Beating Brain Fog in People with Autoimmune Disease
We recently came across a study about Alzheimer’s being an autoimmune disease, which got us thinking about the connection between autoimmune disease and memory problems. In most cases, the memory problems that happen in people with autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis aren’t outright Alzheimer’s disease, but rather brain fog and the inability to concentrate.
In a past article, we talked about my personal challenges with brain fog and how I got rid of it. This current blog post is going to be a quick snapshot of seven really effective strategies to sharpen your memory and to think clearer if you’re suffering from autoimmune disease. First, though, let’s dive into why autoimmunity is linked to brain fog.
What Causes Brain Fog in Autoimmune Disease?
If you’re wondering what autoimmune diseases affect the brain, the answer is most of them. Memory problems can happen in every person with autoimmune issues. The overactive inflammation that occurs in autoimmune disease can wreak havoc on brain function. Some factors can make inflammation worse like eating the wrong types of foods that cause the gut microbiota to become imbalanced. This causes the bad bacteria to outnumber the good. Scientists call the connection between the gut and the brain, the “gut-brain axis.”
Being under stress, not getting enough sleep, or having imbalanced hormones or brain chemicals can also worsen inflammation, brain function, and your autoimmune disease as a whole.
Here are seven ways to improve brain fog and keep your mind clear and focused, whether you have brain fog and lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and brain fog, or other autoimmune diseases.
Clean Up Your Diet
One of the most important ways to support brain health is making sure you’re getting enough nutrients. The brain is a highly metabolic organ. In other words, it burns a lot of energy and needs a lot of nutrients. When we’re depleted of certain nutrients it will affect how well the brain functions.
The best diet for brain fog is an anti-inflammatory diet. We need to be mindful of things in the diet that can create inflammation, such as sugar and highly processed foods. Foods that are not real foods contain preservatives and dyes and chemicals that will create inflammation in the body.
Foods like sugars and processed food disrupt the gut microbiota and create inflammation, which impacts the gut-brain connection. In addition to cleaning up your diet, a probiotic supplement might be helpful. But if eating pre- and probiotic foods, like fermented foods and fermented vegetables, doesn’t give you any problems, eating these types of foods may be even better than taking a probiotic supplement by itself.
In addition to keeping out the bad stuff, we need to look at putting in the right types of foods. Having the right foods in the diet is just as important as avoiding the foods that are unhealthy. For everybody that approach is going to be a little bit different based upon food sensitivities, but in general it involves:
• Whole foods that are not processed.
• Make sure your diet is very diverse and has a lot of variety.
• You should also get a lot of what are called phytonutrients, beneficial substances found in plant foods that are rich in antioxidants and help support the basic functions in our bodies.
Get Moving
Exercise is super important for the brain. The saying “use it or lose it” fits here because the more that you move your body, the more you stimulate your brain and create stronger, healthier, more vibrant neurological pathways. We know that our brains are malleable and able to be changed even in older age. Scientists refer to this as brain plasticity.
One of the best ways we can change the brain and build better, stronger, healthier connections and pathways is through movement. Physical activity also helps reduce inflammation. It creates better circulation and blood flow to the brain so the brain gets more of those good nutrients it needs to function. Exercise also helps the body detox and get rid of old damaged tissue and things it doesn’t need, which in turn benefits the brain.
Get Your Shuteye
Getting adequate amounts of sleep is super important to brain health and memory, including storing memories over the long term. While you’re sleeping, your body is healing, repairing, and reducing inflammation. Getting enough shuteye also calms cortisol levels, leading to reduced stress. Stress can be a major underlying cause of autoimmune diseases. It’s not just about the number of hours you get though. If you are getting deep restorative sleep, you should feel rested and energized the next day. If you are struggling to get up in the morning or feel sore, tired or inflamed waking up, that could be a sign of adrenal issues and poor quality sleep even if you are getting enough hours in bed.
Soothe Away Stress
Stress management is another lifestyle measure that’s good for your brain. Chronic stress can alter brain structures involved in cognition and mental health. You want to give your body the resilience it needs to be able to get out of that flight-or-fight stress response and into that parasympathetic mode. The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for resting, digesting, and healing. It puts the body into a calm state.
Stress management can mean having a physical outlet for your stress, having a source of mental emotional support like meditation and gratitude, or visiting a therapist. Doing self-care, for example, participating in activities that bring you joy and help you feel relaxed and resilient, can help you reduce stress.
Choose the Right Brain Support Supplements
Although you need to get lots of nutrients from food, sometimes it’s also very helpful to supplement with extra nutrients. Multivitamins have lots of basic nutrients that our brain needs. Research shows that multivitamins can improve memory recall and support memory in older adults. Most people also benefit from additional vitamin D supplementation on top of a multivitamin.
Omega-3 fatty acids can be really helpful, too, due to their anti-inflammatory effects. The brain is mostly fat and cholesterol, and the brain needs good healthy fats like omega-3s. Fat is actually the preferred fuel for our brain. Omega-3s can slow brain aging and improve mild cognitive impairment. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is a type of omega-3 known for its brain-boosting abilities. DHA is important for the developing brain in infants, but it also keeps the brain healthy in adults and improves learning ability.
Balance Your Hormones
Working with a functional medicine doctor to balance your hormones is another good way to banish brain fog. Hormones are chemical messengers in the body telling the brain and body what to do. For example, every cell in the body needs thyroid hormones and the brain is no exception. If thyroid hormones are off—as is the case in the autoimmune condition Hashimoto’s—it can cause brain fog.
Insulin is another hormone we look at when treating brain fog in autoimmunity. We know that having insulin resistance directly affects the brain. Insulin resistance happens when your body stops paying attention to the messages insulin is sending. Insulin is the hormone responsible for lowering blood sugar, so during insulin resistance, blood sugar can rise too high. Insulin resistance is an inflammatory force that can harm the brain. Having early cognitive decline is associated with insulin resistance. In fact, they’re calling Alzheimer’s disease “type 3 diabetes,” in other words, insulin resistance of the brain.
Another hormone important in brain health is estrogen. Women who are going through menopause often have memory problems. If you’re going through menopause, or are postmenopausal and have an autoimmune disease, it can be a double whammy. Balancing hormones with a functional medicine doctor can get you thinking much more clearly.
Nourish Your Neurotransmitters
Brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters are kind of like the hormones of the brain. They help give signals to brain cells to tell them what to do. If your neurotransmitters are off that can lead to brain fog. For example, if someone isn’t making enough of the calming neurotransmitter GABA, they’re going to have a harder time handling stress. That snowballs into other problems that lead to memory problems. High stress creates inflammation, which causes more brain fog and memory issues.
Having balanced brain chemicals ties back to gut health and the gut-brain axis I mentioned earlier. The gut makes 90% of the body’s serotonin, a neurotransmitter linked to memory and well-being. The gut also makes 50% of the body’s dopamine, a brain chemical responsible for learning and memory. If your gut isn’t making enough of these neurotransmitters, you might not only have brain fog, but also some depression and anxiety.
Let Us Get At the Root Cause of Your Autoimmune Issues
In people with autoimmune disease, the best way to sharpen your memory and get rid of brain fog is to address your autoimmunity by digging down to the root causes. At the Caplan Health Institute, we can help you individualize an approach that will not only improve your memory, but also conquer other troubling symptoms.
The first step? Schedule a free 15-minute discovery consultation, by phone or video. If you decide to come on board as a practice member, I’ll order the right tests to pinpoint the underlying causes of your unique autoimmune disease and turn them around. We can help you think more clearly, stay more focused, and feel the best you’ve felt in a long time.
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