Did you know that your brain is actually pretty sensitive to inflammation? Brain inflammation can sometimes be the first sign that something more serious is going on in your body…that there is unseen inflammation. Sometimes this inflammation is caused by what you’re eating or the toxins you’re exposed to. Or both. You might even have a genetic proclivity toward inflammation that gets triggered by one of those causes.
When your body is mounting a constant defense against the invaders mentioned above, it releases inflammatory proteins called cytokines. These cytokines can eventually get to the brain and cause inflammation.
This can cause “brain fog” — where you feel fuzzy-headed, forgetful, wonder why you came into a room, re-read passages because you suddenly realize you don’t know what you’ve read, can’t find the right words, feel depressed — even cranky or mean. You may even feel physically fit and wonder what’s happened to your thinking! It certainly takes you off your game and you’re surely not functioning optimally or creatively. Sometimes it feels like you’re slogging through your day waiting to get to the end of it — only to come home and realize that you forgot to pick up the groceries or order your mother-in-law’s flowers.
So what do you do? It’s time to look at your diet. If you’d like help with that, let me know. BUT, at the very least, start eliminating wheat from your diet and see what happens. And please, don’t replace it with corn pasta and other prepared, packaged foods, which are often just as bad. Just take it out completely. It’s very likely that if you have brain fog you have a “leaky gut” – aka, intestinal permeability. That means that the food you’re eating is getting into your otherwise sterile bloodstream through breaches in the wall of your intestines (often caused by gluten and other foods that irritate and inflame it) and your body is mounting an attack against it and causing inflammation. (That’s the simplified explanation.)
Other causes of brain fog:
- Insomnia, disturbed sleep or not enough hours of sleep
- not taking a break from work and constantly multi-tasking
- high stress levels
- illnesses like fibromyalgia (also exacerbated by gluten and other food sensitivities)
For a first step, try to take the gluten out of your diet, reduce your stress and get yourself in bed for more hours. Listen, I get it. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to take gluten out of your diet….but
Just try it. All the cool healthy kids are doing it. (wink)
AND, once you start thinking clearer, you’ll be thrilled!
If you want to go whole hog into figuring it out, let me know – because an elimination diet combined with a true detox that allows your liver to move through both Phase I and Phase II detoxification is hugely successful in eliminating brain fog. And by the way, this is not one of these “no-food-drink-water-with cayenne and lemon it” kinds of detoxes which actually can be detrimental to an inflamed body. You need support to rid yourself of the toxins that are making your brain inflamed.
Here’s to clear-head, vibrant thinking!
Give it a whirl!
Roughly 80% of our health has to do with lifestyle, 20% with genetics. That means that mindset—the way you think—has an awfully big impact. On what? Everything. Like the choices you make in your healing and life and the way your body reacts to treatments, supplements, and body work.
