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Does anyone suffer from brain fog?


Danton

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Hey all,

Was just wondering if anyone else suffers from brain fog, and if it was alleviated after you detox or not. 

I feel like I'm constantly in a daze, and find it hard to focus on anything for more than 20 minutes. It's pulling me back in every way, from reading, to learning programming, to even holding up simple conversations. I've done some research and tried going dairy free and trying to make some radical changes to my sleeping pattern. Sometimes its the cause of my relapses, I start thinking well if I can't learn anything/ read anything I might as well just go back to gaming cause I can do that in auto pilot mode.

I would seriously give an arm and a leg to get rid of it. I hate feeling like a zombie :(

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  • 1 month later...

I hope that's the case! I've been running a lot more recently. Uhh my diets pretty standard, mostly fruit/veg/meat, and a lot of ice cream haha

Cut out the ice cream m8. Ice cream used to be one of my favorite things in the world, but I cut it 6 months ago. So glad I did. Dairy and refined sugar suck, put together they double suck.

Check out the Ketogenic Diet, it allows me to eat 100% clean with 0 food cravings, and high focus. Cleared up my skin too.

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I hope that's the case! I've been running a lot more recently. Uhh my diets pretty standard, mostly fruit/veg/meat, and a lot of ice cream haha

Cut out the ice cream m8. Ice cream used to be one of my favorite things in the world, but I cut it 6 months ago. So glad I did. Dairy and refined sugar suck, put together they double suck.

Check out the Ketogenic Diet, it allows me to eat 100% clean with 0 food cravings, and high focus. Cleared up my skin too.

100% agree. For me a clean paleo diet cleared up my skin fully and got rid of so many symptoms including brain fog and indigestion. 

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  • 5 months later...

ADHD loves the hyperstimulation of games. The adrenaline and dopamine systems are exactly the dysfunctional ones in this disorder.

Do you also use nicotine? That's a big self-medication for it.

 

You might have uncovered an issue by removing a coping strategy. Might be more than just withdrawal or diet tweaks. Might. Idk, I'm no doctor.

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Oh hell yes.

 

I suffered it constantly before the detox, and more importantly, I had no idea what it was so I was trying to fight it and it made it worse.

Since the detox, I don't get brain fog from being unable to think about anything other than games, but I do still suffer from brain fog from gluten and anxiety. As part of my personal development process that the detox started, I can recognise when I am getting anxious and try to implement measures to stop it. I'm not always successful but I have better odds than I did before the detox.

As for gluten - you might be amazed on how much clarity you have without gluten in your diet. You may have other things impacting you, which a blood test might help you identify or a simple diet plan/study/log. I cannot recommend that enough - I really wish I had got serious about cutting out gluten years earlier.

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  • 2 years later...

I’ve had it all of my life. I never knew what it was, I just chalked it up to me being autistic and the fact the autistic people often think slower. I never knew it was a thing until I read @BooksandTrees introduction post and realized it was a symptom of gaming addiction and withdrawal from it. Now that I’ve had about a day to think about it, mental fog has been at the route of some of the most traumatic events in my life and all of the trouble that I’ve had in my jobs.

when I got old enough for my parents to leave me at home during summer break, they would give me stuff to do, like clean the kitchen, vacuum the floor, and pick up around the house. Since I was addicted then, the first few times that they left me home, I would play games, thinking I could play half the day and work the other half. But then when my parents came home and nothing was done because I played all day, they were understandably pissed at me.
 

So then my parents told me to get things done before games, which I thought was better since my plan would be to do those things as fast as possible to get to the games, and that is when the mental fog hit me. For the first 15-30 minutes, I could focus, but after that, I would lose focus, I would have to “buffer think” by breaking what would be normal thinking into small pieces and rest for a moment after processing each piece. There were some points where i fought it with such ferocity that my brain would feel like it was on fire and my head would start to ache. In this state, what would normally take someone 2-3 hours of work to do took me all day and then some, and this happened every time I did something that wasn’t fun. The only time I could really work at normal pace was when I was working with mom or dad, and that was still miserable.

