Understanding the Link Between the Nervous System and Brain Fog

New studies show brain fog often comes from chronic stress, putting our nervous system into overdrive. Your nerves control everything from breathing to mood and thinking. When stress constantly floods the nervous system, it creates unhealthy stress patterns in the nervous system that causes many health and brain problems. Some of these are brain fog, anxiety, and poor quality sleep.

How Chronic Stress Impacts the Nervous System

When threats come your way, your nervous system takes charge. It sparks your adrenal glands into action, releasing hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, shunts blood to organs needed for fight or flight, slows digestion and hormones, tightens muscles needed for protection, increases blood pressure, increases heart rate and increases respiratory rate.

Chronic or repeated stress keeps the nervous system in constant overdrive and keeps your body in the fight or flight mode resulting in a body and brain that burns out. Stress hormones remain elevated, unable to return to normal baseline levels.

How Nervous System Overload Causes Brain Fog

What does constant stress have to do with your ability to think straight? More than you might imagine. Ongoing surges of stress hormones take a major toll on brain function in many ways. Here are some of the ways chronic stress induces brain fog:

It impairs focus and concentration. Stress fuels distractibility and makes it hard to stay on task.
It disrupts memory. Stress hormones like cortisol interfere with memory centers in the brain.
It drains brain energy. Chronically elevated cortisol depletes glucose reserves that fuel brain cells.
It disturbs sleep. Stress can make it hard to fall and stay asleep. Poor sleep equals poorer brain function.
It weakens cognition. Long-term stress can reduce the size of certain brain areas, especially the prefrontal cortex (your thinking brain).

The Gut-Brain Connection

There is another link between the nervous system and brain fog. This is the gut-brain axis. The gut has an extensive neural network, the enteric nervous system. Constant stress can upset your gut health. This leads to inflammation, a disruption in your gut microbes, and digestion problems. This gut upset then produces inflammatory molecules. These molecules travel to your brain, causing inflammation and foggy thinking.

While these factors can contribute to brain fog, they are not the only culprits. Medications can sometimes cause brain fog as a side effect. Various health conditions can also cause brain fog.

Calming an Overactive Nervous System to Clear Brain Fog

You can take steps to manage an overactive nervous system and reduce inflammation. This can help relieve brain fog and other issues. Here are some proven ways to ease a stressed nervous system:

Slow down. Create time for daily relaxation. Try meditation, deep breathing, yoga, or sipping herbal tea.
Exercise. Move your body regularly to burn off excess stress hormones.
Support your gut. Eat a nourishing whole-foods diet, limit sugar and processed foods, and consider probiotic supplements.
Sleep. Aim for seven to nine hours per night.
Reduce stressors. Cut out any unnecessary stressors and carve out some time for self-care.
Our Brain Fit™ program has 15+ treatments to get your brain and nervous system to work more effectively.

For your specific health needs, it is always best to get personalized advice from a healthcare provider. We are now able to measure the effects of stress on your brain. Our Neuroinfiniti® device easily and non-invasively shows the way your brain and body handle stress. It is vital to know if your brain and nervous system are healthy.

Bottom Line

Overwork and stress often cause brain fog. Understanding this mind-body connection can help clear the fog and boost brain performance. Listen to your body, prioritize self-care, and adopt a holistic approach for a sharper, calmer mind.

For more on the link between the nervous system and brain fog, visit Thorburn Chiropractic & Wellness Center at our office in Burbank, California. Call (818) 600-9020 to schedule an appointment today.