5 Morning Habits That Cleared Away 4 Years of Brain Fog

For about 4 years, starting about a year before Covid, I woke up every single morning with a foggy brain. 

I mention the timeline because for many people their brain frog coincided with covid, but for me it was preceded by about 9 months.

It started as a small bit of fogginess, but as time went on I noticed it getting worse and worse. 

Eventually it reached the point where my wife noticed my personality and temperament were changing (and not in a positive direction).

I know everyone’s medical conditions are unique, especially the notoriously hard-to-define “brain fog”. 

But I’ve made immense progress in this area and I feel I owe it to others to share what’s worked for me.

Today, I have many brain fog free days, and when I do have “the fog” it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. 

It’s hard to say which of these 5 habits helped the most. At different times, I have felt that all of them (especially the first two) gave me a massive breakthrough that lasted for months.

 For reasons I don’t understand, the brain fog can begin to creep back after a while, and then I simply have to refocus on one or another of the habits that helps me, and typically it recedes again.

I wish I understood it all perfectly. But thankfully, these tools in my toolbelt have been enough to reduce my symptoms by 80%+ from their worst, and allow me to go on living my life without thinking about brain fog very often.

For those without persistent brain fog, I truly believe these steps would still help you.

 My guess is that you would feel sharper and more alert than usual. You have little to lose by trying.

Sleep each night with a nose strip or nasal dilator.

If I had to guess, this habit has helped more than anything else. 

I stumbled upon this cure one evening when I noticed my brain fog got worse when I was reading on the couch.

 I realized that I was in a position that wasn’t ideal for breathing, and then made the connection that I often breathe through my nose. 

After putting on a nose strip my brain fog lifted within 20 minutes and I felt a euphoria I hadn’t felt in years. I’m not exaggerating one bit. 

The euphoria went away, but to this day, nothing helps my brain fog more than sleeping with a nose strip. 

I’ve even taken to using a nasal dilator when I’m working from home at my desk.

Do the wim-hof breathing technique soon after waking.

Next on my list is the wim-hoff breathing technique which involves essentially hyperventilating and then holding your breath for as long as you can.

After 3 cycles of this, any brain fog I’m feeling is reduced by at least half and sometimes goes away completely. 

If you’ve ever done it, you know the practice is fairly intense. 

And so while I know it works, I tend to use it when I’m actually experiencing brain fog that’s bothering me, as opposed to a daily practice. 

Maybe someday I’ll try to step it up and see if it has preventative properties.

End your morning shower with 90 seconds cold water.

Cold plunges work even better, but I don’t yet own one and have only tried them at a friend’s house. 

But cold showers have a similar, though slightly less powerful impact. 

What I do is take a normal shower and then end it with 60-90 seconds of cold water— as cold as my tap water will let me get. 

For the first 10 seconds or so I’m gasping for air, and by the end I’m pretty much acclimated. 

I love the feeling of stepping out of the shower and the warmth your body feels when the cold water stops. Afterwards, my brain feels sharper and crisper.

Stop avoiding tasks that are making you chronically stressed.

I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that a good deal of my brain fog has been caused by self-imposed stress. 

When I’m avoiding a task for any reason (and boy, my brain comes up with plenty of reasons on its own), then I’ll carry that weight around with me all day. 

I have a hard time enjoying anything else without feeling guilty for not doing the thing I’m avoiding. 

This is, of course, entirely irrational and solvable if you learn how to manage your emotions well. 

I have made a good deal of progress in this area, and noticed that my baseline stress and therefore brain fog is lower when I’m not avoiding anything.

Strictly limit the time you scroll on your phone.

It’s hard for me to separate the impact of scrolling vs avoiding work, because they tend to go hand in hand. 

I think almost all of us can picture that sluggish, regretful feeling of spending way too long glued to your phone, scrolling through a social feed that was only mildly interesting, but somehow more soothing than doing actual work. 

I tried so many different techniques for defeating this habit, but found what worked best was filling my life with other habits that gave me a healthy good-feeling I could chase. 

Running, cold showers, saunas, and wimhof breathing seem to work well. 

But honestly, if I just pushed in the opposite direction and tackled one small task I was avoiding, that was often enough to break the seal and shake me out of my complacency.