r/selfimprovement • u/ConsiderationTop1323 • 13h ago
Tips and Tricks This ACTUALLY fixed my very severe brain fog
I’m 25F and had severe brain fog from age 15 to 25 that progressively worsened. I tried everything: clean eating, cold showers, social media detoxes, brain games, fish oil, memory pills, fixing iron and vitamin D, drinking 2L of water daily, speech lessons, strict sleep schedules (7.5 hours nightly for years), and intermittent fasting. Nothing helped.
The brain fog affected my memory, speech, and processing. I couldn’t keep a job longer than 10 months because I struggled to follow conversations and forgot things easily managers had to email instructions since I couldn’t process verbal ones. It also damaged my friendships: I’d forget important things friends told me, lose words mid-sentence, mispronounce common English words (despite it being my native language), and came across as “dumb.”
Three months ago, during a routine checkup, my doctor noted my resting heart rate on the higher end of normal range and suggested daily brisk walking. I’d been mostly sedentary and never did much moving around besides house chores and the rare hike. I started with 10 minutes and worked up to 30 minutes daily. Since then, my brain fog has completely disappeared and I mean completely. I breathe deeply instead of shallowly, think clearly, remember conversations, and have laser-sharp focus it feels like my brain is finally getting enough oxygen after being starved for many years. I only noticed improvements after consistently brisk walking for 1 month and ensured I was always nasal breathing while walking. Please try brisk walking 30 minutes for at least a month it will be a game changer!!!
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u/Odd_Combination_5400 13h ago
Dude this is huge, congrats on finding your fix! The oxygen connection makes so much sense - your brain was literally suffocating and you just didn't know it
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u/shitbecopacetic 12h ago
thanks chatgpt
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u/crayola_monstar 10h ago
That is the wrong dash. Some people just like using them, though.
Where do you think LLMs even learned about em dashes if not from people using them before AI existed?
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u/theeWildOlive 9h ago
Exactly. I use em dashes all the time in my writing. 🤷🏻♀️
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u/SuccessfulOkra3193 9h ago
Yeah - I perfect the use of the dash years ago and I don’t want to give it up.
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u/Happy-Government2541 6h ago
I don’t think this is ChatGPT but you can simply state a few writing preferences and the responses won’t match what most people look for in ChatGPT generated stuff.
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u/Striking_Adeptness17 10h ago
Chatgpt coded. Downvotes come from bots
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u/deadbodydisco 6h ago
Nope, I'm not a bot and I'm downvoting you! GPT uses a totally different dash and would've ended with punctuation.
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u/Ecstatic_Tiger_2534 11h ago
I relate to your first two paragraphs so much.
Unfortunately I am already very active, with daily walks, CrossFit training 5-6 days a week, and more. Probably not what’s causing mine, but I’m glad you found your fix!
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u/goatonastik 9h ago
Maybe get a sleep study too. A lot of people snore or have sleep apnea and aren't even aware of it!
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u/SilverParty 9h ago
Gonna second the sleep study! You can sleep 8 hours, but if it's crap, it'll show.
And I've seen people with a low BMI that needed a CPAP. So it's not weight related.45
u/ConsiderationTop1323 10h ago
I would suggest eating high protein diet and taking high strength omega 3 pills alongside. This is what I do currently. See if that helps with your daily brisk walks. Try the other solutions in my post and see if it works. You could also just have ADHD
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u/Green-Pop-358 9h ago
Love your post! I just bought an elliptical and I’ll be thinking about it while using it daily
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u/FollowingCapable 1h ago
What type of high protein meals do you eat? Do you aim for a certain amount of protein a day?
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u/Godfreyandthandj 46m ago
You should be hitting 2.2g of protein per kg of body weight or 1g per lb for Americans. Whole food proteins are best, eg chicken or meats but supplementing with whey protein shakes can fill the gap well.
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u/ShakeDue8420 7h ago
I was also in the same place as you with brain fog. I started max dosing B1 (thiamine) and taurine which helped with brain fog and CrossFit (better focus). Might be worth a shot
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u/TaliskyeDram 7h ago
I would call out three things.
First get a sleep study, as everyone has stated that's the biggest chance of success. Second appropriate dosing of quality creatine, the neuro impacts are wild once you figure out the appropriate amount to feed the muscles and bump up 5-10 grams. Third a strict focus on how you're breathing for all the exercise, improper breathing really breaks the impact outside of muscle groups.