So when this happened and my parents came home, I still wasn’t done with what they gave me, and I hadn’t gotten to the games either. So my parents would accuse me of playing games for the entire day like I had done before, and this would cause me to lose even more of their trust, and this is where all of my childhood troubles started. This more or less continued until my parents sent me to college in 2011.

while in college, I lived in a dormitory with three other roommates, and they all played games. I played with two of them for the entire first year of college. During my entire time at college however, the fog would come and go. It always stayed with me through the day and into late at night, but would leave at around 1 or 2 Am. I got more done after 1 or 2 am than I did the entire day before. At that point, I thought I had a lack of  energy due to not sleeping enough, but I now know it was mental fog. I would often feel the burning brain sensation when I tried to keep up with my instructors at school with taking notes, or when trying to do homework in my dorm, it was excruciating. I finished my associates with a 2.7 gpa.
 

when I moved out of my parent’s house, I worked as a stocker in a store called target. I had to be there at 4am and we worked until 8, or later if more needed done. The work was hard and we had to be fast. The quota was 1 box every minute, which I obviously couldn’t keep up with. My buffering fog brain was able to  go at a reasonable pace, but not at one box a minute. Caffeine would really help, but even on my best days and after 2-3 mountain dews, I would still be reprimanded for being too slow. The “brain on fire” feeling was much more frequent at this time and also brought disorientation and fatigue with it. it was a more distinct burning feeling, staying more to the front of my head, but always inside my head, not on it. Since I had to work hard, I was always pushing my brain to its upper limits with the fog, and this no doubt caused those ailments. I would get times where I was ready to double over because I felt like I was sick to my stomach. I quit that job because it was too much for me. well, more like I quit moments before I was fired, lol.

During that time I had a second job working for advance auto parts. The work there was much less intense, but even then, the fog caused me trouble, and i would get lightheaded and nauseous on many days. doing simple tasks and resting during lunch helped me though. I quit this job when i got a better one.

This job was an it Helpdesk support job, but I learned how to do many things that didn’t have anything to do with Helpdesk support. In fact  I gained experience in almost all fields of IT, with the exception of software/sql/website development. I loved that job, and the fog didn’t make me Ill too often then. It did slow my work because my teammates and managers were in other countries, but I was still able to provide good help when it was needed. My main problem there was keeping my tasks organized and being punctual, but otherwise, I got things done before I went home.

Right now, I’m on day 12 of 90 of my detox and I’m seeing the fog come and go very frequently. When it’s not there, I can focus on what I’m doing easier, but when it is, the most simplest of things can become a ten foot brick wall of an obstacle. All I can say is that I’m glad that I learned this and I can’t wait to be free of the grips of games and mental fog forever.

Edit: it also affected my driving. There were some times where I could drive normally and my focus on the road was crisp and clear, but there were other times where I just couldn’t focus on anything, even with high energy dubstep music playing in the background, lol.

Edited by Dpesuti
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1 hour ago, Dpesuti said:

I’ve had it all of my life. I never knew what it was, I just chalked it up to me being autistic and the fact the autistic people often think slower. I never knew it was a thing until I read @BooksandTrees introduction post and realized it was a symptom of gaming addiction and withdrawal from it. Now that I’ve had about a day to think about it, mental fog has been at the route of some of the most traumatic events in my life and all of the trouble that I’ve had in my jobs.

when I got old enough for my parents to leave me at home during summer break, they would give me stuff to do, like clean the kitchen, vacuum the floor, and pick up around the house. Since I was addicted then, the first few times that they left me home, I would play games, thinking I could play half the day and work the other half. But then when my parents came home and nothing was done because I played all day, they were understandably pissed at me.
 

So then my parents told me to get things done before games, which I thought was better since my plan would be to do those things as fast as possible to get to the games, and that is when the mental fog hit me. For the first 15-30 minutes, I could focus, but after that, I would lose focus, I would have to “buffer think” by breaking what would be normal thinking into small pieces and rest for a moment after processing each piece. There were some points where i fought it with such ferocity that my brain would feel like it was on fire and my head would start to ache. In this state, what would normally take someone 2-3 hours of work to do took me all day and then some, and this happened every time I did something that wasn’t fun. The only time I could really work at normal pace was when I was working with mom or dad, and that was still miserable.

So when this happened and my parents came home, I still wasn’t done with what they gave me, and I hadn’t gotten to the games either. So my parents would accuse me of playing games for the entire day like I had done before, and this would cause me to lose even more of their trust, and this is where all of my childhood troubles started. This more or less continued until my parents sent me to college in 2011.

while in college, I lived in a dormitory with three other roommates, and they all played games. I played with two of them for the entire first year of college. During my entire time at college however, the fog would come and go. It always stayed with me through the day and into late at night, but would leave at around 1 or 2 Am. I got more done after 1 or 2 am than I did the entire day before. At that point, I thought I had a lack of  energy due to not sleeping enough, but I now know it was mental fog. I would often feel the burning brain sensation when I tried to keep up with my instructors at school with taking notes, or when trying to do homework in my dorm, it was excruciating. I finished my associates with a 2.7 gpa.
 

