Brain Fog Treatment: What’s Really Behind It and How to Get Your Clarity Back

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1:00So it's time we do a series on brain fog because it is getting the best of some of us and it really shouldn't be that way. How do you know if you're in the right place right now? Well, let me ask you, have you ever been mid-sentence and suddenly blinked on what you were saying? Or maybe you walked into a room and you had no idea why you went in there and then you leave, you remember, you go back again and you're like, wait, what was it? Yeah, it's pretty annoying, right? That, my friend, is what so many women call brain fog. I have been there multiple times in my life before I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism.

1:34That's definitely coming in this series. We're going to talk about that. And then the other time where I was put into a chemically induced menopause with Lupron and it was like, I lost my hormones. I lost my mind. My family were like, you're losing your mind. Here's what I want you to know. If you're having brain fog, it's not this random one-off thing that you should just ignore. Brain fog is a signal from your body. We're going to unpack some of the top causes today of brain fog in women, how to actually know if each one applies to you and what you can actually do about it. Here's the thing.

2:09This is a lot to cover, and I'm going to break it down into several parts. And the reason for that is because if you have brain fog, you don't need me to talk to you for three hours. I could probably go longer than that. I want to give you sections of things to focus on, and we're going to be talking about this very practically, what to implement, what to do, how to do it to start improving your brain. So in our first part on brain fog, we're going to get into three very common reasons that women experience brain fog. And then we will go deeper and deeper. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to build out this resource for you and I'm going to be linking to other podcast episodes as well that will serve as resources, especially those that go deep on lab testing, reference ranges, things that you should be looking for.

3:01I'm also going to be sharing with you some of the science at drbrighton.com, d-r-b-r-i-g-h-t-e-n.com. Get into the show notes and I will have guides there for you. I will have the study cited. I will have your back in this. I'm Dr. Jolene Brighton. I'm the host of The Dr. Brighton Show. I'm board certified in naturopathic endocrinology. I'm a certified menopause practitioner, and I'm your guide to understanding your brain and your body and your hormones. Now, before I get totally into it, can you take like a minute, leave me a review? I would be super grateful because it helps the show so much.

3:38And if you can forward this to somebody who needs it, even better. I appreciate your support, and it is your support that makes this podcast possible and makes it so that women get the information they need from other women who have been through it. All right, with that said, this episode is going to be packed with value. So let's dive right in. The first cause of brain fog is hormone fluctuations. We're going to talk about that. And it's not just perimenopause. It's not just menopause when estrogen and progesterone are shifting wildly. It can also be showing up before your period. It can also be postpartum.

4:14So estrogen, if you've caught my other episodes, this is going to be a bit of a reminder for you, which is great because that's how we solidify information. Estrogen impacts serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine. So we're talking about like feel-good neurotransmitters and focus chemicals. And so without estrogen or when estrogen is low, that can definitely impact how well our brain functions. It can also lead to inflammation, free radical, oxidative stress, in the brain, mitochondrial dysfunction. So we don't got brain energy. Now, when we talk about progesterone, progesterone is all about that GABA.

4:51GABA calms the brain. GABA helps us sleep. And if we're not sleeping, we're definitely going to have brain fog. So when these hormones start dipping out on us, brain fog hits the brain hard. Now, you may be asking, like, how do I know if this is me? Now, you can be in perimenopause as early as age 35, which is lame. And if I had a magic wand and I could be your fairy godmother, I would make that go away. But I can't. So here we are. Okay, so how do you know if it's you? So maybe it's perimenopause. Maybe it's postpartum. So if you're finding your word-finding issues around your cycle, especially in that luteal phase, so after you ovulate, that's your luteal phase, and you're like, brain's not as sharp, Yeah, that could be that estrogen is taking a back seat.

5:38And especially as we age, we're not making enough of it, not making enough progesterone. We can have memory lapses mid-sentence. And if you're ADHD, this can actually lead to impulsivity, increased impulsivity that manifests as interrupting people. And that is because you're forgetting mid-sentence and you're panicked and you're like, oh my God, I got to interrupt because I will forget what I'm saying mid-sentence. You may also feel more irritable, mentally scattered, and we especially see that postpartum and in perimenopause. And I did an entire episode about what hormonal changes are happening in perimenopause and how they affect the brain and what happens if we lose our hormones too soon, as in primary ovarian insufficiency, Lupron treatment, or oophorectomy, losing your ovaries.