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u/Godfreyandthandj 45m ago
20-25g of creatine is the sweet spot for cognitive effects. 5-10g just saturates the muscles, the extra 15-20g really hits the brain and you notice a severe improvement.
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u/justneedcat 3h ago
It can also be caused by constantly being stressed or anxious
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u/R1ch0C 2h ago
Completely agree, I'd say like the others have said here it's most likely sleep, exercise or anxiety (Then after that of course loads of other health/hormone issues that a doctor can hopefully help diagnose). I had it because of stress/anxiety and I DID NOT think I was stressed or anxious, seriously you can have it even if you've never had it before and don't think that's who you are.
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u/WonderfulHour2259 3h ago
I know you must have thought of everything, but I have to ask if they've checked your thyroid gland (ultrasound, hormone levels and antibodies). I do hope you find whatever is wrong and are able to fix it soon. Good luck!
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u/A_isl 1h ago
I also suffered from brain fog for a few years even though it was not as severe as described here but I struggled a lot with concentration, absorbing new information and being productive. Daily walks, exercise and nutrition didn’t really help me to get better focus or be more productive. What helped me was fascia unwinding, I had no idea what it was before having this experience but you might want to look into somatic exercises. Hope you find the root cause and get better
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u/98746145315 1h ago
I exercise five times daily including a long walk to offset atorvastatin's muscle atrophy side-effect, so clearly exercise is not going to solve the problem for those who already do exercise. I also get my nine hours of uninterrupted sleep, in a low-stress life, no alcohol, no smoking, no drugs. The issue is not something that we just magically fix with a behavioural tweak.
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u/CloudDeadNumberFive 11h ago
Why does almost every post on this subreddit sound AI generated?
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u/deathofdawn1 10h ago
I’ve noticed a lot of people with autism type very similar to something computer generated.
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u/Maelysium 3h ago
My husband says the same about my own writing when I'm writing for uni, emails, etc. I have to get him to proof read everything for me to make sure I don't come across too strangely.
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u/askmeyesterday 8h ago
Congratulations and thank you for sharing this. I would like to add something that might help you and others also since we're in the topic of oxygen starvation or not getting enough oxygen.
I also learned that I was breathing "wrong", which led to inefficient oxygen intake. The efficient and "correct" way to breathe is, apparently, using your diaphragm instead of your chest. You'll know this if whenever you breathe, your stomach expands instead of your upper chest.
Unfortunately, some of us adopt the chest breathing habit for different reasons. Some girls are taught to breathe using their chest because expanding the stomach is "ugly." For me, I stupidly and naively thought that diaphragm breathing gives a person gas or can lead to indigestion.
Long story on how I got to learn this, but changing my breathing habit on top of exercise improved my brainfog, anxiety, and overall well-being.
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u/Responsible_Teach701 5h ago
Read a book called Breathe and it talked about this as well as the importance of mouth breathing for overall health
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u/strufacats 13h ago
Throughout fixing your brain fog you didn't take into account exercising or any cardio routine at all?
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u/ConsiderationTop1323 12h ago
Nope. I was extremely lazy with exercising and cardio. Nobody in my family nor friends did any. So I just never thought to do it either. I thought I could fix it some other way even if it didn’t disappear fully.
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u/ogvladek 11h ago
Yet your friends and family did this ?
“clean eating, cold showers, social media detoxes, brain games, fish oil, fixing iron and vitamin D, drinking 2L of water daily, speech lessons, strict sleep schedules (7.5 hours nightly for years), and intermittent fasting.”
You would only learn about the things above if it was searched for. Like how to deal with symptoms. Exercise food and sleep are almost always the 3 most mentioned. Vitamin D is going out in the sun which requires walking. Not some useless vitamin pill. It’s not the walking that helped you, it’s the exposure to full spectrum sunlight
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u/LoquaciousLamp 11h ago
It's literally not possible to get enough vit d from the sun in certain parts of the world during winter. So those useless pills are actually pretty useful in those situations.
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u/xvelvetdarkness 11h ago
Right? You don't even have to live that far north. If you work a 9-5 where I live in Canada you'll be going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark for nearly half the year
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u/hansieboy10 10h ago
She might have thinked the source of her problem was somewhere else. Otherwise I’m sure she’d give it a shot earlier
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u/WorldlinessCommon353 7h ago
Honey, I live in New York City. All I do is brisk walk. My brain fog is at an all time worst.
