Mom brain happens to the best of us. In today's episode we're diving into the complexities of the brain and discussing ways to optimize our mental clarity and eliminate brain fog for good...
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
5 Powerful Supplements Needed in the Treatment for Brain Fog
Brain fog Supplements (to get the prescriber code to order prescription-grade supplements)
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This Episode Discusses:
What is brain fog?
How to optimize your sleep to reduce brain fog, even if you get broken sleep
Causes of brain fog
Your eating patterns and brain fog
Simply ways to eliminate brain fog
How to make health and wellness a priority with your kids
Don’t Have Time To Listen? Here’s The Episode All Typed Out:
Lets face it…Being a homeschooling mom who also works from home can be pure chaos! As you’ve probably already noticed, despite the occasional laugh track, life isn’t a sitcom and everyday struggles are rarely resolved in 30 minutes with commercial breaks to keep your sanity in check so the right strategies and mindset are vital for becoming more productive and less overwhelmed with all the things life throws at us. Enter the Simply Freeing Podcast…Episodes for the highly passionate, busy work at home, homeschooling mama ready to break away from cultural norms and raise life long learners. So let kick stress to the curb, throw chaos out the door and order in some peace and simplicity…with a cup of coffee, or 3.
Today on the podcast I have Sarah Gibson on. She is a functional medicine practitioner and a health and wellness coach. We are going to talk about brain fog today. Hi Sarah! Thanks for coming on the show!
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited about this episode.
When you reach out to me initially about brain fog I was like this is perfect because I've talked about this on and off for a while and from my understanding my doctor has said that brain fog has to do many times with moms because of a lack of sleep. So I want to clarify what brain fog is and what the symptoms usually are because I think as moms, especially moms that are having very little kids and their sleep is affected I just want to clear up what exactly it is.
Yeah absolutely. So I can completely relate because I had four kids within four years and literally did not sleep for six years so brain fog was very near and dear to my heart at that time but it's honestly so much more than just like not sleeping and kind of having difficulties concentrating the next day. Brain fog isn't technically a medical diagnosis. Like it's not something you can go to your doctor and they say, oh yes you check all the boxes. I did these labs. You have brain fog. So it's really difficult to kind of treat and understand what's going on because there's no test for it really.
But when we talk about brain fog, what we're talking about is a collection of symptoms. So symptoms are just the way for the body to communicate with us and tell us that we just need to fix something…like something is not exactly right. So it can be all of these things, none of these, or one of these things but it's like memory problems like you know? The typical forgetfulness like, Oh I forgot my keys. My coffee is on top of my car. You know? Mom things. It can be a lack of like mental clarity like you just can't think clearly and some of that can even be looking for words or searching for something and be like oh what was the name of that person or that store that I wanted to go to? It can be a difficulty in concentration and focus like you're trying to work on a project and your mind is just wandering. It can be just feeling like mentally fatigued like at the end of the day your brain is just shut off like you cannot think. Like I'm done thinking. I've reached my thinking threshold and it can even be things like difficulty planning and organizing. But you know recently it actually has been more of an acute thing for people 'cause oftentimes brain fog is something that’s maybe like episodic, like they didn't sleep well, or you have a new baby and it's just this temporary thing and you know it's related to sleep and then you know get your sleep back on track and it goes away.
But recently with COVID, it's actually been much more difficult as a long-term side effect and I've actually been seeing a lot of patients in the office who didn't even know that they had COVID. Like maybe just a very, very, mild form but for like 6 to 9 months afterwards really, really struggled with finding words and being able to concentrate and their memory to the point where some of them actually had to go on disability from it. It's a spectrum of complaints. It all falls under like brain memory concentration it can be mild or severe and linked to something or you just don't know what's going on.
Would you say that a mom that has had very little sleep for five years, for example, is that simply brain fog? Does that mean that that's where it comes from if you don't get a full straight seven or eight hours?
