Can't Think Straight? How to Achieve Mental Clarity

Many of us take mental clarity for granted until we find our minds cluttered, foggy, and unable to recall important things. Suddenly, it becomes something we long for. This article will shed some light on mental clarity, potential reasons you may lose it, and what you can do to have a more peaceful mind.

What Is Mental Clarity?

Mental clarity means having the ability to think, focus, and concentrate on something without distraction. It's an important skill that helps you perform tasks, make decisions, and enjoy the present moment without a racing mind.

Brain fog is the opposite of mental clarity. Symptoms of brain fog include:

• Forgetfulness
• Difficulty concentrating
• Difficulty making decisions
• Feeling mentally sluggish

Mental clarity helps you enjoy the present and make decisions, forming a major part of your mental health. A lack of mental clarity can also contribute to depression and anxiety. Neurotransmitters, also known as brain hormones, play a major role in mental clarity. The two main hormones responsible are dopamine and serotonin.

What Can Cause Brain Fog?

Various factors can cause a lack of mental clarity or brain fog. These factors include:

• Stress
• Lack of sleep
• Information overload
• Spending too much time indoors
• Poor nutrition
• Health conditions
• Liver Congestion
• Toxins

What Can You Do to Improve Mental Clarity?

Fortunately, there are various strategies that you can use to help improve your mental clarity. Different strategies are more successful for different people. Identifying the cause of your lack of clarity can help determine which strategies might be most effective for you.

Manage Stress

Short-term stress is normal and can be handled by the body. However, long-term stress can cause health problems, including brain fog.

During short-term stress, your adrenal glands produce stress hormones, such as cortisol, to help your body respond to the stressor. This is done through the NeuroEndoMetabolic (NEM) Stress Response System, a six-circuit system of related organs that helps your body cope with stress.

When stress becomes long-term, however, your adrenal glands can become depleted of cortisol, and imbalances within your NEM system occur. This marks the beginning of Adrenal Fatigue, a condition in which the body cannot keep up with long-term stress, resulting in various non-specific symptoms, depending on where the imbalance in the NEM system occurs.

One circuit can become imbalanced in the NEM system is the Neuroaffect circuit. This circuit regulates how you think and feel by producing brain hormones. An imbalance here may cause changes in the brain's hormone levels, resulting in a lack of mental clarity. Additionally, some other symptoms of this circuit imbalance include challenges falling and staying asleep, depression, and anxiety, which may also contribute to a lack of mental clarity.

While work, financial stress, or relationship struggles can contribute to long-term stress, other factors such as poor nutrition, lack of sleep, and health conditions can also contribute. Some strategies that can help manage stress include optimal nutrition, exercise, and adequate sleep.

Get Enough Sleep

The thought of sacrificing sleep to complete your work may be tempting, but sleep is crucial for your health. During sleep, your brain helps to restore itself with the glymphatic system. This pseudo-lymphatic system cleanses your brain and is only activated when you sleep. During sleep, this system removes harmful substances from your brain, delivering important substances such as glucose, lipids, amino acids, and brain hormones (1).

The glymphatic system cannot work without adequate sleep, leading to brain fog. This also increases the age of the brain and the chances of conditions such as Alzheimer's developing. Seven or more hours per night is recommended for adults. This may increase depending on your activity level, stage of life, and health (2).

To help improve the quantity and quality of sleep, you can:

• Limit the use of screens before bed
• Use black-out curtains
• Practice sleep hygiene by going to bed and waking up at the same time every day
• Avoid caffeine several hours before bed
• Use supplements that may help with sleep

Reduce Information Overload

This factor has increased with the rise of technology and social media. Managing information overload can be useful when trying to gain mental clarity. To limit information overload, you can:

• Limit your screen time or allocate specific times in the day when you can use your social media
• Incorporate breaks during the day that do not involve a screen
• Incorporate a hobby or exercise during the day to give yourself a rest from all the information

Exercise

Exercise can help with brain fog directly and indirectly. Directly, exercise helps to decrease inflammation and increases the production of growth factors in the brain. This helps to keep the current brain cells healthy and increases the production of new brain cells. Both factors can boost mental clarity by reducing the chance of aging brain cells and inflammation causing brain fog.