6:24So I'll link to that episode if you want to nerd out with me and know all the science of that. And if you're like, I'm 25, girl, you want to know what's coming and what to do about it. But if you're listening to this right now, you're probably like, just give me what to do about my problem right now. So first things first, protein gets broken down to amino acids in your gut. You absorb that. That becomes the building blocks of your neurotransmitters. So yes, we talk about eating protein, 25, 30 grams every single meal because we want blood sugar balance. Yeah, that's really, we're going to talk about why that's important for brain fog in an upcoming episode, but we also need it to build those neurotransmitters.

7:03Go to drbrighton.com slash plan, grab the anti-inflammatory meal plan, because if you've got brain fog, no matter what the cause in this entire series, that is going to help you immensely. Now, other things that you can eat that I don't think get enough attention are nuts and seeds. So flax seeds, chia seeds, sesame, pumpkin, walnuts. These things have healthy fats that support the brain, but they also support your hormones as well. If you're not someone who has done yoga and meditation in the past, here's an invitation to try some kind of mind-body medicine, something that gets you to calm, to still, to be in your body, and to work and train your brain.

7:50That's what these are doing. Don't look at it as like some woo-woo, be chill, like peace and love. Look at it as brain training and specifically training your nervous system. If your nervous system is getting lit up on everything and it is fried and frazzled, that is pulling on brain energy. And if your problem with brain fog is not enough estrogen as fuel and then not enough progesterone to say, stop freaking out, then you've got to get the mind-body practices in place. Saffron, if you've heard me talk about it, like I'm in a love affair with saffron. Don't tell my husband. No, actually, he's fine with it because it helps your libido too.

8:34So saffron is going to support mood. It helps with hot flashes. It helps with emotional balance. It helps with brain function. It may even play a role in helping with some of the inflammation that can get upregulated in the brain when estrogen goes low. But copa is another one that can do that as well, helping with its antioxidant capacity. So those are two that I definitely think about when I think brain fog. Zinc is another one. It's crucial for ovulation. So if you're still ovulating, you need zinc. Also crucial for progesterone and for your neurotransmitters getting regulated. If you find that you're not someone who's eating beef, oysters, then you need to start bringing in pumpkin seeds a lot more, but you may also need to supplement with zinc.

9:23Remember, I'm a doctor. I'm not your doctor. So any supplements that I talk about, you're always going to run by them. And when it comes to zinc, I can caution you that if you go high, like sometimes when people are sick, they use 30 milligrams three times a day. You do that for too long, you're going to have a copper deficiency. You're going to have cardiovascular issues. So caution there. Usually when I'm supplementing with zinc ongoing, we're looking more at like 10 to 15 milligrams. I'm going to talk about magnesium. So magnesium, glycinate or threonate, these are the ones that we want to be looking to.

9:54They can help calm overexcited neurons, improve sleep, better word recall, the next day. So with magnesium L-threonate, that one specifically crosses the blood-brain barrier and it's been shown to help with working memory with magnesium glycinate, also a very well-absorbed form of magnesium, that one is going to support sleep and it's better for supporting women's hormones. Magnesium glycinate, typically using 150 to 300 milligrams a day. Migraine sufferers are usually using about 600 milligrams a day. And when you're doing magnesium glycinate, that's an evening formula. You can actually take it any time of day, but if you want it to help with sleep, take it.

10:36I usually take it after dinner. So I will eat my dinner, then I go into the kitchen, and that's when I take my evening supplements because I have to have a routine to remember. If it's magnesium L3 and A, typically that's going to be 1.5 to 2 grams per day, which is only delivering about 140 milligrams of elemental magnesium. So if you're someone who's Like I read the brain research on the 550 milligrams of magnesium a day. Understand it's kind of hard to get there with L3 and 8, but it is crossing the blood-brain barrier. So it does have those benefits. Now, with magnesium, there have been studies to show improvements in executive function and memory in older adults.

