Tag: brain fog

Cognitive health and wellness 🧠

by drjurisharma, posted in brain, celebration, cognitive health, emotional health, food, Life

Hello everyone ! Have a wonderful and safe day 🙋🏻

Though we are moving fast in the field of science and technology, but are we taking enough care of our cognitive health? Just the way as we do for our physical health. Due to awareness around maintaining a healthy lifestyle, our life expectancy has increased twofold. Still, at the same time, there is an emerging number of brain and cognitive issues. These chronic brain issues significantly affect life, making it disabled for living. The WHO has rightly pointed out that in recent years to come, one out of every five individual will be affected by either dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Therefore, the problem is severe, and there is an urgent need for proper care and development of cognitive health and functions as one age from a young child to growing older.

Usually, the brain functions and coordinate through four different areas to carry out our daily activities.
1.Memory: Recalling the memory, working memory and problem solving using past experiences.
2.Executive function: Planning, decision making, organizing.
3.Speed/Accuracy: How fast and efficiently, one can complete a particular task?
4.Concentration: Keeping the mind focused on a specific task despite the interruptions, noises, distractions.

Cognitive health and fitness are at its best when in our day to day circumstances, we can do the right thinking, right ways, and at the right time:
1. Approaching a problem or an issue, by flexible thinking and not linear thinking. Keeping an open mind, thinking with multiple approaches and self-regulating.
2. Being able to focus and be attentive on a particular task within the day to day environment of distractions, interruptions and noises.
3. A working memory, recalling memory and problem-solving.
4. Cognitive strength of being both resilient and vulnerable.

When our brain and cognitive domains are not at our best, due to improper sleep or dehydration or any stress, we face several issues like:

1.Brain fog, foggy memory, forgetfulness.
2.Poor mind control
3.Lack of focus, easily distracted.
4.Unable to make decisions
5.Slow while performing the task.


We have already known the fact of Neuroplasticity and that the brain is changeable. It has amazing capacity of learning and storing informations. To know more, here is the link https://healthhappinesshealing.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=2676&action=edit. By practising and repeating things, new synaptic connections can be made or strengthen the already existing neural pathways. More synaptic density allows more flexible thinking approaches. So, there are several ways; we can keep our cognitive health intact :
1. Learning new things, languages, hobbies, music like an instrument and so on.

2.Trying to have new experiences like walking in a new direction, travelling to a new place, exploring a new idea, creativity, trying a unique taste.
3. Being more attentive of the environment like the smell, sound, any physical sensation.


4. Solving problems, trying math, puzzles.


5.Physical movement: Cross crawling exercises, hand body coordination like juggling, weight training, resistant activity.


6. Consuming brain nourishing food. If you want to know more about the food and it’s importance to brain health, here is the link https://healthhappinesshealing.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=3922&action=edit

Thanks for reading.

Blessings and much love to all 💐

 

 

 

 

Magnesium : A mineral with great benefits 🙌

by drjurisharma, posted in Life

Hello everyone. Have a beautiful and safe day 🙋🏻

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Being irritable at times, feeling less energetic, having sleep disturbances may not be familiar with me alone but with many of you as well. We blame it to our lifestyle of working up to late hours, stress, anxiety or maybe having too much tea/ coffee in the day. But, we fail to understand that this could be the reason for the deficiency of mineral-like Magnesium—an unknown epidemic which most of us are generally not acquainted. About 80% of the population suffer from magnesium deficiency, so imagine how prevalent the problem exists.

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A vital mineral as well as an electrolyte, Magnesium is used in many biochemical processes within our body. Lifestyle habits like stress, anxiety, lack of sleep, sugar intake, having carbonated drinks can deplete magnesium storage in the body. Even the soil where crops and greens are grown can be devoid of Magnesium. Therefore, many reasons contribute to magnesium deficiency issue. So, despite following a healthy diet, we may end up having a magnesium deficiency.

