Do You Need Mental Floss?

Suffering from biological problems such as memory loss, fatigue, and anxiety? Here’s how you can reclaim your focus and happiness.

16:30 21 June 2016

Having that foggy feeling where you suddenly lose track of your train of thought or struggle to find the right word could be symptoms of a “new epidemic”, says Dr Mike Dow, psychotherapist and author of The Brain Fog Fix: Reclaim Your Focus, Memory, and Joy in Just Three Weeks.

 

He explained: “It’s a sense of being in a slump, a bit detached and disengaged from life. Feeling mentally ­overwhelmed , unable to focus and in a permanent state of exhaustion – yet not being able to get a good night’s sleep.”

 

 “The way we eat, sleep, work and live destabilises the levels of three crucial brain chemicals: serotonin, dopamine and cortisol that keep us energised, calm, focused and inspired,”

 

“We experience these biological problems as ­scatterbrain, brain fog, memory loss, fatigue, anxiety and the blues. Attempting to think and feel great without the proper balance of brain chemicals is like trying to run a marathon with a broken leg.”

 

Here’s how you can reclaim your focus, memory and joy:

 

1. Eat the right food

 

·       Dr Dow suggests eating more complex carbohydrates such as lightly-cooked vegetables, barley, and quinoa, to achieve an ideal blood sugar level.

 

·       Instead of artificial sweeteners, which are linked to depression, use sweet cinnamon or natural plant extract Stevia.

 

·       Increase your omega-3 fatty acid intake, which prevent inflammation

 

·       Replace shop-bought salad dressing with healthy mono-saturated fats such as olive oil

 

·       Choose organic milk and eggs

 

·       Take your Vitamin B that helps the body make the chemicals we need for mood, brain function and healthy sleep.

 

 

2. Sweat it! - Walk a mile every day and exercise to boost energy and combat anxiety and depression

 

3. Turn the TV off and your smartphone and do leisure activities such as reading or playing musical instruments

 

4. Meditate for 12 minutes every day

 

5. Put houseplants around your home and keep your windows open as often as possible.  

Can Stress Be A Positive?

 

Stress can help us flourish and even straighten the brain, a world-leading neuroscientist has claimed.

 

Stress is something that we all know too well. Whether running late to a career-changing interview or fighting against the clock to meet the deadline, stress can make us sweat it.  

 

However, life’s pressures are not always negative. While prolonged stress can definitely increase the risk of serious health problems, a world-leading neuroscientist said that stress can, in fact, help us flourish and even straighten our brain.

 

In his book, The Stress Test, Professor Ian Robertson, said: “We have between our ears the most complex entity in the known universe and the amazing fact about it is that our brains can self-programme. We have the ability to change not only the functioning of our brains, but the very chemistry and structure of them by the way we use them,”

 

Inside our brains are two competing mechanisms: the approach system on the left part that encourages us to seek rewards and triggers the release of anxiety-tackling dopamine and the avoidance area that avoids punishment, prompting the release of noradrenaline. Balancing the two mechanisms is the key to produce the perfect cocktail of chemicals that can transform stress to something beneficial.

 

“Any ideas can be abused by unscrupulous people and this one is no different. Moderate stress can be beneficial, severe stress not. Most people with mental illness suffer extreme stress and ‘just getting over it’ is not and should not be an option.”