Occasional brain fog is normal, especially when a person can identify a clear cause, such as being tired, having a cold, or family stress. However, people should see a doctor if: Brain fog regularly interferes with a person's ability to complete daily tasks. A person has problems with daily functioning.
Some of the most common causes of brain fog include fibromyalgia, diabetes, depression, hypothyroidism, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease.
Brain fog is all about forgetfulness — forgetting words, appointments, things on your to-do list, or why you walked into the kitchen. Fighting this takes a lot of effort and a lot of redundant systems. For example, I have several calendars around the house in addition to a planner and my phone's calendar.
Sleep. There's nothing like a good night's rest, but if you aren't getting it, you're likely feeling less with it. Lack of sleep can disrupt your brain cells' ability to communicate with each other, leading to a temporary brain lapse that can affect memory and visual perception.
You can help yourself recover, because brain fog improves with healthier lifestyle choices. The "basics" are eating healthier, getting enough sleep and rest, and increasing physical activity (gradually). Reducing stress is also important.
Vitamin D can improve brain health, reducing symptoms of brain fog. The brain treats vitamin D as an antioxidant, leading to improved cognitive function, more melatonin production, and hormone control.
Eating foods such as fatty fish rich in omega-3, nuts, and leafy greens – as well as a hearty cup of coffee – can boost your cognitive functions. Besides that, they'll make a great meal at any time of day, so you can eat healthy and delicious food while feeling the positive mental effects.
Should you see a doctor? Brain fog can be worrisome no matter how you get it. If your symptoms exist for several weeks, you should schedule an appointment with a neurologist for a medical evaluation. Research shows that brain fog can affect some people for months.
Brain fog stems from issues related to an unhealthy or injured brain. Most of the potential causes for brain fog are regularly diagnosed and treated by functional neurologists.
While brain fog is pretty common, it's not a condition on its own. But it can be a symptom of several issues — anxiety and stress among them. If your brain is a computer, ongoing anxiety and stress are those programs that run in the background and use up tons of memory and make everything else run slowly.
Many people affected by cancer say they have difficulty concentrating and remembering things, and multi-tasking can be a particular challenge. These memory and thinking changes used to be called chemo brain, but now you might hear them called cancer brain or cancer fog or even cancer-related cognitive impairment.
Sixty-eight percent said they had headaches, and more than half said they had problems with loss of taste and smell, numbness or tingling, and muscle pain. Most were women, with an average age of 43. Less common symptoms included dizziness, blurred vision and tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
The good news is that the vast majority of patients with post-COVID-19 brain fog recover completely over the course of 6 to 9 months. There is a small segment of patients of all ages that experience brain fog persistently for up to 2 years (as of the time of blog post).
While too little vitamin D can cause brain fog, weakness, and frequent infections, taking too much in supplement form (overdosing on vitamins from food is unlikely) can cause dangerous adverse effects, including kidney failure, she explained.
Iron deficiency anemia
Low iron intake resulting from diet and accelerated iron loss, which occurs through bleeding or breastfeeding, are the main causes of iron deficiency. The first symptoms of iron deficiency anemia tend to be neurological resulting in brain fog and fatigue.
Brain fog in itself is not a mental health issue. However, it is very closely related to mental health as it can be both a symptom of common mental health conditions such as depression or stress, and a cause for others such as anxiety.
Even in our twenties we might lose our keys or forget the name of someone we just met. And as we age, these moments of forgetfulness happen more often. For women in their late forties and early fifties, the onset of menopause can bring even more brain fog and memory lapses for many women.
A 2019 study suggests that anxiety can disrupt cognitive processes — such as thinking, problem-solving, and decision making — which could lead to foggy thinking. The brain is so busy processing anxious thoughts that it has little room left for these other functions.
Dr. Hafeez explains that brain fog symptoms can include feeling tired, disoriented or distracted; forgetting about a task at hand; taking longer than usual to complete a task; and experiencing headaches, memory problems, and lack of mental clarity.
Common causes of dizziness
migraine – dizziness may come on before or after the headache, or even without the headache. stress or anxiety – particularly if you tend to hyperventilate (breathe abnormally quickly when resting) low blood sugar level (hypoglycaemia) – which is usually seen in people with diabetes.
If brain fog persists over time or appears to worsen, it's time to seek an evaluation. At Amen Clinics, we have been seeing a growing number of patients who have had COVID-19. Many of them, even those who say they had mild cases and recovered, report experiencing lasting brain fog and fatigue.