11:21And often in these studies where we're looking at memory and we're looking at cognitive function, we're going to see that it's older adults because those tend to be the people who have the biggest cognitive deficits. And so just because it is in older adults doesn't mean it won't be helpful in younger adults. But I just think it's important to understand that's why almost every study, that's the population being looked at. And in my opinion, looking at once people have brain changes and then what helps is great to know, but I would like to know what prevents brain changes, and it does appear that magnesium can be one of those.

12:01You've probably heard me talk about creatine before. Creatine monohydrate, big fan. I take five grams a day. It provides rapid energy to the neurons. It's like an ATP buffer, which is like the energy packets that our brain cells use. Now, the brain uses about 20 % of the body's energy. It's a greedy, greedy little expensive organ, but rightly so, right? It does so much. Now, creatine helps prevent the mid-sentence dropouts in some people, so the losing words, and it can be especially effective when you're under cognitive stress, sleep deprivation. Hi, new moms. I'm talking to you. And hormonal fluctuations, especially, like, let's be real.

12:45We have hormonal fluctuations throughout the entire month. So it can be really helpful for all of us, but especially we see perimenopause and menopausal women report that they have great benefits when using creatine. Me personally, I have ADHD. Creatine is one of the things that I found helped me in the luteal phase. And I was doing, so the dosage is usually about three to five grams a day. That's the standard that people are using. I went up to like 10 grams a day and I found it helped in the luteal phase. However, so I was doing five grams daily, ovulate 10 grams daily. I couldn't get my rings on.

13:26I just started holding on to water and not feeling good. So for me personally, it wasn't worth the trade-off. So these 10 grams may be better, maybe for some people, but it isn't without side effects. I would also like my stomach just didn't feel right. And I was doing it in divided doses. So you got to do what works for your body. I want to note that creatine has been shown in research to improve memory, mental performance, when you are under serious mental fatigue and strain. And so I think that is really promising research, especially when you consider when we talk about being a new parent, parental burnout is real, very, very stressful time.

14:10or when you talk about perimenopause, when most women are sandwiched between caretaking or thinking about how they're going to have to caretake their parents and caretaking smaller children, to think about being, if it's helpful under mental fatigue and stress, we can consider the times of our lives that are really stressful. Now, I mentioned Bacopa earlier, and I think I should talk about it a little bit more because it's pretty incredible. So with Bacopa, it's thought to enhance synaptic plasticity, so brain plasticity. It also may increase acetylcholine. It may reduce stress-related forgetfulness.

14:48So if that food creatine isn't doing it for you, you might want to try Bacopa instead. And there's been strong evidence for improving delayed recall and word learning tasks. So basically pulling things out of your brain, right? Having that memory recall and then the tasks that are word learning based. Like take Bacopa, listen to Dr. Brighton's show and you're going to learn more. So with Bacopa, typically the dosages are like 150 to 300 milligrams a day. You want to use the standard extract. If you've heard me talk about it, our Radiant Mind formula, which was developed out of me being put into chemical menopause, and being so desperate and being so like, I'm never going to feel this way again.

15:34So I am making the supplement to give my brain energy. I use Bacogne's in our formula because that is the one that's evidence-based backed up by clinical trials. One thing I hear from women all the time is that they're struggling with symptoms like hot flashes, sleep disruptions, and brain fog, but aren't sure where to turn to for help. Menopause is inevitable, but suffering through it isn't. That's why I want to tell you about Alloy. Alloy is a digital health platform that connects you with a menopause-specialized doctor who can create a personalized treatment plan tailored to your needs, all from the comfort of your home.

16:13Join the 95 % of women who tried Alloy and saw relief in the first two weeks. Head to myalloy.com and use the code DRBRYTENED. That's myalloy.com, M-Y-A-L-L-O-Y.com and the code Dr. Brighton, D-R-B-R-I-G-H-T-E-N. Share your symptoms and you'll get a fully customized treatment plan and unlimited messaging with your doctor. Plus, you'll get$20 off your first order today. That's M-Y-A-L-L-O-Y.com, code Dr. Brighton. And what is so cool about Bacopa is that there's been randomized control trials that show significant improvement in memory and retention. So I think that's pretty phenomenal. It's also, what turned me on to it is that when I was like in my Lupron haze, which makes it sound fun, it wasn't fun.