A recent study also found that regular aerobic exercise helped increase the size of the brain's hippocampus. This part of your brain is related to verbal memory and learning and thus may help with mental clarity (3).

Indirectly, exercise can also help increase your mood by releasing brain hormones, improving sleep quality, and reducing stress.

Get Outside

You may have been told as a kid to "get outside and spend time in nature." Research now supports this, showing that being outside can help with mental clarity. In one study, participants were asked how much time they spent outdoors and the benefits they experienced. On average, participants spent 67 minutes outdoors per day. 64% of these participants found that the outdoors helped clear their minds. Additionally, 68% of participants found that outdoors helped boost their mood.

There are multiple reasons for this. Outside generally removes the need to focus or concentrate on your phone or computer. It provides soothing stimuli, like a gentle breeze or leaves rustling. It also helps to reset your brain. This can help prevent overload and allow your brain to switch off for a period, which may help alleviate brain fog.

Additionally, one study found that being in nature increases activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex. This region is responsible for emotional regulation, and an increase in this area could explain why people feel better after being outside (4).

While you may associate being outside with exercise, you could also do a hobby, go away for a vacation or weekend in nature, or go for a gentle walk outside.

Nutrition

Poor nutrition, such as a diet high in sugary foods and refined carbohydrates, can increase the stress on your body and may contribute to Adrenal Fatigue or brain fog. Additionally, poor nutrition can result in you not receiving vital vitamins and minerals necessary for your brain health. In addition, poor gut health or a leaky gut could also contribute to brain fog.

Some examples of nutrients that may help to boost your brain health and reduce stress include:

• Vitamin C
• Vitamin E
• B Vitamins
• Selenium
• Iron
• Zinc
• Vitamin D
• Omega 3 Fatty Acids
• Glutathione

While these nutrients have different dietary sources, there are some general guidelines that you can follow to help ensure you receive these nutrients. These guidelines are:

• Include fruits and vegetables daily—the more colorful, the better, as different colors correlate to different nutrients.
• Include protein, either animal or plant-based, in your meals.
• Choose unrefined grains rather than refined carbohydrates.
• Try to have fish, specifically oily fish such as sardines and salmon, twice a week.
• Spend at least 15 minutes outside daily, which can help you receive vitamin D.

Detoxification

If toxins in your body circulate and cross the blood-brain barrier, that could also cause brain fog. Detoxifying methods that the body can tolerate are key to reducing the liver's congestive load. Don't overdo the detoxing if you have adverse symptoms and are dealing with adrenal fatigue. Sometimes, detoxing can worsen brain fog, so it's key to reduce the amount of detox to what the body can tolerate. A key principle is that the best detox is one that you don't feel.

Supplementation for Mental Clarity

There is a wide range of supplements for mental clarity, each using various ingredients. This can make it difficult to decide which will benefit you the most.

Brain Trust by Dr. Lam is one supplement that may assist you in clearing your brain fog. It involves a combination of ingredients, including:

• Gotu Kola
• L-Glutamine
• Ginkgo extract
• Rosemary leaf extract
• Phosphatidyl serine
• Huperzine complex

These ingredients play different roles in brain health and are known to be neuroprotective. Some ways in which these ingredients can help include (5,6,7):

• Antioxidant effects
• Ensuring optimal communication between cells
• Regulating brain hormones
• Improving memory

This supplement is available in vegetarian capsules. The recommended dose is one capsule once to twice a day.

Mental Clarity: Takeaway Message

A lack of mental clarity can not only reduce your quality of life but can also negatively affect your mental health. A combination of different factors can cause it and can be improved through various strategies, including:

• Good quality nutrition
• Optimal sleep
• Stress management
• Time in nature
• Reducing information overload

If you are experiencing a lack of mental clarity and would like advice on strategies that may help, call us at +1 (626) 571-1234 for a free initial consultation.