What your brain is actually asking for?
Over the last two newsletters I've talked about what brain fog actually is and the web of causes behind it. Now for the part you've been waiting for: what can you actually do?
The good news is that the evidence is strong, the interventions are accessible, and most of them address multiple drivers at once. So here are seven, in no particular order. Except the first one, because if the research could talk, this is what it would say loudest.
1. Move your body: This one has the strongest evidence behind it. Aim for 150 minutes of aerobic exercise a week plus strength training twice. And here's something interesting: women appear to get greater cognitive benefits from exercise than men, particularly in executive function and memory. You don't need a gym membership or a 5am boot camp. You need consistency. Walk briskly, dance in your kitchen, find the thing you'll actually do regularly. That's the one that works.
2. Anchor your mornings:This is my favourite because it's one routine that addresses three brain fog drivers simultaneously. Fix your wake time. Get 10 minutes of natural morning light, which resets your circadian rhythm and supports melatonin production for that night's sleep. Then aim for 30g of protein at breakfast, which stabilises blood sugar and provides the building blocks for neurotransmitters. Sleep, blood sugar, and brain chemistry, all before you've left the house. (More on this one in a future post because it deserves its own spotlight.)
3. Eat to fuel your brain:Think Mediterranean or MIND diet pattern: colourful vegetables, oily fish, nuts, olive oil, berries. Fewer ultra-processed foods and less added sugar. Research shows that women who eat this way consistently have better cognitive resilience. This isn't about restriction or another set of food rules to feel guilty about. It's about giving your brain the raw materials it needs to repair and function well.
4. Protect your sleep: Aim for at least 7 hours, with stable patterns. Variable sleep schedules (the "I'll catch up at the weekend" approach) are directly associated with higher odds of cognitive impairment in women. And if night sweats are disrupting your sleep, treating them (whether through HRT or non-HRT options) often has the single biggest impact on fog, because it restores the deep sleep your brain desperately needs for memory consolidation and waste clearance.
5. Regulate your stress (and I don't mean "try to relax"): I mean specific, intentional practices: meditation, genuine rest that isn't scrolling through your phone at midnight, and real boundaries around the emotional labour you carry. Remember what we said last time about cortisol and the hippocampus? Reducing your cortisol is literally protecting your memory centre. For women in midlife, this is as essential as any supplement.
6. Test, don't guess: B12, vitamin D, magnesium, omega-3s, iron, thyroid function. Get them tested. I see too many women throwing supplements at the problem without knowing what they're actually deficient in. Your GP can run most of these tests. Find out what YOUR body needs, and address it specifically.
7. Look after your gut: Probiotics, prebiotics, diverse fibre intake. Remember, your microbiome metabolises your hormones and produces your neurotransmitters. If the factory floor is in disarray, the output will be too. (I'll definitely be coming back to gut health — there's a whole newsletter in this one alone.)
Here's what I want you to take from all of this: you are not less capable. You are under-resourced. And most of those resources are within your reach.
You don't have to do all seven at once. Please don't try! Pick the one that feels most doable this week and start there. If I had to choose one for you, it would be the morning anchor. It costs nothing, takes 30 minutes, and addresses three causes simultaneously.
I'll keep writing about this. There's so much more to say about each of these, and I will. But I didn't want you to wait another fortnight before you had something you could actually use. If there's one in particular you'd like me to go deeper on, drop me a line. I'd love to hear what's landing for you.
