We’ve all seen pictures of, or been in, fog lying close around big buildings in a city. It seems to cling to everything and blots out details of things, sometimes hiding them outright.
What would it be like to have that in your head? If you ever have, you’ve suffered from brain fog anxiety.
What Is Brain Fog Anxiety?
In brief, brain fog anxiety is a condition in which your thinking is slow, muddled, and confused. You have difficulty concentrating, and it feels like your brain is tired.
Actually, your brain is tired. Things that you usually have no trouble handling cognitively now seem not to make sense. It’s hard for you to remember some information that normally you would recall with no problem.
Symptoms of Brain Fog
Symptoms of brain fog anxiety include:
- Inability to keep your thoughts focused
- Difficulty memorizing even simple information
- Trouble making decisions
- Low energy or feeling tired
- A feeling of not being “with it”
- Difficulty remembering items or words
- Having little or no motivation
This condition may happen only once, may come and go, or may go on for a long time. The strength of brain fog anxiety also varies from slight to severe or in between. And it can be strong for a while, then ease up, then come back strong again.
Brain fog doesn’t have to be associated with anxiety. It can come “out of the blue” or come before, during, or after a bout with anxiety. It also can be made worse with increasing anxiety.
Reasons for Brain Fog Anxiety
There are several reasons for brain fog anxiety. Here are a few of them:
When you feel anxious, your body responds as it does under stress. Some parts of your brain that are involved in rational thinking are suppressed in their functioning, while other parts that are involved with the feeling of danger are increased. If this happens often or is too strong, brain fog can develop.
Stress hormones are released into your brain when you’re stressed or anxious. These hormones stimulate the electrical activity of your brain. This leads to more and faster thinking which can make it harder to focus on one thought when so many others are being generated. You have trouble concentrating, and your thinking seems foggy.
As your anxiety continues, more of the part of your brain that controls logical, rational thinking works less efficiently, and more of the part of your brain involved with fear and foreboding works overtime. This leads to increased feeling of brain fog.
An area of your brain called the hippocampus controls learning and memory. With increasing anxiety and stress, this brain area works less effectively. You find it harder to remember or learn things.
Increased anxiety and stress causes your body to tire more quickly. And your brain tires faster than the rest of your body. As your brain and body tire, they don’t work as efficiently in thinking, remembering, or making decisions. This leads to the feeling of brain fog.