Foggy Head?

Do you ever find that during the week, maybe mid afternoon you get a bit of brain fog. Everything feels a bit lost, you aren’t sure what to do, where to go or even where to begin. You’re having difficulty concentrating and forming thoughts and ideas. You may have been working perfectly well for a few hours or a few days and then you hit a foggy wall! No matter what you try, you can’t pull yourself out of a haze. Your motivation has also taken a dive….

This can be an absolute nightmare if you have a task to complete or a project to focus on and are up against a deadline. When this happens to me I’m not going to lie, I struggle and probably try way too hard, which makes things an even greater challenge and makes the fog even thicker.

There can be many causes to this, stress being one. Are you working too much or too hard? Make sure you are taking regular breaks and more importantly taking time off work so you have time to rest and recharge. Holidays are there for you to use, you are entitled to them, so use them!

How’s your workload? Is it becoming too much for you, causing you to fall behind and not make headway? Time can be our worst enemy when we are stressed, we see it slip through our fingers, and the haze of the fog, makes it feel impossible to move forward. Feeling like we can’t keep up when we are stressed, is awful, it can lead to us feeling inadequate, useless and unsure where to turn.

Brain fog can stifle us, it can stop us in our path to success and achievement. It feels awful, although time can pass quickly when we are feeling stressed, when trying to finish off a project or even start a project when your head feels like a bowl of spaghetti, time will slow down and you will sit there struggling to succeed for what seems like hours.

So, during these misty moments what can we do to help us get clarity. Well, here are some ideas of things to try to help shift and lift that fog. Give the following a go the next time you hit a foggy patch!

1. Move onto another task – switch it up, sometimes all we need is to do something else. Maybe do something that’s routine, or perhaps you want to get stuck into something new that you are excited about. If this gets your creative juices flowing, go with it and who knows it may then help you with what you’ve been stuck on.
2. Relax – take a few minutes, breathe deeply and slowly, close your eyes and maybe think about your favourite holiday or a beautiful place that makes you feel relaxed and safe. I usually go to a beach hut (in my head), that sits over the water, it’s calm and helps me to relax.
3. Walk away – get up and walk away, whether you decide to go outside and go for a walk and immerse yourself in nature or you just leave your desk and go sit somewhere else. Move away from it, and come back to your task when you feel up to giving it another go.
4. Grab a cuppa – make yourself a cup of your favourite tea or coffee or even juice, enjoy each and every sip slowly and focus entirely on your beverage.
5. Hug your pet – this is the best feeling and it can help lift your head and make you feel instantly better!
6. Chat with someone – maybe it’s your boss, maybe it’s your best mate, whoever it is, whether you chat to them about your brain fog issue or you distract yourself entirely and talk about the latest box set you have been watching.
7. Sleep – if you’re working too hard and/or too much or if you haven’t been sleeping well then get an early night, start a ritual one or two night a week when you go to bed early, have a bath, grab a sleepy herbal tea, read and get yourself into the sleepy zone. This can help you get some clarity with your task, ok so it might not be an instant fix, but if you can afford to leave your project for a couple of days, then see how you get on.
8. Essential oils – there are a few oils you can use to help give you clarity. You could pop several drops of them in an oil burner or vaporiser and get the fragrance into the atmosphere so you can breathe it in. Rosemary is great for clarity, Peppermint oil is uplifting, helps to clear your mind and Basil oil is great for concentration. All these oils are great for helping you to focus and will work well when you get stuck!

As you can see, there are a number of things to try when you find your mind all stuffy and you are struggling to focus. Give them a go, see what works best for you. I find that walking and getting out in the fresh air can be enough to clear the fog and enable me to go back to a task with a clear head. If I’m unable to get out, then the next best thing for me is to take a moment, use the essential oils as above and just breathe!

Please be kind to yourself, we all suffer from brain fog from time to time, and putting pressure on yourself to push through will just tire you out, and frustrate you further. SO STOP. Try one of the above or if you know something else that works for you then do it. Give your brain a break.

Have a great week, thanks for reading and look after you!

Love Emma xx