimely death of your brain cells. Now let’s dig in a little bit deeper, but I’ll make sure to remain in a place that is simple to understand.
Your brain is surrounded by what’s called the blood brain barrier which has a job of protecting the environment of your brain which is obviously a highly specialized organ. When you experience low grade chronic inflammation, this barrier becomes more permeable (meaning it lets things through that shouldn’t be there). This change in brain environment then triggers MORE activity of a cellular clean up system meant to protect your brain cells because your body knows that these cells are slow to repair themselves. The result of this blood brain barrier permeability is brain inflammation. And when your brain is inflamed, that system that is responsible for removing dead and dying neurons (the same system that is meant to protect your brain) loses the ability to accurately differentiate between the dying neurons and the healthy neurons. So that system that is meant to protect your brain function can instead forcibly remove your healthy neurons with the noticeable side effect of brain fog.
Do you see the importance of this? Brain fog is literally the result of your brain cells dying from an uptick of the trash clean up crew doing a bad job cleaning! This should not be taken lightly!
Now that we know what’s going on under the surface, let’s discuss what I don’t want you to do. You might feel the need to stress and worry when you are experiencing brain fog. But as we know from episode 2, when you don’t properly manage your mind you can promote increased inflammation from the hormonal cascade triggered by stress. So… stressing about your brain fog is absolutely not the answer, because it will only promote more brain fog. Some of you may feel the urge to lean into this non-productive brain foggy state and indulge with some snacks or adult beverages to just end the misery of your day. But as you know from episode 1, more inflammation can be triggered from your system being exposed to reactive antigens. Food, especially indulgent snacks are usually full of questionable ingredients, and alcohol doesn’t need any extra help killing brain cells, it does this all on it’s own.
So what should you do when you have brain fog?
You will need to target the inflammation that is causing the permeability of your BBB in the first place. Your low grade chronic inflammation is caused by many things addressed previously in this podcast. The most predominant triggers include oxidative stress, toxin overload and emotional stress. There are many ways to reduce the overload of these stressors, but today we I am going to encourage the one quick intervention that will specifically target brain fog. And that is fasting.
Fasting is an incredibly powerful way to reduce brain inflammation and chronic systemic inflammation by intentionally creating space for your body to clean itself up. When you fast, you are encouraging your body to reduce the free radicals that are responsible for oxidative stress. You are promoting the systems designed to support liver detoxification. And when fasting correctly, you will be utilizing tools for managing your mind that will allow a calm to the hormone cascade leading to emotional stress. Fasting is a powerful tool that should be strategically utilized by most of you, especially if you have chronic inflammation.
But fasting is going to look different for everyone, and we’ll go over ways to fast in much more detail at a later time. But today, I want you to intentionally plan a fast for tomorrow lasting between 14-16 hours. Use the overnight hours to your advantage. You’re not eating anyway, why not count those first! I like to fast from 8:00pm until 12:00pm the next day which is a 16 hour fast and an 8 hour eating period. I think 14 hours is a great place to start, especially if your brain and body are not used to fasting. Your body might resist a little at first, but it will eventually settle into the routine of things which is when you can start extending the fasting window slowly.
So in conclusion, brain fog is a symptom that is very common but that should not be ignored. Brain fog begins with chronic inflammation which leads to brain inflammation, and this triggers dysfunction within your brain’s protection system leading to the untimely death of your brain cells. In addition, brain inflammation if left unchecked increases the likelihood of acquiring cognitive related diseases down the road. A simple intervention is fasting, beginning with a fast between 14-16 hours starting with 1 day per week, and building to at least 5 days/week. And of course, we will dive more deeply into fasting in future episodes. With that I thank you so much for wanting to reduce your brain fog, and I’ll talk to you next week!
If this has been helpful to you in any way, I ask that you leave me a review so that others can have easier access to this information. For those who have comments or ideas for future episodes, please take a few minutes now and type them out, I promise to read every single one. If you’re looking for some 1:1 guidance, head over to yourlivinghealth.com and book your free introductory consult. Again, thanks for your support of this podcast and I’ll talk to you soon.
Resources:
Galea, I. The blood–brain barrier in systemic infection and inflammation. Cell Mol Immunol 18, 2489–2501 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41423-021-00757-x
Salucci S, Bartoletti Stella A, Battistelli M, Burattini S, Bavelloni A, Cocco LI, Gobbi P, Faenza I. How Inflammation Pathways Contribute to Cell Death in Neuro-Muscular Disorders. Biomolecules. 2021 Jul 28;11(8):1109. doi: 10.3390/biom11081109. PMID: 34439778; PMCID: PMC8391499.
Theoharides TC, Stewart JM, Hatziagelaki E, Kolaitis G. Brain “fog,” inflammation and obesity: key aspects of neuropsychiatric disorders improved by luteolin. Front Neurosci. 2015 Jul 3;9:225. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2015.00225. PMID: 26190965; PMCID: PMC4490655.