Yeah and you know it's so funny because as moms oftentimes we just ignore our own symptoms and just say, oh it's probably just sleep or it's probably 'cause I'm stressed or whatever and we're very terrible, (and I will include myself in this.) like we're terrible about focusing on ourselves and really correcting problems because you're just so busy, and so many demands, and everyone needs you to do different things so it's very difficult to kind of take the time and evaluate what's going on in your own body and determining if it's something that needs to change and for a lot of women who have small children or have recently had a baby it's not just the lack of sleep. You're also getting a lot of hormonal changes with that as well. I mean you just gave birth. You're having you know ebbs and flows of estrogen and progesterone and you're nursing and you know you just assume that that's what it is but brain fog from a medical standpoint like you really do have to dive a little bit deeper because it can be a lot of different medical conditions like thyroid problems. It can be like you know just something as like crazy as a side effect of a medication. It can be a symptom of depression or anxiety and these I'm talking about like medical diagnosis and of course there's always the scarier things like a brain tumor or something like that so it's never a bad idea just to go to your medical provider and say, I think it's just this normal thing but I am a little bit concerned. Can I just talk with you about what I'm experiencing and you know once you rule out those bad things or the things that you're really concerned about then your medical provider will say oh it's just “mom-ing” but there are a lot of things that fall under the “mom-ing” umbrella that you can actually target and treat and feel better doing so.
Yeah. That's true. I think that when I experienced that a couple of years ago, the sleep thing came up and you know it was kind of brushed off as sleep but every once in a while, it still comes back for myself but I think mine has a lot to do with the mornings. It takes me awhile to get going in the morning and it also depends on what I eat at night.
So it's very interesting that you say that because you're saying like the things that you've done like eat late at night and then have a difficult time kind of getting going in the morning. So that can be related specifically to your insulin and glucose levels. So one of the things that will cause like brain fog or that midafternoon slump or that difficulty in the morning is eating patterns so just you know a lot of times with moms we just kind of grab things on the go which is fine. You can still do that but if you're grabbing things that are stabilizing your blood sugar throughout the day, it will actually give you more energy and more like mental clarity because our brains function on glucose like that's just how it is. So if you eat sugar like immediately it's turned into glucose and your body can use it and your brain can use it for thinking and functioning and all those good things but the problem is then you get a severe drop if you're eating something that's high in sugar and then your body produces insulin to kind of stabilize it and then you get this massive drop. Well then your brain all of a sudden doesn't have that glucose available and starts to shut down. So it's super common like you can understand how that would happen if it's related to like food and things like that and if you eat late too close to bed or late at night, it's very interesting because your metabolic process slows and so you'll get like a spike of glucose like right as you start to go to sleep but then it'll increase until like two or three in the morning and then it can start to drop you know but much longer of a curve and metabolism curve than if you had eaten something during the day and so when you wake up in the morning it can either be that your glucose levels are really low and so your body just has a hard time waking up and that's how it could be related specifically to what you're eating and your eating pattern.
And then also like as moms like you said sleep. Sleep is something that sure they say on average like 7 to 9 hours but you can actually break it down significantly less than that into just 90 minute cycles and that just follows just the natural circadian rhythms you go through all of these different cycles of sleep. I'm sure like a lot of people have heard of REM sleep and light sleep and deep sleep and there's different stages but for moms and new moms, if you can at least get one out one like three or four hour solid sleep window and then make up that remaining 7 to 9 hours in like 90 minute segments, you normally can do pretty well with brain function because you're not putting additional like stress. I mean obviously it's optimal to get 7 to 9 hours but as a new mom like when you put the baby down for nap…babies going to sleep for like 2 hours. If you even just take you know 30 minutes to just decompress or do whatever you need to do and 90 minutes of your own time to sleep, that's enough to add to your overall 24 hour seat sleep cycle and your sleep requirement and that can help significantly with brain fog too.
I'm sure that gives people a little bit of relief 'cause you know I've never heard of sleeping in 90 minutes increments but you take what you can get when you have littles.
Yeah. Absolutely. So and another thing is dehydration so especially you new moms, young moms, you know you oftentimes are running around and not really thinking about water and just consuming water but our brains have a huge amount of water in them and they actually will like shrivel up a little bit if we're not drinking enough so even just something as simple as having a water bottle that you carry around with you or a timer on your clock, or every time you're like feeding the baby you're chugging a glass of water like just something to just get some increased water in can help significantly with like that new mom or young not sleeping mom brain fog.
This is very helpful. If someone is listening to this episode and they have experienced any of the symptoms that you said what would you recommend that they do?
