Your brain will simply not function efficiently when you’re stressed out. You’ll forget why you walked into a room, miss important appointments and birthdays, and find that balancing your checkbook is an exercise in advanced mathematics.
What’s happening to your brain is described in detail in my book, The Triple Whammy Cure. In a nutshell, your low levels of stress-buffering serotonin cannot protect your brain against the fight-or-flight response that’s triggered when stress flogs your adrenal glands.
The main hormone released by the adrenals during stress is cortisol, which, along with adrenalin, puts your body and brain into a temporary but extreme overdrive.
Sadly, the effect of cortisol on your brain is similar to the “delete” button on your computer. Here are three steps you can take to reduce stress and lift brain fog:
- Start a Stress Journal as described on page 198 of The Triple Whammy Cure.
- Get Belleruth Naparstek’s guided imagery CD “Stress” and use it regularly. It’s available at book stores or from our apothecary by clicking here.
- Begin taking the Indian herb ashwagandha, which seems to act like another stress-buffering herb, ginseng, though recent animal studies have shown that ashwagandha actually helps repair brain cells. Better yet, use ashwagandha as part of a larger nutritional program for brain fog, which should include fish oil and B complex. These supplements and also our Brain Fog Lifter (which contains ashwagandha) are available in our apothecary by clicking here.