Hey everyone, welcome back to another video.
In today's video, we're going to be talking about brain fog.
Over the course of the pandemic,
have you found yourself saying that
you just don't feel like yourself,
or your brain is a little bit foggy or cloudy?
Maybe you're having some issues with memory,
you're just not remembering things like you normally do?
Or did you even get COVID,
and then for the next couple of months
you felt all of these symptoms?
Well, I recently just learned why,
and that's what I'm going to share with you in this video.
So basically your brain needs a few simple things.
These are non-negotiable things
that your brain absolutely needs.
And when you take these things away,
your brain essentially starts to act up,
it starts to get cloudy, it starts to lose memory.
However, when you give your brain those simple things
it goes right back to normal.
Just by adding these things in,
you will notice a huge increase in mental clarity.
So with that being said, let's dive right into this.
So when I was walking around the bookstore
just looking for new things to read, a book caught my eye.
This is the book that I pulled off the shelf,
it's called "The Brain Fog Fix."
Now, the reason that I bought this book
is because when I was standing in the bookstore
flipping through the different pages
to see if the book was interesting,
every page I landed on for the most part
was giving me one of those aha moments.
So I ended up buying the book, took it home,
and read it over the course of a couple days.
And when I started implementing these things
literally within a week,
I noticed a huge increase in mental clarity,
and performance in my own brain.
Not only just me, when I found this out
and I shared it with two of my close friends,
they had the same results within a week as well.
So although this book is filled with a ton of things,
I'm going to share just the 10 really key takeaways
from this book that you can start implementing
and notice a good change in your own brain.
Now, for those of you
who are really interested in this stuff,
and you want the deep dive on this
I'll link up this book in the description,
and I would definitely recommend getting it in a hard copy
just something like this
so that you can keep flipping back to pages,
you can use a highlighter, all of these things.
I don't know that this book would be the best
in audio book format.
So without further ado, let's go ahead and get started.
So the first thing is something
I never realized was even a thing,
so number one is Omega-3 versus Omega-6.
So if you've heard of fish oil, or healthy fat,
or fatty acid this is where this applies.
So what I never realized is that healthy fats
are broken up into Omega-3 and Omega-6.
Omega-3 is the one that lowers inflammation
and is good for your body,
Omega-6 actually increases inflammation,
so it's not something that you want.
The hard part is finding foods
that have a lot of the good one
and not a lot of the bad one,
it's called the Omega-3 to 6 ratio.
Now, what I just learned is when you're eating foods
that are high in this fat,
things like eggs, dairy, meat, and fish,
that ratio is dependent on
how that food was raised or grown.
So the ratio is really good on that kind of food
that is organic or grass fed or wild caught,
and that ratio is really bad on food
that is conventionally grown or farmed in most cases.
So when you go to the store,
and you're going to buy chicken or going to buy meat,
opt for the one that is organic or grass fed
because the ratio will be a lot better.
Now, my quick tips here are
you want to get as much Omega-3 in your diet,
so the best way to do that out of all foods
is going to be wild caught salmon.
Now, on top of eating that as much as you can,
you can take a pill version of the Omega-3,
that's what I choose to do in addition to eating salmon
and this is the one that I choose,
it's called Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega.
It's essentially only Omega-3s and no Omega 6s,
so it helps to get that ratio in check
no matter what you're really eating.
So I'll link this one down in the description as well,
this is the brand that I recommend.
Now, this leads us right into the second point here,
and this is inflammation.
When you eat a bad diet, it increases inflammation,
inflammation in your whole body.
Meaning that things are getting bigger,
and your body's trying to get it back down.
Well, this happens particularly in your brain,
and that's what gives you brain fog.
Well, great ways to combat that are obviously the Omega-3s,
and eating the right foods in the right ratio,
but also turmeric.
Now, turmeric is a natural plant
and it's actually extremely effective
at being an anti-inflammatory.
This is not a prescription or any drug like that,
it's simply just a plant.
But if you can work more turmeric into your diet
you will have less inflammation overall,
which equals less brain fog.
Now, there are a few options for turmeric.
You can either just do organic ground turmeric
and you can just put that on basically all foods,
or you can opt for just a pill.
This is what I like to do
when I haven't had a lot of turmeric each day.
This is another great brand,
I'll link to this one in the description as well.
Now, this brings us right into number three,
this is getting seven servings
of vegetables and fruit every day.
Vegetables are more important than fruits
for the nutrients for your brain.
Now, most people only get anywhere
from two to four servings of vegetables and fruits per day.
So getting that number up to a full seven,
you will absolutely feel the difference on this one,
especially if you're combining it
with the first two we talked about.
