Winning the Battle of Afternoon Brain Fog

By: Paula Franetti

It’s 1:30pm. You have a two-hour meeting at three and mid-afternoon brain fog is now rolling in. The meeting promises to be long and painful, filled with details from various committee members on a two-month joint project well on its way. Your role is minor; however, the team expects your summarizing input at the end. You’ll need to be sharp!
The Challenge: Keeping your body attentive in an energy-zapping environment.

Good Beginnings
When was the last time you ate? We all know food is fuel for keeping us going but did you realize how strategic the timing of your refueling is for thwarting mid-afternoon energy lulls? It all starts with understanding the metabolic rhythm of your body and attending to four key areas:

• When to eat
• What to eat
• How much to drink
• Stimulating the body with action

Each of our bodies uses varying amounts of energy (calories) to stay healthy, function at work, exercise, eat and sleep. Intuitively your body learns to ration the energy coming in (daily diet) to the pattern of events you do on a regular basis. It knows to keep an emergency stash on hand for unforeseen changes in the schedule and relies on the signals you send through eating and activity for its energy distribution.

Timing is Everything
Timing of eating is like stopping at the gas pump for a fill up. To keep going we need to have fuel on board. Unfortunately, we all have experienced the fuel gauge running on empty, which invariably seems to happen when we’re running late with little time to spare. Experience teaches us that not heeding the yellow light on the dash could mean never making it to our destination. So, we stop and refuel.
Giant Eagle’s brilliant marketing of the “Get-Go” concept is the process to remember. “Get In” the right mix of fuel, let it “Get Out” into your blood stream at the time when you need it, and you’ll be able to “Get Going” without missing a beat.

Mixing It Up
The mix of carbohydrates, fats and proteins you choose to eat before that meeting will greatly impact the speed at which energy can be utilized. Carbohydrates are the easiest of the three to digest and become readily available as fuel.

Simple carbohydrates like candy bars and drinks high in sugar take about 15-20 minutes to get into the blood stream and are quickly used up. Not the best solution since high simple carbohydrate metabolism creates a dramatic peak and drop in blood sugar levels, leaving you with zero-visibility brain fog. More complex carbohydrates like whole wheat grains and certain high-fiber fruits or vegetables can take up to two hours to be digested and used. By itself a complex carbohydrate may squeak you by but only if the meeting ends in exactly two hours.

Proteins and fats on the other hand, take anywhere from three-to-four hours to be digested and burned as fuel. Fats take the longest to break down and can slow down the absorption rate to about five hours depending on the amount of fat in the meal. But, too much fat in a meal leaves you feeling sluggish. Proteins are known for medium-slow digestion and less drowsiness once consumed.
Your most strategic move is to eat a light meal or snack around 2:00 pm that is roughly 250-350 calories, is a healthy mix of mostly carbohydrates (quick entry into the blood), protein (mid-entry) and lower levels of fat (slowest entry) giving you wholesome nutrient energy for about four hours of energy. A heaping tablespoon of peanut butter on an apple or whole wheat bread would do the trick.
What to Drink

Caffeine is the go-to drink when brain fog starts appearing on the horizon. This can get you by because of the quick-acting stimulation of the drug. However, if your body’s real signal is for nutrients, then coffee, Coke, or Red Bull will not provide the needed energy the body wants. Instead, it gets a drug induced jolt that wears off and leaves the body even emptier.

Water is considered an essential nutrient because of its all encompassing usage in the body. 70% of the brain is water. When water levels in the brain and other organs drop, alarms go off and the body seeks to immediately remedy the situation. If ample back-up is not available, reservoirs are tapped causing a noticeable shift and slow down in performance.

Drinking water before, during and after a meeting not only keeps your brain hydrated and humming, but it also keeps the blood circulating, distributing digested nutrients to hungry energy depots.
NEAT Energy Bursts

So now you’re in the meeting. Sitting! As you sit still your body quickly begins acclimating to the low intensity activity and sl-o-o-o-ws down its energy output very similar to how it prepares for sleep. Not exactly what you were hoping for at the moment right?

One way to keep attentive and energy levels high is to create “NEAT” bursts of energy. Non-Exercise Activities of Thermo genesis are body movements that range below the level of exercise intensity and above the level of inactive sleep. Some examples are leg bouncing, mini-toe raises under the table, hearty laughing, standing, stretching, pacing when talking, using hand gestures or just fidgeting. Anything you can do in a meeting to keep your body moving sends the message that energy is needed and keeps your brain from going into hibernation mode.

So there you have it. A few metabolic tips providing a strategic mix of foods in a timely fashion, using a hydrating nutrient and NEAT movements to keep the fire burning and to keep brain fog at bay. Practice this a few times and you’ll find yourself able to be more confident as you deliver a concise, snappy summary. Then jump up, grab your gym bag and you’re on your merry way!

Paula Franetti is vice-president and co-founder of Parallax Health LLC a personalized lifestyle change process used in gyms, corporate and medical wellness programs that combine a client’s wellness knowledge and literacy with activity, and metabolic measurements to create and implement integrated reality-based healthy behavioral change. Paula is an exercise physiologist, personal trainer and lifestyle and weight management consultant with over 25 years experience in teaching healthy living. Call for more information: 412-812-3745