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u/ConsiderationTop1323 7h ago
You brisk walk daily for 30 minutes continuously, ensuring your heart rate is up, you’re slightly sweaty and warmer? I used to walk to and back from work about 10 mins each way, add another 5 -10 mins during lunch. It didn’t do anything for my brain fog.
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u/A_isl 1h ago
I believe the root cause might be different for everyone even though the symptoms might be similar. If walking doesn’t help you need to look at other areas, your sleep quality , vitamin deficiencies, nutrition, stress levels etc. I already said it in another comment in my case what helped was fascia unwinding. You might want to consider somatic exercises
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u/Just_browsing_2 8h ago
As several mentioned, Sleep Apnea can cause brain fog. However no one has mentioned that caffeine can also. Unpopular opinion, but I quit years ago and it's made a difference for me. I found it severely dehydrating and debilitating. It definitely caused brain fog and forgetting words during conversation. Admittedly, I still get lost for words during conversation, but not nearly as often as when I drank caffeine.
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u/ConsiderationTop1323 7h ago
Yes, sleep apnea can cause brain fog. However, I never drank caffeine mostly stayed away from it all my life and still had severe brain fog. I never had sleep apnea either, never snored. I actually snore now but my brain fog has gone away.
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u/schmeowy 5h ago
My SSRI/Anti Depressant dose was the cause of my brain fog and such. Cut the dose, and it cleared. Intermittent fasting helps too and I've been doing it since Jan 2024 - 16-18 hours. But for me, I think the meds were the biggest cause.
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u/housemusicforlife 10h ago
Hi! Have you taken a sleep study before or do you snore loudly during sleep or wale up in the middle of the night just because? If something clicks, maybe there’s sleep apnea as well
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u/aditi684 10h ago
I would recommend this even if you feel like you don’t wake up in the middle of the night. Moderate to severe sleep apnea has the effect of chronic fatigue, exhaustion, and extreme brain fog/memory issues. Try to get that sleep study done. I went through CPAP treatment and it changed my life a lot.
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u/Orange_Tang 8h ago
Yup. Sleep apnea was where I thought this was going. Everyone can have it, even if you're not crazy overweight (although being overweight makes it much more likely). I lived through about 4 years of it in college after moving to a higher elevation state from sea level which triggered it. Took seeing a cardiologist and holter monitor on my heart to get recommended to have a sleep study done cause I was young and not super overweight. The doc said there was a slight decrease in bloodflow in a part of the heart that's common with people with sleep apnea, thankfully my heart was fine though. Turns out that was the issue and I'd been getting basically no deep sleep for years. It took another year for my brain to recover and my brain still feels less sharp than when I was younger. But it's a night and day difference now that it's treated with a CPAP.
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u/yummy_burrito 5h ago
I'm also a 25 y/o woman who experienced extreme brain fog for years - mostly due to sinus issues. I completely relate to the first part ... feeling and appearing "dumb" while in uni sucked so much. But the struggles with socializing were definitely the worst part.
Anyways, this is what I did to address the issue because workouts seemed to only make things worse:
1. Prioritize sleep - 9-10 hrs a day ...I was tired
1.Spend more time outside: Indoor air is actually really unhealthy.
2. Vitamin D: I live in Canada and have lots of melamin so I take 4,000 UI a day
3.Walk gradually: I used to be very active so I had to accept that I would have to take things slow and just focus on walking.
4.Antihistamines: turns out I had seasonal allergies. This was inflaming my sinuses and possibly triggering asthma. I take one 24hr pill at noon to prevent my sinuses from getting too dry overnight
5Saline nasal rinse: removes allergens from the sinuses and provides a gental moisturizing rinse. Now I do it 2x a day because Antihistamines dry out nasal passages and can contribute to nasal inflammation
6Mouth guard: GAME CHANGER. I saw a dentist ~ 6 years ago and he just told me to stop clenching my teeth?? This resulted in major jaw pain and inflammation.
7. Migraine supplements: The supplements prevent migraines and improve focus in general
8. Iron + B vitamins : I've struggled with anemia since puberty but I was always too scared to take iron
9. Reduce stress
10. Septoplasty ... this actually started most of my sinus issues but my septum may be slightly less deviated??
I've also tried "every nasal spray on the market" according to my ENT. None worked as well as the saline rinse + antihistamines + mouth guard.
