Lifestyle Choices

Do you ever find yourself easily distracted? Or find yourself having trouble concentrating?  Forgetting too much?   You might be experiencing brain fog.
Extreme brain fog can be a sign of a medical condition.  If you think that might be true of you – be sure to get the appropriate care from a health professional.

If you have mild to moderate brain fog, however, you might find the following self-leadership tips helpful.

Here are 7 ways for personal leaders to clear away a little brain fog.

1. Keep yourself hydrated.  In studies, dehydration has been shown to impair cognitive performance and mood.  In some studies, even a 1% decrease has had a negative effect.

While you are at it, why not make sure your diet is rich in nutrient-dense foods in appropriate amounts too?  All those nutrients help to keep your brain operating at its best.     

 2. Try some Brain Gym type exercises:  Exercises to help your left and right brain make a better connection with each other.

A simple one?   Stretch your arms straight out in front of you – thumbs up and fingers tucked in.  Do big circles with your arms remaining out in front of you.  Follow your thumbnails with both eyes. Ask your eyes to follow your thumbs as you explore the visual access areas. Engage both the logical and creative sides of your brain.

3. Simplify and focus on less. Confusion and delay can signal that too much on your plate is too important.  Entertain the idea of simplifying.  When you simplify, you make choices of what is truly meaningful and then focus on that.  Simplifying is also allowing things to fall away – by choice.

Here is a very simple exercise:  Take a blank piece of paper and fold it in half and then half again.  Open the paper and you will have 4 quadrants.  Label each quadrant as follows:

  1. Urgent AND important
  2. Important and non-urgent
  3. Urgent and non-Important
  4. Non-urgent and non-important  
The Eisenhower Sort

Next, under each heading as appropriate, list out your mental to-do list, putting the Urgent and Important items under that header, Important and non-urgent under that header, and so on.   Afterward  – as a suggestion, why not think about abandoning the non-urgent and non-important items.  They don’t seem to be meaningful to you.   Then focus your energy on what falls into the two categories “What is urgent and important”  and “What is important“.

Look at our other posts on meaningful simplicity for some additional ways to focus and simply in your self-leadership.

4. Engage in a mental organization practice.  There are many forms of mental practices that clear the fog while giving you a sense of ease.  For example, you could write morning pages – a practice made popular by Julia Cameron in the Artist Way.  You might want to try Mind mapping, writing lists, or try some simple mind-clearing techniques.

7 ways to a clear mind

5. Embrace a profound connection with mindfulness.  There is a place, in the gap between your thoughts, where awareness of awareness lives. Slow down and allow yourself to be in the aliveness of the gap.  One of the best places I know to allow clarity to come and the fog to dissipate.

6. Take a time out.  Take a time out to slow down, take a nap, take a walk, listen to some slow-beat music or create a change of place or mind.  Making a change in your current state is one of the most effective ways to revitalize your thinking. Shut down your over-commitments.

7. Shut away your committee of internal critics.  A loud and active internal dialogue can create a lot of fogginess.  Choosing to set aside internal self-talk and have things quiet in there can create enough space for your heart’s brain to send you a clear message.

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