Essentially why this is so important
is because the nutrients
that come out of vegetables and fruit
are some of those simple, important,
crucial, nutrients for your brain.
And if you don't have them,
your brain just won't function normally.
Ad only getting two to four servings a day
doesn't really meet that quota of what your brain needs.
So my simple hack here is I just make a smoothie,
I make it every day or every other day.
But basically what this smoothie is,
is I essentially just use a big blender
and then I put frozen spinach, frozen kale,
frozen broccoli, so all these things are just in the freezer
and you can simply grab them outta there
if they last a long time.
And then one whole banana,
a little bit of fresh ginger root, the whole root,
you can throw it into the blender,
and then about a cup or two of water.
And then optionally,
you can put in a scoop of vanilla protein powder,
if you're someone who wants some more protein in your diet.
You blend all these things up,
and you actually get a pretty good tasting smoothie.
It doesn't taste like vegetables,
but it's going to give you
nearly all seven of your servings.
Now, I used to use a little neutral bullet blender,
but it wasn't quite big enough.
So I've opted for a full size ninja blender,
it was just over $100, but the thing is absolutely worth it.
I will link to one down in the description,
but if you have a Vitamix or any full size blender
that's what I would use for this smoothie
because all of those frozen vegetables
take up a lot of space, so you kind of need a bigger blender
for it to blend up properly.
Moving along, let's go to the key takeaway number four.
This is understanding co-factors.
This is something I never knew existed
and it's a a very short one.
But basically some nutrients are needed
for other nutrients to absorb.
So if you're just getting certain nutrients,
they may not even be absorbing
if you don't have the variety of other nutrients
that may be required in order to get those ones to absorb.
Basically diversify your diet,
just eat a bunch of different things
because you may need co-factors from one thing
for the nutrients of the other thing to get absorbed.
All right, moving on to number five.
This is bread, pasta, and rice.
Essentially, the takeaway here is
when you eat white bread, or you eat white rice,
or just regular pasta, basically what happens is
it spikes your blood sugar,
and that's what gives you the food coma feeling
after you eat a huge meal.
Well, that's also the brain fog feeling.
So if you can eliminate the spike
that comes in your blood sugar
from eating these standard versions of these,
then you avoid the brain fog after a big meal.
So basically the easy way to do this
is to switch to sprouted bread,
or switch to brown rice,
and then even for pasta switch to Chickpea pasta.
All right, moving on to number six.
This is caffeine and alcohol.
Now, what most people don't realize is that
caffeine and alcohol can actually be good for you,
it just comes down to a few specific things.
So talking about caffeine first,
as long as you keep it under 200 milligrams per day,
caffeine is totally fine.
And then talking about alcohol if you can opt for red wine,
specifically if you really wanna do the best you can do
Pinot Noir is the best red wine for you.
And if you can keep it to just one glass per day,
then you're totally fine.
In fact, coffee and red wine
are two of the highest antioxidant sources
in the American diet.
Number seven, this is sugar and artificial sweeteners.
Now, the short answer here is just
cut out most of the sugar,
but don't cut out all of the sugar from your diet.
Most people say you need to eliminate all of the sugar.
Well, I highly disagree,
make sure that you're keeping some sugar in your diet
because your brain feeds off of sugar.
If you eliminate all of it,
then your brain still won't be performing optimally.
And then the other part of this
is the artificial sweeteners,
these are not good for you any way you look at it.
The two main ones are going to be sucralose and aspartame.
If you see those typically in diet drinks
or the skinny version of whatever the drink is,
stay away from those as best you can,
they're not made for the human body,
they're just made to be sweet and have zero calories.
If you do see stevia on an ingredients list,
that's the one that I would say is okay
if you're going to do a sugar alternative.
Okay, moving right along, let's get to number eight,
this is a sedentary lifestyle.
This was really eyeopening for me to learn.
So basically what has happened in this 21st century
we have it so good that we are sitting too much.
When I'm filming this video right now, I'm sitting.
On the way to work for most people,
they're sitting in the car.
When you get to work,
most people are sitting at their desk all day.
On the way back home, guess what?
You're sitting in the car again,
and then you get home, you sit for dinner.
After that, you sit on the couch,
you go to bed, you lay in bed.
By and large, we are not getting the exercise
or the amount of movement that we need in our lives.
So the simple solution here is just to move more,
this can even be just walking more.
Now, the reason that this is so important
there's a region of the brain called the hippocampus.
Now, this is actually in charge of memory,
but it also has to do do with feeling happy.
Now, the way that you stimulate,
and you grow your hippocampus is by exercising.