17:17But when I was feeling that way, I saw all these ADHDers talking about Bacopa, but people were like, oh, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Well, I found like I got into the research. I was like, sometimes it doesn't work because it's not actually a standardized extract. It's not actually like being third party tested. So you know, that's actually what's in there and it's not being manufactured at a high quality grade. But I searched out and I actually had a hard time getting my hands on this, which is why I was like, I'm just going to formulate it. I'm just going to make it myself. Now, if you've heard me talk about cognizant or citicholine, Cognizine is the one with actual studies to back it up, but it is citocholine.

17:56That's providing choline for acetylcholine, emphasis on the choline there, synthesis. So that's key for memory and word recall. It may also help support dopamine signaling and brain energy metabolism. And so I think anyone who's been pregnant, you've probably heard how important choline is for baby's brain development. They tell you, take choline. By the way, I always recommend getting choline outside of your prenatal because no prenatal can put enough in there. Just like they can't put enough or keep it quality of omega fatty acids, take it outside of there. But just like it's important for a developing brain, it's important for your brain.

18:34As we talked about with perimenopause, that's a whole remodeling of the architecture of your brain. So if your brain is going through a developmental period, do you want to have a good dose? So like 250, maybe 500 milligrams of Cognizine. 500 milligrams is a lot. I'm going to tell you, you're going to have to take that all on its own because you can't combine that with other stuff. But 250 to 500 milligrams seems to be the range that is beneficial. And when I look at it, there are higher doses, but it's not always like, oh yeah, if you take much more, that you're getting this dose-dependent outcome that looks so much more phenomenal.

19:17Now, the other reason why I sing the praise of Cognizine is because it improves verbal memory, it improves attention, it improves focus, especially in women my age. And I have been taking our radiant mind and my brain is working. I didn't think I had a deficit as of right now, but it has been working so well. And what has been really helpful for me is that with the saffron added in, my moods, so if you saw on social media, I had a late stage miscarriage. It's so seriously, so hard to talk about still. And after that, with the grief and the stacking of just like everything that comes with that, I started sliding back into PMDD symptoms and I've like crying, working out in the gym, like literally lifting weights while I cry.

20:06And Saffron has seriously like, in some ways, I feel like it's like part of the clouds for me and let the sun shine on me again. I know that sounds like really dramatic, but anyone who has struggled with PMDD knows how freaking dark and difficult it is. So I am technically in postpartum as I record this and I'm talking to you of recovering for that. And that is something that I found like the Radiant Mind has been super helpful. But like I said, I do exercise every day. I am doing some form of exercise. I'm also taking creatine, five grams. I'm also, I take omega-3 fatty acids. I have, well, you probably know I have endometriosis, adenomyosis, multiple autoimmune diseases.

20:58So I like omegas to help keep that immune system in check on top of everything else I'm doing. And I guard my sleep. So I like to be like really honest with you guys because yes, I am noticing, I mean, we're all, everyone in my company is noticing like Radiant Mind has made a difference. What's like really funny too is that the manufacturing company, when we put together this formula, they were like, is it cool with you if we actually like hold bottles to the side? Like, can we order extra on top of your formula so that we can have it for the people on our team? Because this is like such an amazing formula.

21:38And I'm like, spread the word, spread the word, because like I needed this so badly years ago. Now, if you want to think about like how to approach these things, if you are having low hormones, estrogen, progesterone, even testosterone, as part of your brain fog problems. Okay. Firstly, should you consider hormone replacement therapy or menopause hormone therapy, whatever you want to call it, it's all the same thing. Okay. But should you consider that? Probably if you're in perimenopause or menopause. So if you are in your forties or above, it's a good idea to consider that as well. I've done other episodes on it.

