7 Ways I Stay Alert and Productive Throughout the Day, Even With Brain Fog
Brain fog or not, I still have work to do.
Once upon a time, I was really good at working from home. I’ve always preferred it to working from an office, and luckily, my job here at SELF has been flexible enough to allow it in moderation. But ever since my life became working from home, the struggle has been real. Confined to my apartment with little opportunity to break up the day, my brain has finally started rioting. Despite my best efforts, my concentration and memory have been erratic at best, and some days I might spend hours on a task that would typically take me 20 minutes. Which, ugh.
I know I’m not the only one feeling mentally foggy right now. While brain fog is a symptom of plenty of conditions, like major depressive disorder, multiple sclerosis, and hypothyroidism, it’s also an expected response to…pretty much everything going on right now. Stress, lack of sleep and exercise, work-from-home struggles, and other recent issues can all deplete our mental energy, leaving us feeling tapped out and foggy. (For more information on what brain fog is and why it might be happening to you, check out this article.)
When it comes to managing brain fog, exercise, sleep, mindfulness, and therapy are expert-approved and reliable. But given everything going on, those alone haven’t been cutting it for me. To supplement those important modes of self-care, I’ve learned a few smaller coping strategies that can help in the moment too. They’re not cures—brain fog is a freaking menace—but they come in handy when I have shit to do and my brain needs a jump start. Hopefully, they’ll help you too.
1. Talk out loud.
If you live alone or don’t spend a ton of time chatting with the people you live with, you might’ve noticed it’s easy to spend a lot of time in your own head. And I don’t know about you, but if I go too long without speaking out loud, I feel more disorganized and detached from my own thoughts. When I feel especially foggy, I’ll take a break from what I’m doing to call a friend (or more likely, my mom) or even get in the habit of talking more to myself (or my cats) as I putter around. For me, getting my thoughts out of my head and into the world feels like letting the air out of an overly inflated balloon.
Personal experience aside, talking to yourself out loud might even have some cognitive benefits, like sparking your memory. A series of small experiments published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2012 found that people who repeated the name of an item they were looking for out loud located it faster than those who searched silently. Maybe not the exact same as me narrating my to-do list to myself, but even if it’s a placebo effect helping me concentrate, I’ll take it.
2. Switch to writing by hand.
If you’ve ever had a teacher espouse the benefits of taking notes by hand instead of typing away on a laptop, you probably know that there are some documented advantages to this. This 2014 Psychological Science series of studies found that students who took notes longhand performed better when answering conceptual questions because writing by hand makes it easier to actually synthesize and understand the material, instead of merely transcribing it verbatim. But even if you’re not in a classroom setting or trying to learn new information, there’s a lot to be said for how writing by hand helps us be intentional and organize our thoughts.
For me, this has looked like writing my to-do list (or done list) by hand, as well as planning and brainstorming my work in a notebook (mind maps are my friend). Hell, I’ve even written whole drafts longhand when I’ve felt particularly plugged up. Most important, it’s been a welcome break from doing nothing but staring at my screen for days on end, which is a major factor in my brain fog lately.
3. Take creative breaks.
Speaking of breaks, it’s imperative to schedule excuses to get up and about, vary your scenery, and give your brain a rest. I’ve gotten in the habit of blasting music and dancing it out at regular intervals (inspired by SELF editorial assistant Sarah Madaus) because I know how helpful getting your blood pumping can be for brain fog. Plus, upbeat music is a reliable way to wake up my brain, even just a little.
If dance breaks aren’t your thing, pretty much any activity that allows you to step away and reset works, whether that’s doing jumping jacks, meditating, stretching, listening to your favorite song, or playing with your pets.
4. Embrace the midday shower.
Is there any feeling better than those first few moments after a shower? Rejuvenated and fresh, I always feel like I can take on the world (at least, as soon as I put clothes on). Obviously, the feeling doesn’t last forever, but if I need to blast through my brain fog like a tornado and get shit done now, a shower is my favorite quick fix. Especially when I end it with a blast of cold water to really wake myself up.
5. Or at least use cold water in some way.
Depending on your situation, the idea of stealing away for even a quick shower in the middle of the day might be laughable. But you can still use the powers of cold water to your advantage. Seriously, our brains love cold in small doses. A small 2016 Psychological Science study found that even looking at pictures of cold landscapes helped participants perform cognitive tasks. They theorize that this could be because, as babies, we may have internalized the message that feeling warm meant we were cared for and protected, so we could relax, while feeling cold meant we were unprotected and needed to be more alert.
To use this to your advantage, try splashing some cool water on your face, dousing your hands with it, or even drinking a tall glass of it with lots of ice. This might be especially helpful now—as summer starts to creep in, I can basically feel my brain melting as the weather warms up.
6. Cut back on multitasking.
Sometimes brain fog is about having too much sensory input at once, clinical psychologist Ryan Howes, Ph.D., tells SELF. When our attention is pulled in a million directions, our brain can kind of short-circuit and make it impossible to focus on anything. “I’d suggest trying to do a little at a time, taking on your tasks one by one,” he says.
For a lot of us, this is hard—especially right now. Working from home inevitably leads to having multiple distractions on our plate, whether that’s roommates, kids, pets, or any number of blurred work-life boundaries. And that’s not even considering the multitasking inherent to a lot of jobs. Even having Slack open can pull your attention in another direction.
If that sounds familiar, Howes suggests utilizing the Pomodoro technique, a time management method whereby you segment your work into 25-minute sprints with breaks in between. During each 25-minute chunk, tell yourself you’ll focus on one task and one task only. No distractions, no multitasking.
7. I work on being kind to myself.
No list on productivity and mental health right now would be complete without acknowledging that self-compassion is king here. Sometimes you just need to acknowledge how you’re feeling and resist being hard on yourself for it. It isn’t just about kindness, either. It’s about being realistic. In my experience, pushing through brain fog only leads to frustration, guilt, and burnout.
I’m not saying this can always mean calling it a day and trying again tomorrow. Because, well, capitalism. But at the very least, lower your expectations. Work on smaller, easier tasks or give yourself permission to do a less-than-great job. If you feel comfortable, be honest with others about where you’re at and ask for help (whether that’s an extension on a project, the opportunity to delegate, or another creative solution). Many people are primed to be more understanding and flexible right now given the circumstances. We’re all just trying our best, you know?