You’re trying to read your book but the words are just not registering.
You walk into the kitchen and all of a sudden you don’t remember what it is you came to do there.
You keep forgetting where you’ve put your keys.
You loose your train of thought in the middle of a sentence.
To lighten the mood you crack a joke about early onset Alzheimer’s but deep down you are a bit concerned…
I come across it very often in my practice. Many of my clients relate to one or all of the examples above and experience a general sense of feeling cloudy, unfocused, forgetful, distracted, anxious, moody, depressed and fatigued.
I work with expats who have health issues related to a compromised digestive system (a common issue within our community) and brain fog is often one of them.
You can recognize inflammation quite easily when you injure yourself. A cut in your finger for example, brings on an inflammatory reaction that leads to redness, swelling, throbbing and pain. What you can’t easily see is the inflammation that occurs internally, in your gut, as a result of diet, stress, toxins, infections or otherwise. But what you can see is the ripple effect that it has on other areas in our body, like joint pain, skin rashes, allergies, stagnant weight or brain fog.
Here’s how your brain reacts to gut inflammation:
Chronic internal inflammation in the gut is linked to a compromised inner “skin”: the intestinal barrier that is meant to let through nutrients and keep out unwanted particles, toxins, bacteria and other pathogens. When this barrier becomes “leaky” and unwanted molecules cross into our blood stream (a very common issue for people who travel the world and are exposed to new environments, germs, foods, and sanitary conditions) then your immune system kicks in.
The inflammatory cytokines that are produced (these are signaling molecules that trigger an immune response) travel through the blood and cross the blood-brain barrier, where they activate local immune cells in the brain. The result of this is brain inflammation, which is often the cause of all these frustrating “brain fog” symptoms.
One of my clients, who had just moved to Manila with her family came to me with brain fog as one of her main concerns. She had been noticing forgetfulness and a lack of focus in addition to low energy levels and some digestive issues such as bloating.
We worked on her diet, removing inflammatory foods and upgrading her nutrition by bringing in better and more nutrient dense foods. We worked on healing and repairing her digestion with the help of special healing foods and select natural supplements.
She also implemented other important lifestyle changes and it didn’t take long for her to feel energized and a sense of mental clarity and focus returned. She was soon back to feeling like herself again, feeling sharper, alert and on top of her game.
I love seeing every time how powerful the effect of digestive healing is on the entire body and mind!
Here’s an easy way to begin clearing brain fog:
Digestive healing and repair involves a number of different steps that include eliminating inflammatory foods and bringing in more fresh, whole, real nutrient dense foods. And there is one powerful food that you can bring in right away to build good gut health and experience the positive effect this has on your brain function: super gut healing, nutrient dense bone broth.
Bone broth is one of the best gut healing foods on the planet. My dad tells me that my grandmother used to always have bone broth bubbling on the stove. Feeling under the weather, down with a cold, or flu: bone broth was the magic solution. We have lost touch with these powerful home remedies and it is time we bring them back.
Bone broth contains important nutrients including glycine and gelatin, which help to repair and heal the lining of our digestive tract.
It is easy to make bone broth at home. You can find detailed instructions and recipes here. If you want a more convenient solution there are good quality ready-made bone broths available these days. Look for grass fed bone broth that has been cooked for around 48 hours to draw out all the important nutrients. *
Taking care of your digestion is going to help you resolve many health issues, including brain fog.
If you’ve been experiencing any brain fog symptoms and are serious about getting this handled, get in touch here, and let’s see if I can help.
Be Well.
Monique
* If you live in Manila, check out my Manila Health Food Shopping Guide here
