12/24/2023 0 Comments Feel on cloud nine meaning![]() Your mood swings are actually a big deal. Which likely sounds familiar to anyone who not-so-fondly recalls "pregnancy brain." In one small study, researchers found that having a bun in the oven makes what's called spatial memory-which helps you do things like remember where your glasses are (hint: probably on your head)-a challenge, possibly because high levels of hormones impact neurons in the memory-focused part of the brain called the hippocampus. Hormones shape the brain, Lahita says, so it would make sense for vascillating estrogen levels to cause shifts in cognition, too. Midlife brain fog is very real: A University of Rochester and University of Illinois study showed that women between the ages of 40 and 60 have trouble staying focused on tricky tasks and stumble with something called working memory, which helps you do things like adding up a bunch of numbers in your head. Here are a few things brain fog might be telling you:Īnd here you thought only your hormones would change! A series of hazy days in the mental forecast could be a sign menopause is near. People facing a wide variety of diagnoses describe foggy days, as do people who don't seem to have anything physically wrong. MORE: 7 Daily Habits That Are Totally Sapping Your Energy At the very least, your doctor can perform tests to reassure you it's not dementia. "If you're not feeling like your normal self, that might suggest something's going on," says neuropsychologist Kelly Ryan, PhD, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan, especially if it lasts for a week or two, Lahita says. If you're sure you've been getting enough sleep-because who isn't in a daze when sleep deprived in fact, check out these 10 things that happen to your body when you don't get enough sleep-it's probably a good idea to bring up brain fog with your doctor if you start to feel seriously off. "Everybody knows what it is," Lahita says, "but at the same time, it is so unknown." Researchers haven't really found a way to measure or test for brain fog like they have dementia. There's not a lot of scientific evidence to explain what's going on when the clouds roll in. Brain fog might cause you to forget where you parked that car at the mall, but dementia might make it impossible to get there in the first place, he says. Its impermanence is the big difference between what we know as brain fog and actual dementia, says rheumatologist Robert Lahita, MD, PhD, chairman of medicine at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and professor of medicine at Rutgers University in New Jersey. A fog can linger for several days, sometimes even weeks. Remember how impossibly exhausting it was to run your board meeting the last time you came to work sick? (Please, please stop doing that, by the way.) Brain fog is a lot like that, except it persists. ![]() "It's a vague sense of what you're trying to retrieve, but you can't focus in on it," she says, "and the effort to harness the thought can be as draining as physical activity." (Discover the best foods for your brain, memory tricks, and other cutting-edge natural tips in Get Sharper Every Day.) "Brain fog is an inability to really punch through," says Mady Hornig, MD, associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. ![]() ![]() As if those brain farts were fogging up the place. Until you realize it wasn't just today at the mall you've somehow spent most of your week feeling as if you've made major decisions behind a smokescreen. It starts with something you can brush off: the standard Where in this enormous mall parking lot did I leave the damn car?! Happens to everyone, no big deal, a brain fart.
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