Yeah so a lot of what I do is working with women that have these like symptoms of aging or these vague symptoms that their medical providers are like, Oh your labs are fine. You don't have to worry about it. And so I love working with them to kind of figure out the why. Like why is the brain fog happening in you and what are simple things that we can do to fix that. So you know there are many different causes for brain fog. I have an article that I have on my blog just about brain fog that goes through like some of the causes and how to troubleshoot some of those things just in an easy, simple way and then there are certain supplements that can help and again I don't just like to do blanket statements like “this is what everybody needs to do” because everyone's case is so individual and their lifestyles are different and what may work for one person just doesn't work for someone else. And you know anytime you're making a change I love just making a small change and turning it into habits so you know? Simple things like I already mentioned like just sleeping you know? Even if you can't get a 7 to 9 hour stretch, just sleeping in 90 minute segments and if you need to troubleshoot sleeping then and you know because your child is sleeping but maybe you have issues with like stress management and your cortisol levels are crazy or hormone imbalance as you’re aging, then there's certain supplements to target that and because stress can cause brain fog, you know depression, like if you go through you know a death of a family member, or a divorce, a job change, like something like that can even cause brain fog.
Some of the vitamins or supplements that are just in general great for women to take and do really help significantly with brain health are #1 our B vitamins, like B complex vitamins. You can get great complex vitamins for not a lot of money. Take one in the morning and things that they do not only to boost energy but they actually work in your body to protect those nerve connections and with the nerve pathways and they can help to like increase and improve brain processing so B vitamins are just great. I always say to my patients like if you take 1 B vitamin just you know a highly absorbable good one and it's turning your pee like that fluorescent color, like that's good because you're absorbing enough of them that they can pee out and of course there are certain supplements that are better than others and I have links to some of those so that's an easy thing to do.
Inflammation a lot of times, autoimmune processes or inflammation from stress or after having COVID inflammation just is going crazy in your body and that can really contribute to memory and focus problems and forgetfulness and so taking vitamin D is a great way to combat that specifically. I recommend like 5 to 10,000 units of vitamin D again quality vitamin D with vitamin K so you can absorb it but that will significantly decrease inflammation and like incidentally it has shown that people with elevated vitamin D levels or are taking vitamin D supplements have almost no like COVID symptoms, like they don't even realize it, so it's more than just COVID. It helps with your heart. It helps with your skin and bones and all these good things so I like to recommend vitamin D. And just like a good quality multivitamin just to kind of make sure that you’re getting all the things that your body needs and then there's a brain supplement. One that I really like that's called L theanine is something that actually, if you're really suffering from like poor focus, concentration and it's something sudden and it may be related to COVID or something that's happening in your body, it actually improves memory and it actually protects the brain from additional harm or impairment and it actually increases your GABA, your serotonin and your dopamine so it kind of gives you that feel good boost and then it regulates like concentration, helps increase alertness and it also controls appetite so if you are like all over the place, all you're doing is craving like sugar and carbs that's because you're just not fueling your body with the like the sustained glucose foods like protein and fiber and things that are boring to eat you know? But if you're finding yourself craving things a lot you know that it can actually help to stabilize that as well.
So yeah there are a lot of really good things to do and I just like I said I like to provide resources on my website so that people can go find the information you know. I have some links to supplements that I use that I use through a company that you can only get as a prescriber but I pass that along. Like I just say use my prescriber code get it at like a very reasonable price and I know that it's third party tested. There's no heavy metals in it. It's absorbed in your body. It's FDA approved. All of those good things. So I feel very comfortable recommending good products to people rather than just expensive urine.
I will add all these resources so anyone is experiencing any of these symptoms or wants to learn more, they can check it out.
You also are a health and wellness coach for moms that are aging right? Can you tell us a little bit about that. Yeah so I help women thrive with aging and you know? Really the reason is because when you're younger and you're mom-ing and doing all of the things you know, you can kind of keep up with high stress and not really focusing too much on yourself and then something happens around 35 forty 45 where you start getting these weird symptoms, like brain fog and weird like weight redistribution and/or weight gain and you're like OK I'm not doing anything differently than I always did why is this happening and so I really helped women through that change because a lot of times they're told by their medical providers again that everything is fine like your labs look fine don't worry about it it's just part of getting older but they just they don't like that answer. They want to get better. They want to focus on their health and nutrition. Their kids are getting older you know? They're more independent so at that stage women then start having the availability of time and resources to focus on themselves and kind of get back to you know getting in shape and eating well and focusing on their mental health and stress management so that's really what I do and so you know I have things on my website like 25 ways to quickly boost energy like just a free like checklist that people can get. I have a seven day jumpstart which just starts the process of like OK I'm just looking for an easy way to start eating in a way that supports like healthy metabolism and boosts energy and maintains that glucose level and maintains my weight you know?