22:19And I've talked about it actually in multiple episodes. And some of the feedback I got is like, could you do some episodes just talking about natural therapies and natural ways to support our brain and our hormones? And I hear that. Some of you had said it feels like everybody's pushing hormones on us. And that doesn't feel good. They have benefits. I've been prescribing them for over a dozen years. I'm particularly so excited that like, finally, when I talk about them, I'm not being told that I'm like the worst human ever for prescribing them. So I'm very excited. And I do think they have a lot of benefit.

22:53And I do think you need access to this information. I've done other episodes. I will link to it. But I do want to honor your requests in this episode and focus more on natural things that you can be doing. If you want to be approaching this because it's a hormonal issue, we want to be thinking about top of the day, That's when we want to be doing our saffron, our citicoline, our bacopa. If you're taking zinc, you take it with food, friend, because you don't want tummy troubles. I am someone who's very sensitive to supplements, so I'm always warning about that. If you're doing creatine, it doesn't matter what time of day it is.

23:27It's about when it works for you. I personally am like, I have my ritual of creatine with electrolytes because I think creatine tastes horrible and I hate it so much. But creatine, maybe I should make a better tasting one because we shouldn't have to put up with that. But anyhow, creatine, electrolytes, I just put it in a big old mason jar and I take that to when I go work out. I have a home gym, so I just take it in there. That's my routine. For you, you might be like, oh, like I'm going to remember it like, you know, before I have my morning coffee. Like whatever works for you. So for magnesium, I say magnesium, if it's glycinate, do it at night because that's going to help you sleep at night.

24:08And if we're sleeping better at night, we're going to have better brain function. I'm going to talk about that in a minute. Now, this is like if it's hormonal-related brain fog, right? It's estrogen and it's progesterone. The other thing that we want to think about is that mind-body medicine that I talked about. So supporting your nervous system, supporting you not being so frazzled so that you aren't taking energy away. And then you want to look at every single meal, structuring it as anti-inflammatory as possible. I am not a super stickler for like super strict diets and stuff like, you know, outside of like something like celiac disease, right?

24:46You can't mess around with that. But when it comes to like telling you, oh, anti-inflammatory diet, 80-20 rule works just fine. So protein, fat, fiber, every single meal, 25-30 grams of protein, drbrighton.com slash plan. I put it together for you so you don't have to think about it. You can just grab that and make it work. All right. I said we were going to do sleep disruption as one of our causes today for brain fog. So let's talk about what it is and how do you know if you have it. So poor sleep reduces memory consolidation and executive function. You got night sweats, you got cortisol spikes, you got ADHD-related circadian rhythm issues that can wreck deep sleep.

25:23I got a whole episode on that. I will link to it because the strategies are a little bit different. So basically, you can't consolidate memory. Your brain can't fire at full capacity the next day because you're not getting the right kind of sleep. When we sleep at night, you've got the glymphatic system all up in your business, cleaning out your brain. If you don't have that going on, you've got metabolic waste just hanging out. Now, how do you know if this is you? If you are waking in the middle of the night and you can't fall back asleep. You are up 30, 40 minutes, maybe even an hour. That's the worst.

25:57I'm sorry. But that is one sign that you've got sleep issues going on. If you notice that you have worsening brain fog after you've had a poor night of sleep or you had like particularly bad hot flashes, and we always think about hot flashes happening in perimenopause, but postpartum, you can have hot flashes too. You lose that placenta. There goes your hormone factory and you're having hot flashes. So if you notice like, yes, there is a correlation, like I don't sleep well, my brain doesn't work well. If you struggle with energy crashes and poor focus the next day after a poor night of sleep, and how do you know if this is you, right?

26:37Because I can say energy crashes, but this might be you. If you're the person that after a poor night of sleep, you are drinking three, four cups of coffee. You are eating afternoon donuts, cupcakes, chocolate bars, like quick fixes of sugar. That is your brain being like, we're struggling for energy. Please help us. I think it's important that I say that to you because that can feel like, I don't have willpower. I am somehow like a bad person because there's so much like morality attached to food these days. But really what it is, you haven't had enough sleep, your satiety hormones, your I'm full, I don't need food hormones signaling, it gets thrown off.