If you're sitting all day, the hippocampus just shrinks.
And it's even shown that people that have depression
or depressive symptoms, their hippocampus is smaller.
So just by working out or walking more,
any movement that you can do
you're working on that hippocampus to build it back up,
it's going to increase your memory
and make you feel happier.
Personally, I use a rowing machine,
I do a half a mile,
and that takes me about four minutes to do.
So four minutes every day
or every other day is all the exercise,
it completely checks off this box.
Now, I've owned two rowing machines over the years.
The one that I currently have
is the one that I would recommend.
I think it's about $130 on Amazon,
and it's the only piece of equipment
that you need for exercise.
I will go ahead and link that one down
in the description as well, it's definitely the better
of the two rowing machines that I've owned.
All right, let's get into number nine,
this is avoid prescriptions.
Now, specifically talking about prescriptions
for anxiety and depression.
Now, the reason that this book explains
to avoid prescriptions
is because they come with real side effects.
Although they may be treating one thing,
you're likely going to have a pretty crazy side effect
somewhere else or multiple places
as a result of taking that prescription.
Now, even in some cases it causes a chain reaction
where the side effects you get from the one prescription
you need another prescription for those,
and then they have side effects.
And it can keep going, and then you're on multiple drugs.
Now, specifically, I'd like to hone in
on anxiety and depression prescriptions.
And the reason for that is studies have shown
the recurrence rate after taking these prescriptions
is much higher than those people
who did not take these prescription drugs
for anxiety or depression.
Do the things that I've talked about in this book first,
give it a week and see how you feel.
I would almost bet that you are going to feel
so much better and you're not going to have those symptoms,
and you won't need that prescription anyways.
And on top of that
you're fixing it properly from the source,
so you're not going to have high recurrence rates
or dependence on prescription drugs.
And that brings us into the last one, this is number 10.
This is finding purpose and meaning.
I know this sounds cliche,
but it is so important to this whole grand scheme of things.
Essentially, if you ever have the feeling
of something's missing or something's lost,
well that's basically going to boil down
to purpose and meaning.
Now, the reason for this that blew my mind
is that in humans we have a part of the brain
called prefrontal cortex.
Now, for some people,
this section of the brain affects them just a little bit.
For other people, it affects them a lot.
For me, I'm someone who, this part of my brain
affects my life a lot.
I need to have a big purpose and a big meaning
in order to feel like nothing is missing.
Personally, I satisfy this kind of craving
for purpose and meaning in my family and in work.
So what I would recommend to you
is if you feel like something's missing
or something's lost, first, look to your family.
See if you can kind of satisfy it there,
find purpose and meaning, and then think about work.
If you're not getting that purpose
or meaning in your current job,
then I highly recommend starting a business,
that is going to give you so much purpose and meaning
because you're building something
that's larger than yourself.
This area of starting a business is another area
where I feel like I can be a good resource to help you,
so if you're interested in starting a business,
I'll link another video down in the description
that goes over these seven businesses
I've been doing for years,
that will definitely give you purpose and meaning.
You'll probably have a lot ff drive
trying to grow those businesses,
I'm here to help you along the way.
So if you're someone who needs that,
that video should be pretty helpful.
All right, so let's do a quick recap of everything here.
Number one is have a daily green smoothie
every day or every other day,
this is going to help you
get your seven servings of vegetables.
My recipe is frozen kale, frozen spinach,
frozen broccoli, fresh ginger a whole banana, water,
and optionally vanilla protein.
Number two is when it comes to meat, fish, dairy, or eggs
eat only organic or grass-fed.
This will keep your Omega-3 to Omega-6 ratio in check.
umber three, eat more turmeric in your diet.
Number four, focus as much of your diet around Omega-3,
and keep out the Omega-6s as much as possible.
On top of that wild caught salmon
is going to be the best source of Omega-3.
Number five, get more physical activity.
This can be just walking around,
and if you do it outside it'll be a nice bonus
that you get vitamin D as well.
Number six, avoid prescriptions the best you can,
specifically for anxiety and depression
because the recurrence rates are going to be higher.
Once you stop that medication, you might feel like
you have a dependence on that medication.
And if you just do these other things in this video
you can likely solve it before even taking a prescription.
And number seven, find a purpose and meaning.
Look to your family first, look to your work after.
If you're not getting it from work, start a business.
I'll put a video down in the description
that hopefully helps in that department.
So guys, that is it for this video.
If you have any questions, let me know down in the comments.
And if you know anyone who is struggling with brain fog,
share this video with them.
Again, I'll link the book down in the description.
All right guys, that's it for this one.
I'll see you all in the next video.