And then home exercises you can do right in your living room. No fancy equipment like 15 minutes or less, just incorporate movement and a lot of my mom's actually have their kids join them and it's like a family movement time. It's easy. It's fun and I hear a lot of women saying like I asked my kids to come and do this with me and then I skipped today and they were all like mom we didn't do her exercises. It looks like your own little support group which is awesome and then just hacks to like build habits you know? Just starting simply we're not focusing on like getting ripped in 10 days it's listen we're improving 1% every day you know and just even if you do one pushup every single day at the end of that 365 days you've done 365 pushups you know it adds up and so just giving moms the freedom to be kind on themselves and know that just one pushup is good enough and helping them build on those habits in a way that is totally doable with a stressful busy schedule. I have a a 28 day program where I actually walk you through it. I do live coaching. I have a supportive Facebook group and all of these things so yeah feel free to check all of that out. I love being a resource. I love helping women. I don't want women to go through like all of this alone and have to suffer and not get the answers they're looking for and as a medical provider, like my answers are based in like science and what's actually happening in the body and you know I already did all the hard like education and medical journal research and all that stuff so I can just spit it out in an easy way for women to understand and feel like just tell me what to do. Here's why I'm doing it great and then you know it just takes all the thinking out of it.
Yeah so I think that's the most challenging part. Everything just feels overwhelming when you don't feel good and you know. It's very hard and I think a lot of moms give up and turn to binge eating or feel like because they can't go to the gym that they're not exercising you know instead of incorporating little bits of movement. I just had a conversation this morning with my husband. I saw him doing 30 pushups. He does 30 pushups a day and I started doing them with him and then I mentioned I want to join the gym again and he's like will you stop with the gym, just do this everyday and it's like it just doesn't feel like enough because. I love the gym but it's hard to get there with all the busyness.
It is hard. Yeah and I think it’s moms too, like we put this pressure on ourselves to like just be extreme like if I'm not you know like sweating and you know working out two hours a day that I didn't do anything and like sure you can get back to that at some point but every stage of your life just looks differently you know? It's you know, you're going through a new job or a new baby or you know your kids, everybody you know? I used to think when my kids were younger like oh I'll have tons of time when they're in school. No. I don't. I do not have tons of time. They're all in school…someone forgetting their lunch box or their iPad or you know while they're in school I'm running to the dentist for myself. We do not have tons of time and I'm working you know all of those things so you know it's even just setting up the habit of like controlling your calendar you know or taking those just 20 minutes for yourself you can get a great home workout in in just 20 minutes where you're sweating and you know and it doesn't have to be anything crazy. You can just use you know like soup cans. You can use a resistance band. You can just use your body weight like it doesn't have to be crazy and I love that your husband is there with you like he's already doing it and I think also as moms by us doing exercises at home and meal planning and like doing meal stuff at home, we're demonstrating that like health and wellness to our children and you know I think even just reframing it like oh if I don't go to the gym I'm not working out just reframe it by working out at home and like taking care of my exercise for the day, I'm being a great example to my kids and I'm getting them involved in it and I'm helping them build lifetime health and Wellness habits and that's a wonderful thing as a mom to be able to teach her children.
Yeah and especially a lot of my listeners are homeschool moms. We have very limited time like that you said when my kids are in school, I think I'm gonna have all this time. It's always the grass is greener we you know? When homeschool moms feel frustrated and when they want to send their kids back to school doesn't mean you're gonna have more time, it just means you're gonna think of something else to do.
So yeah exactly and you know and I think 2 just taking those little breaks 'cause I homeschooled my kids for two years all through the pandemic and I remember thinking OK mommy needs a break. Everyone let's go do jumping jacks because we all just needed to like change our focus and move our bodies and get the blood flowing and you know just do something fun so that we didn't go crazy!
Sarah, thank you so much for for coming on it's been so great to connect with you and I look forward to sharing this episode and I hope that it's helpful for everyone listening.
Thank you so much for having me!
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