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If your alcohol addiction is already taking over your life, we highly recommend starting a healthy withdrawal program. Alcohol use disorder is a serious condition that can lead to brain fog and other cognitive impairments. In fact, research has shown that walking can help improve brain function and reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Brain exercises can help get rid of brain fog symptoms and enhance your cerebral function in the long run. Doing these exercises for just a few minutes can help get rid of brain fog and enhance your cognitive function.
Highly palatable sweet, fatty, and salty foods and alcohol are just some of the many things that produce an incredibly quick reward. Plus, we have such easy access to them, which is what makes them so addictive. Cognition is the process of your brain working to understand or learn something. Dopamine helps cognition by motivating you and making your ability to process thoughts and store or access memories work more efficiently.
The Causes of Brain Fog
In alcohol addiction treatment, alcohol-induced brain fog is a significant problem. It can even happen after alcohol detox or rehab, as alcohol damage lingers in your body long after you quit drinking alcohol. Alcohol abuse can cause memory issues similar to those of dementia psychosis. Your head seems to be in the cloud after binge drinking with your siblings.
Alongside alcohol’s neurotoxic effects, we see how it can lead to brain fog. It is alcohol’s effects on the neurotransmitter glutamate that lead us to understand alcohol as a neurotoxin. Brain fog affects a variety of mental processes, including memory and concentration.
How Alcohol Affects Dopamine and Brain Health
Taking deep breaths and stretching can relieve anxiety and clear your mind. Have you ever woken up after a night of drinking and your head feels fuzzy? While we usually anticipate a headache or nausea after a night of too many cocktails, a cloudy mind can be more difficult to shake https://ecosoberhouse.com/ off. In addition to aerobic exercise, research has shown that yoga can also help improve cognitive function and reduce the symptoms of brain fog. However, if you’re struggling with brain fog or other symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, it’s important to seek professional help.
The link between alcohol and brain fog is also related to alcohol’s impact on mental illnesses. People with alcohol abuse problems are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder. Changes to a person’s hormone levels can affect their brain functioning, especially during pregnancy or menopause.
Cleanse Your Body
According to Dow, when it comes to the brain, the phrase “use it or lose it” really rings true. So turn off the mind-numbing TV for an hour and play some solitaire, do a crossword, or play a brain game (preferably one with a memory element) instead. Even learning something new—as long as it’s engaging and not stressful—can give your brain a much-needed tune-up. Obviously, the time it takes for the brain to recover depends on the severity of the damage done.
About 70–80% of people with lupus experience brain fog at some point in their lifetime. Research shows that depression can negatively affect a person’s ability to remember and think clearly. This may be related to inflammation in the nervous system that affects the brain. A person can also experience brain fog from a fungal infection after inhaling a substance such as mold.
Make sure to drink plenty of water too, after all, your brain can’t function without it. Over time, dopamine production decreases once your tolerance goes up, meaning you may need more alcohol to feel the same boost over time. Intermittent fasting—limiting your eating window to window of time such as eight or 10 hours per day—may also improve brain function.
- While we usually anticipate a headache or nausea after a night of too many cocktails, a cloudy mind can be more difficult to shake off.
- Lifespan, Rhode Island’s first health system, was founded in 1994 by Rhode Island Hospital and the Miriam Hospital.
- During brain fog, you may experience any or all of the following symptoms.
- Glutathione helps your body process alcohol, and after a night of drinking, it tends to be depleted.
You probably don’t feel mentally prepared for much beyond Netflix, but you can begin to banish brain fog by encouraging those synapses to fire. Download an easy word puzzle app or go old-school with a book of crosswords or Sudoku. By the end of the day, you’ll be confident enough to switch from pencil to pen. The last thing you want to do is move, but some light movement will help pump oxygen to your brain and the rest of your body. If “hangxiety” is a problem for you, a light walk or gentle yoga will also do wonders by elevating your mood and clearing brain fog.
“Exercise increases blood flow and oxygen to the brain, helping it to perform at its peak,” Dow explains. The good news is you don’t always have to hop on a spin bike or get in some burpees to get moving alcohol brain fog (although those help!). Even a daily walk or other low-impact workout—an hour is best—can reset your brain. Dow recommends meditating for 12 minutes every day (although even a few minutes will help).
- This is a condition doctors call postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS).
- Chronic inflammation is caused by an out-of-balance immune system and can affect any part of the body in different ways.
- It’s made by the adrenal gland, just like epinephrine and norepinephrine – the hormones that act behind your fight, flight, or freeze response.
- If you’re drinking wine, opt for organic wine made by sustainable producers.
