Brain Fog? There's an App for That (Just Kidding, Delete It)

Perimenopausal patients often complain of brain fog. With hormone replacement therapy booming, it’s easy to blame hormonal changes and throw a prescription at the problem. While cognitive change can be a component of aging, the midwife in me can’t help but question this. How much of brain fog is truly physiologic, and how much of it is due to the impact of the digital age on our attention spans?

As a midwife, I know how often the body is blamed for a problem that our culture created. I know about the preventable vaginal tears that happened because male doctors wanted to be able to sit down when they delivered babies. This forced women to give birth on their back, which is usually the last place the body wants to be when pushing out a baby. And that led to more injuries, more stalled labors and cesareans, and more “evidence” that we need medical interventions to safely have a baby.

I’m wary of just chalking brain fog up to aging when we’re in the midst of an unprecedented ambush on our attention spans. Maybe we should look at how our environment is affecting cognitive function before we throw hormones at the problem.

Let’s face it: most of us are addicted to our phones. Discomfort is part of the human experience (see the First Noble Truth in Buddhism). Smartphones act as a numbing tool for this discomfort. Whether it’s via scrolling, answering texts, or taking in too much news, in the digital age we have constant access to distraction.

And that’s just in our free time. Many jobs these days require you to be checking Slack or email throughout the day. The appearance of working—by being in touch with colleagues—takes precedence over doing actual work. AI is compounding the issue by making everything go faster and faster. All of this is bad for our quality of life and bad for our attention spans. Brain fog anyone?

There’s a better way. In the same way you can cut out junk food from your diet you can cut out junk internet from your day. The book Deep Work, by Cal Newport, is a classic on this topic and has lots of great suggestions. The one that stuck with me the most is to literally exercise your attention span.

To do it you designate a couple of hours as screen-free time. For example, you decide that for the next two hours you won’t look at any screens. The most important part of this is the moment that you want to look at your phone. That is the moment in which you can strengthen your attention span. Biceps get stronger when you lift heavier and heavier weights. It’s the same with attention. Each time you want to abort ship and check your texts—and don’t—you strengthen your ability to focus.

I’ve been incorporating as much phone-free time into my day as I can manage, and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s a vital way to reclaim our lives from the hungry ghosts of the digital age, brain fog or not. But especially if you are experiencing brain fog, it’s something to look at.

Hormones are one possible cause of brain fog in perimenopause. Stress, lack of sleep, and nutrient deficiencies are also possibilities, among many others. Beyond the physiologic reasons, we need to look at what role phone and internet use is playing. It’s so entwined with how we live that it might be hard to see and almost scary to contemplate. But we owe it to ourselves, and our bodies, to do so.

Here I am enjoying a phone break in India this past January.

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If you’re exhausted by a medical system that treats your body as machine and your symptoms as noise, reach out. My practice, Wise Body, is healthcare for women who know we deserve better. Who are ready to trust our bodies again while having the medical support we need. Who refuse to sacrifice our wholeness on the altar of efficiency. The witches are returning. And we’re bringing both the ancient wisdom and the modern science.

Photo: Carly Seller