Question
Question for you on brain fog. I’ve got it pretty bad, is there anything that really helps? Is BACOPA a good product to use?
Answer
This is an interesting question, I don’t think we’ve ever had it before.
And it’s timely. I don’t know if it’s the pandemic or what but I hear from more and more people struggling with it.
I struggled with it myself in my younger years and eventually found my preferred solution – ephedrine. Virtually any stimulant will make your mind work faster, but lets discuss the underlying problem…which I’m convinced is diet related.
Diet Related
When your blood sugar is low, you can certainly get brain fog.
When it gets too high, you can have brain fog there too.
You can also get it when there’s too much tryptophan in circulation, like after a big meal.
Insulin has an affinity for all of the amino acids except 1 – tryptophan.
Consequently, you wind up with high circulating levels of tryptophan which eventually makes its way up to the brain and…. Next thing you know you’re sleepy.
For these and other reasons, I think brain fog is linked to one’s diet.
I tried many different diets to combat it, and found 2 that worked.
The first was many small caloric meals frequently, no more than 400 calories/meal.
That isn’t many calories though, even eating 7 times a day. I never felt like I was starving, but neither did I walk away from any meal feeling satisfied.
The other is fueling off of fats or body fat, using either IF or the ketogenic diet.
Both of these had me feeling much sharper, were easier to stick to and just felt better.
Stims of course help, and hit harder particularly while fasting.
BACOPA
BACOPA, in my opinion, never really moved the needle.
But there are several non-stims I’ve found helpful.
Things like L-Tyrosine (3g), DMAE (200mg) or a choline or choline precursor like citcoline.
If you can’t use things like caffeine/ephedrine then Rhodiola would be my go -to non stimulant to fire up brain activity.
Many people report it quite stimulating, comparable to caffeine but without the jitters.
Finally we get to gut health. I’m not the expert in this area but have read enough studies to know there’s a link between guy health and so called mental fog.
Prebiotics and probiotics I’ve seen helpful, although to be fair I need to do more reading in this area.
