If you really stop to think about it, your body is really just another kind of machine. Certainly, it’s an incredibly complex biochemical machine, driven by a biological supercomputer we don’t yet fully understand. But it’s still a machine – and it follows the same rules as one.
What we’re trying to say is that like any machine, if you aren’t taking proper care of your body, it’s not going to operate at peak efficiency. It is, perhaps, one of the greatest ironies of the modern workplace. We’re constantly working more, only to achieve less.
We work long, late hours, heedless of the fact that without rest, fatigue will overtake our faculties. We skip meals or shove terrible food into our mouths, ignoring the fact that nutrition and mental health are inextricably linked. We spend our days sitting at a desk or in front of a television, despite knowing human beings weren’t meant to be sedentary.
These unhealthy tendencies together contribute heavily to something known as brain fog. As noted by Healthline, it’s not a medical condition on its own, but rather a collection of cognitive problems. These include:
- Memory issues
- Inability to think clearly
- Inability to concentrate
- Lowered attention span
Basically, it’s what happens when your body becomes so fatigued it starts to have an adverse effect on your mind. The good news is that provided your brain fog is the result of a poor work-life balance, it’s actually fairly simple to address. You simply need to start taking better care of yourself.
First, figure out how many hours of sleep a night you need to feel well-rested. It varies by the person, but according to mental health & wellness site HealthGuide, it’s generally between seven and nine hours. Start going to bed at a reasonable hour – set a hard limit, and consider taking melatonin or similar supplements for the first week or so to help yourself adjust to your new sleep cycle.
Once you’ve got your sleep under control, you can start working on your diet. Start setting aside one day a week for meal prep, and work on bringing healthy lunches with you to the workplace. Keep healthy snacks at your desk for when you start to get hungry and use a tool like MyFitnessPal to track your nutrition.
Finally, there’s the matter of exercise. You can start small. Get in a light workout of about ten to twenty minutes each day. You might consider investing in a standing desk as well, but that’s more of an optional thing.
From there, start looking for physical activity or two you actually enjoy and pick it up as a hobby. Not only will you make new friends, but you’ll also have a motivation to get out and exercise beyond simply knowing you should. It helps – a lot.
Just as you wouldn’t expect a car to run without proper maintenance, you shouldn’t expect to be productive if you aren’t taking care of your body. Your physical well-being and mental state are two sides of the same coin. If you neglect one, the other suffers.