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Magnesium is a vital mineral used as a co-factor in many of the essential enzymatic biochemical processes. Energy production cycle called the Krebs cycle; it plays an important role. Magnesium contributes as a vasodilator, anti-inflammatory, anticoagulant. It is used in a considerable amount in the mineralisation of bones. Almost 60% of Magnesium is stored in bones, and the rest is stored in the red blood cells, kidney.
Clinically, Magnesium deficiency or Hypomagnesemia is measured by a blood test or magnesium level in urine. But, despite being such a common problem, many physicians failed to acknowledge it because of lack of enough researches or maybe it isn’t easy to measure the exact level in the body.

Some common causes of magnesium deficiency are:

1. Decreased intake: High intake of processed food and prolonged fasting.
2. Malabsorption: Irritable bowel syndrome-like Crohn’s disease, frequent laxative use and diarrhoea.
3, Certain conditions like SIADH (a condition in which the body secretes too much of antidiuretic hormone),
4, Acute pancreatitis, Burns, lactation, diabetes, excessive sweating and alcoholism.
5. Medication that causes of depletion of stored Magnesium are antibiotics, antivirals, antiepileptics,
6. Uses of Cisplatin, corticosteroids, proton pump inhibitors and diuretics.

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Some common symptoms are :
1. Muscle twitching, cramps, spasm.
2.Tiredness, dysphagia.

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3. Irregular heartbeats.
4. Migraine headache.
5. Insomnia
6. Kidney stones
7. Weight gain
8. Anxiety
9.Autoimmune diseases
10. Ringing in the ears.

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Usually, the ideal dose is about 400mg/day. The important sources can be dietary sources like Almonds, nuts, seeds, spinach, pulses.
Other methods are magnesium ionic drops, magnesium oils for body massage and supplements. Oral supplements are available in bound form like Mg oxide, citrate, glutamate, glycinate, taurate and so on. But, supplementation should be used under a physician’s supervision.

Thanks for reading.

Blessings and much love to all 💐

 

 

 

Brain fog 🙄

by drjurisharma, posted in Life

Hello everyone! Have a wonderful and safe day 🙋🏻

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Brain fog is a state of foggy, ambiguous thinking. It may be associated with a lack of concentration, a short span of memory loss, anomic aphasia, susceptible to distraction. Brain Fog is a loosely framed term not in medical terminology. There is no evidence of neuropsychological evidence. So, it has no proper medical diagnosis. As far as symptoms are concerned, we may all relate to the concept of brain fog from time to time.

But, yes, when such symptoms are stable and have been steady for quite some time, we surely need clinical assistance. When the difficulty with cognitive functioning becomes problematic, interferes with daily activities, people surrounding you have noticed the symptoms, and slowly they are progressive and declining, we surely need neurological evaluation.

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Common symptoms:
Slow thinking
Difficulty focusing
confusion
Lack of concentrating.
Forgetfulness.

Common causes of brain fog :

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1. Depression is a state where there is pre-occupied thinking of sadness, worries, hurt, loss, persistent failure. This thinking pattern progresses to affect mood and impair cognitive and behavioural functionalities.
2. Anxiety is a state when there is ruminating about failures, lows of life, worries and so on.
3.Chronic illness or continuous physical pain.
4.Untreated sleep apnoea.
5.Alcohol, drug abuse
6.Chronic Fatigue syndrome.
7.Medications: Benzodiazepines, topiramate, anticholinergic drugs.
8.Sleep deprivation
9.Pregnancy.
10.Appetite disturbances, poor nutrition.

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A neuropsychological evaluation is necessary by formal testings of Core battery tests, a general cognitive assessment like memory, attention, language, motor function and visual-spatial and so on. Treatment is based on the underlying cause and symptoms.

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Any one of us can have brain fog at some point or the other. The general lifestyle of living in stress, anxiety, overthinking, sleep disturbances can easily affect our thinking and behavioural pattern from time to time. It’s essential to be more aware of our mental state and be proactive to notice and correct the gap or shortcomings by bringing out changes in our lifestyle. Some changes lifestyle like :

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Improving diet with more brain-boosting foods and probiotics.
Cutting down inflammatory foods
Improving sleep cycle.
Increased physical activity.
Try not to be self-critical.
Socializing.
Self-care to de-stress ourselves. (developing hobby, being creative, sports)

Thanks for reading.

Blessings and much to all 💐