when I moved out of my parent’s house, I worked as a stocker in a store called target. I had to be there at 4am and we worked until 8, or later if more needed done. The work was hard and we had to be fast. The quota was 1 box every minute, which I obviously couldn’t keep up with. My buffering fog brain was able to  go at a reasonable pace, but not at one box a minute. Caffeine would really help, but even on my best days and after 2-3 mountain dews, I would still be reprimanded for being too slow. The “brain on fire” feeling was much more frequent at this time and also brought disorientation and fatigue with it. it was a more distinct burning feeling, staying more to the front of my head, but always inside my head, not on it. Since I had to work hard, I was always pushing my brain to its upper limits with the fog, and this no doubt caused those ailments. I would get times where I was ready to double over because I felt like I was sick to my stomach. I quit that job because it was too much for me. well, more like I quit moments before I was fired, lol.

During that time I had a second job working for advance auto parts. The work there was much less intense, but even then, the fog caused me trouble, and i would get lightheaded and nauseous on many days. doing simple tasks and resting during lunch helped me though. I quit this job when i got a better one.

This job was an it Helpdesk support job, but I learned how to do many things that didn’t have anything to do with Helpdesk support. In fact  I gained experience in almost all fields of IT, with the exception of software/sql/website development. I loved that job, and the fog didn’t make me Ill too often then. It did slow my work because my teammates and managers were in other countries, but I was still able to provide good help when it was needed. My main problem there was keeping my tasks organized and being punctual, but otherwise, I got things done before I went home.

Right now, I’m on day 12 of 90 of my detox and I’m seeing the fog come and go very frequently. When it’s not there, I can focus on what I’m doing easier, but when it is, the most simplest of things can become a ten foot brick wall of an obstacle. All I can say is that I’m glad that I learned this and I can’t wait to be free of the grips of games and mental fog forever.

Edit: it also affected my driving. There were some times where I could drive normally and my focus on the road was crisp and clear, but there were other times where I just couldn’t focus on anything, even with high energy dubstep music playing in the background, lol.

Very interesting symptoms and story you share here. Thanks for sharing it and I'm so happy you're on your way on this detox. Keep it up.

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11 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

Very interesting symptoms and story you share here. Thanks for sharing it and I'm so happy you're on your way on this detox. Keep it up.

Thanks @BooksandTrees,

I just found that the burning brain feeling Is asociated with brain inflammation, while brain inflammation is asociated with mental fog. Another site asociated brain inflammation with cytokines and drug and alcohol addiction. This must mean that the brain becomes inflamed due to gaming addiction, but it’s not strong enough to be detected as a burning sensation, but strong enough to create mental fog.

However, if you push hard against that fog, the inflammation gets worse and you get all kinds of nasty symptoms, like burning brain, headache, and lightheadedness. That would also explain the massive headache I get for playing games for too long or trying to work hard.

sources: 

Burning Brain feeling and brain inflammation:

https://www.holisticcharlotte.com/is-your-brain-on-fire-symptoms-of-brain-inflammation/

Drug/alcohol addictions and brain inflammation due to autoimmune response: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4804710/

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I found more information:

DHA Onega 3 fatty acids are a natural anti-inflammation in the brain and can be easily supplemented with cod liver oil pills. Although the might not be an instant cure for mind fog due to brain inflammation, they can help to reduce the severity of brain inflammation in the future based on how much you take. In other words, if you take them daily, you’ll get less severe mental fog.

They are definitely a better source of anti-inflammatory than medicines like ibuprofen because DHA omega 3 already exists naturally in the brain, although the effects are much more subtle.

I hope this information helps. I’ll be taking them myself.

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8 hours ago, creationlist said:

Ah, so DHA Omega 3 also helps improve brain synapses on top of being an anti-inflammatory. I never thought reading, sports, and going for a walk would have such an effect on synapse growth.

Thanks for this info @creationlist

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On 8/6/2020 at 5:01 PM, Dpesuti said:

I never thought reading, sports, and going for a walk would have such an effect on synapse growth.

That has to do with calming down. Constant stimulation of the brain has unknown side effects. There are many studies that show positive and negative effects of constant stimulants in the brain. While some stimulants are beneficial to cure a disease, most have the opposite effects if you are healthy.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3859825/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3065181/

So it is best to take a restfull task from time to time, so your brain can normalize the stimulants.

This is from a sctientific standpoint (and it's mostly a theory, since we do not fully understand the brain).

From a experienced standpoint: If I read a book (only 10 Minutes) it is easier to follow conversations or to concentrate for me.

Even medidation has those effects, and going for a walk is medidation for me.

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