DO YOU ever struggle to think clearly? A mush brain can be inconvenient, especially if you’re trying to get some important work done.
Having a poor mental capacity decreases your output and can impact the quality of your work. What’s more is that it often leaves you in a bad mood, which can negatively affect your friends and family members.
The key to eliminating brain mush and improving cognitive functioning is to change your mental, emotional and physical state regularly. In this article, you’ll learn exactly how you can do that.
How to Change Your State and Eliminate Brain Mush
There are many powerful methods that allow you to change your state quickly:
1. Escape Your Current Environment
A foggy brain isn’t always the result of internal factors, but sometimes also caused by external factors, such as your working environment.
Let’s say you’re trying to send off a paper before midnight and you’re writing it on your laptop in your room. If all you ever do in that room is play video games and sleep, then you’re going to associate that environment with relaxing and winding down. This association will prevent you from producing your best work.
In Atomic Habits, author James Clear provides a simple solution: “You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.”
Leave your space the next time you’re looking for a quick brain fog treatment: Hit up a coffee shop1, go to the library, or work in a different room in your home. Chances are that your productivity increases.
2. Take Some Non-Prescription Stimulants
There are many non-prescription stimulants that can act as temporary treatment options for brain mush.
Caffeine is a popular stimulant that increases the activity of your nervous system. It’s commonly found in plants, including tea leaves, cocoa beans, coffee beans, and more. Drinks containing caffeine can be great for eliminating brain fog, if consumed responsibly. Popular beverages include …
- Coffee
- Green Tea
- Hot Chocolate
If you tend to work better in groups, then you might want to have some coffee during your next meeting. A 2018 study found that serving coffee in meetings can enhance the dicussion while also boosting participant involvement.2
Though it appears to improve brain function in a general sense, there are also some downsides to consuming caffeinated beverages:
- It’s easy to develop a dependency
- It can lead to a lack of sleep if consumed too late in the day
- Too much caffeine will eventually lead to an energy crash
- Many beverages contain a lot of sugar
3. Listen to Polyrhythmic Music
“Nothing activates the brain so extensively as music,” says Oliver Sacks, M.D., neurologist and author of Musicophilia.
This is especially true for polyrhytmic music.
Polyrhytm is the simultaneous combination of contrasting rhythms in a musical composition. When the melody’s rhythm and the beat’s rhythm don’t align, the brain has to focus on something cyclical yet gradually permutating, which stimulates the brain in many ways.
If you’d like to give it a try for yourself, then play some polyrhytmic music in the background the next time you need to get some work done.
4. Elevate Your Heart Rate
It’s conventional wisdom that exercise is good for the body and mind. Physical activity has been shown to reduce anxiety levels3, improve your immune system4, and help alleviate chronic stress5.
Another well-known fact is that exercise can also enhance your cognitive abilities. You don’t have to spend much time on this; just 20 minutes of aerobic work every day will do the trick. This can include activities like brisk walking, swimming, running, or cycling.
In order to enter an aerobic state, you must elevate your heart rate to the right levels. For example, if you’re 25 years old, you want to be at around 137 beats per minute. If you’re 55 years old, you want to be in or around 115 beats per minute. (You can find a complete diagram here).
5. Take a Power Nap
Jocko Willink is a retired Navy SEAL officer who spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy SEAL Teams and co-authored the New York Times bestelling book, Extreme Ownership. He’s well-known for his advice on mental toughness and how to navigate life.
Willink claims that a power nap habit, which he borrowed from an old high school teacher, came in handy during SEAL training and while on patrol. The habit works something like this:
- Find a comfortable spot to lay on the ground
- Elevate your feet above your heart, ideally with your feet resting on a chair
- Set your alarm for 6 to 8 minutes and nap
Not only does elevating your legs feel good, but it also alleviates swelling in your feet and ankles and nehnace your rest. At the end of your nap, you’ll feel more refreshed and energized.
How to Get Rid of Brain Mush Once and for All
If you struggle to think clearly, you’ll benefit from making the behavioral changes listed in this article. Chances are that you feel significantly better if you escape your current environment, take some non-prescription stimulants, listen to polyrhytmic music, elevate your heart rate, or take a power nap.
All of these strategies may not work for you so it’s important that you experiment. Only then will you know how to achieve good mental states on command.
Brain mush can be caused by many things, including poor nutrition, a sleep disroder, or alcohol abuse. If you believe that the underlying issue to your brain mush might be related to medical conditions (e.g., chronic brain disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, thiamine deficiency, korsakoff’s psychosis, alzheimer’s disease), please contact a medical expert. This article is not a substitute for professional health advice.
References
- Mehta, Ravi, et al. “Is Noise Always Bad? Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition.” Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 39, no. 4, Dec. 2012, pp. 784-99, doi:https://doi.org/10.1086/665048.
- Unnava, Vasu, et al. “Coffee with co-workers: role of caffeine on evaluations of the self and others in group settings.” Journal of Psychopharmacology, vol. 32, no. 8, 5 Apr. 2018, pp. 943-48, doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881118760665.
- Anderson, Elizabeth, and Geetha Shivakumar. “Effects of Exercise and Physical Activity on Anxiety.” Frontiers in Psychiatry, vol. 4, no. 27, Apr. 2013, https://doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2013.00027.
- da Silveira, Matheus P., and Kimberly K. da Silva Fagundes. “Physical exercise as a tool to help the immune system against COVID-19: an integrative review of the current literature.” International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, vol. 1, no. 14, July 2020, doi:https://10.1007/s10238-020-00650-3.
- Sarbadhikari, Suptendra N., and Asit K. Saha. “Moderate exercise and chronic stress produce counteractive effects on different areas of the brain by acting through various neurotransmitter receptor subtypes: A hypothesis.” Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, vol. 3, no. 33, Sept. 2006, doi:https://10.1186/1742-4682-3-33.