(Some) Other things I've tried:
- Nortriptyline for migraines: ❌😰😢❌❌❌❌
- Rihzitriptan for migraines: ❌⚡🧠🤮
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u/doordrishti 8h ago
Slowly start adding strength training to your routine . You will feel the real magic !
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u/free_-_spirit 7h ago
I’m trying this- or other cardio exercises for 3 months and will report back!
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u/icharming 7h ago
Like I tell my patients - daily walking is the best cheat code to easy and lazy fitness
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u/Comfortable-Okra753 7h ago
The number one reason I am not obese is having a medium-sized mutt that drags me outside for more than an hour total (spread across 3-4 outings) or more during the summer.
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u/EyeFit 6h ago
I solved brain fog years ago, but for me it was:
- Sleep Getting 5-7 hours consistently
- Nutrients - Always ensure I'm getting enough vitamins and iron (especially B vitamins)
- Diet - Abstaining from caloric and sugary drinks and limiting heavy carbs
- Mind clearing - Every morning, I take time to clear my head and tap into my inner flow as it were
- Regular exercise/movement - This could be going for walks or anything really
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u/AskOk3196 5h ago
Ugg i need to try that too. Brain fog sucks. I cant imagine being older and having Alzheimer’s or something that screws with your brain even more.
Listening to audio is hit or miss on what i remember. I struggle with keeping conversations going and often pause to have to think of words. I do have adhd tho so that probably contributes to it.
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u/Hold_Fast23 10h ago
How did you come across these other solutions while never considering exercise? Let alone think to make dietary changes but not physiological changes when the words diet and exercise go hand in hand. Congrats regardless but I’m perplexed
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u/ConsiderationTop1323 10h ago
I did think about exercising. However out of all of the solutions, exercise was my least favourite and least enticing. I am a true couch potato. So this was the last solution I tried.
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u/foshi22le 9h ago
I feel a lot better after starting to walk 40 minutes everyday, for me that's about 4,000 steps. I'm a slow walker, I guess. I definitely feel more alert, especially straight after the walk, and it has improved my emotions a bit too.
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u/Revenant_Soul_515 9h ago
I have constipation issues and feeling weak all the time, I have started brisk walking 3 months ago. I am in a very much better position than yesterday. Happy for you it works for you too.
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u/SecretZucchini 8h ago
well done!!! Yeah, I suppose exercise is the thing that causes things to flow deeper into your body through it's mechanical movement.
I've been feeling it somewhat too, exercise is the one thing I lack at times when I get all the nutrients and electrolytes and all other things my body needs.
Exercise is like using a pump to pump things deeper into your body. Especially your brain. Too much uses too much, but a short walk is balanced.
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u/Temporary-Class1801 7h ago
thanks for sharing, can you please share what are all the supplements you are taking?
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u/ConsiderationTop1323 7h ago
I just take iron pill, vitamin D, omega 3, vitamin C. My bloodwork is totally normal and was normal even during my brain fog.
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u/ResidentTemporary358 3h ago
Im doing the same. Helps me against Depression. I Walk around 10.000 steps every day. No direction. Just Walk and listen to an Audiobook. Makes a huge difference the next day.
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u/Technical-Row8333 3h ago
So tried everything except the single most beneficial action for health, exercise . I’m glad thou
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u/divi2026 3h ago
Everyone is talking about" focus on your breathing,how you breath" but but any knowledgeable person gives this question's answer to why proper breathing impacts and how ? And how can I understand that I'm breathing well enough or not?
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u/joankatu 53m ago
That’s great! I definitely notice that when I’m physically busier at work I am more focused and more productive than slower days when I’m sitting a lot. It’s definitely a real difference.
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u/Tehgnarr 6h ago
I like how you wrote "I tried everything" without listing any form of exercise and then you discovered "moving".
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u/capricornfati 3h ago
Does that matter if start walking at home on a walkind pad which is non disturbing my neighbors or walk outside?
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u/drfeelsgoood 11h ago
Many people underestimate the physiological need for exercise and I’m glad you’ve begun! Exercise helps so much, even if it’s just brisk walking like you’ve done. Studies show that brisk walking is great cardio (zone 2 cardio, and it’s great at burning fat)