You’ve got to admit it – as a major organ, your brain is kept pretty busy. Not just with making decisions about what you’ll have for lunch, but with orchestrating the co-ordination of your immunity, hormones, digestion, and all the involuntary muscle movements. Oh, and checking that your heart is still beating. Your brain is active 24 hours a day, and needs a steady supply of glucose to keep firing those neurotransmitters.
Alas, your brain isn’t good at storing glucose for lean periods, so it relies on your blood delivering fuel on demand. If supply falls too low, your brain will prompt you to eat.
Ever found yourself with a foggy brain mid-afternoon? Life seems to move into slow motion as you mentally struggle with normally simple tasks. At the same time, you might experience an intense craving for something sweet, or some coffee. This comes from your brain signalling that your blood sugar level is low, and it needs more glucose, fast, to keep working.
It’s tempting to reach for some cake and coffee, and that will certainly boost your blood sugar level . Your brain will be refuelled - but not for long. This kind of food isn’t sustaining, so you can expect your energy levels and thinking power to drop again within a couple of hours.
For students’ this kind of energy rollercoaster can have devastating effects on their success (who wants to have brain fog during an exam?). Other people can experience nasty mood swings as their blood glucose level goes up and down rapidly. But you can take three easy steps to keep your brain fed and happy, and if you follow them, you can expect to start losing the brain fog within a few days:
- Eat a protein-based breakfast. Odd, but what you eat for breakfast will influence how you feel mid afternoon. That old-fashioned practice of making breakfast the main meal of the day is going to give you sustained energy, because it takes longer to digest. Eggs are ideal. My favourite is a poached salmon fillet on home made baked beans (recipe for the baked beans here)
- Don’t give into the temptation to use a sugary snack or caffeine-laced drink to get you going again when your energy slump s. Choose something sustaining that has just a little sweetness in it – like nut butter spread on celery sticks, with a few sultanas. Or breakfast cereal, which makes a great afternoon snack. Or fresh fruit and a handful of nuts.
- Exercise. Every day! As soon as you start exercising your body becomes more sensitive to insulin, and more able to keep your blood glucose level within healthy limits.
If you enjoyed this blog post, you might also enjoy "Why you might be on the mood swing" or "The Trap of the Low Fat Diet"
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