I sometimes draw.
No, that’s veering into exaggeration.
I often doodle and colour with my nearly-six-year-old daughter. But sitting down to do a project typically happens once a year, if I’m lucky (nothing in 2019). I drew this portrait of Frida Kahlo in 2018.
It took me somewhere between 17 and 20 hours – evenings mainly, over a fortnight. I drew it while on a month-long social media hiatus, essentially because I had all this spare time on my hands. The hiatus was planned. The drawing wasn’t. My concoction of obsessive concentration and a dearth of distraction turbo charged my ability to focus, in two definitions of the verb:
- Fine detail became so much clearer. Font on my phone and laptop took on a whole new pin-sharp life. It was though I’d gone from DVD to Blu-Ray. I don’t know if that’s a common side-effect, but I’d never experienced it before. Incidentally, my new-found superpower disappeared a day or two after I put down the pencil.
- My concentration skyrocketed as well – lessening a problem I’ve been plagued by for a number years:
Brain Fog
I think there are varying degrees of brain fog, from impaired cognition to a feeling of everyday detachment. Mine is the former, a diminishing of memory and focus that grew noticeable around spring 2016. At its worst, I could be mid-sentence and lose my train of thought completely. Short-term memory was merely an apparition. My writing speed slowed to a creep. The subscription to my pretty-good-for-a-copywriter vocabulary was downgraded from the Platinum package to Bronze. 5-star words were encrypted.
Thankfully, I’m paid to write and most people understand that writing copy takes time. However, my job does involve delivering the odd presentation or two. And when my words were verbal, it was often frustrating and embarrassing.
Repeat after me, “you’re not stupid, Sean.”
That’s not to say that I’m back to my normal self. I still lose words and am sometimes easily distracted. But I am much better. Maybe 85 to 90 percent on a good day.
What caused it?
I don’t really know. I’m a habitual night owl – a flaw I hope to fix this year (it’s now 00:43). I don’t drink enough water during the day; another one for the 2020 self-care list. And I need to reduce my screen time.
Sleep deprivation, dehydration and constant distraction are all said to negatively affect cognition. I also experienced short-term stress in 2016, which, some say, can trigger brain fog. Not bad enough to warrant sick leave, but I had some challenges to overcome nonetheless. Anyway, like I said, I can’t definitively call out the catalyst.
What am I doing to fix it?
I’m trying to address the above potential causes. I also exercise regularly. Mainly callisthenics, whose positive effects go way beyond clarity of mind. And I’ve started taking Lion’s Mane.
I first took this wonder mushroom in late 2018, after hearing Paul Stamets on the Joe Rogan Podcast championing the fungus’ effects on memory and the nervous system. Maybe it was placebo, but I began noticing improvements. However, I stopped two months in, due to a rash (apparently not too uncommon). This month, I’ve resumed Lion’s Mane but will only take the capsules endorsed by Stamets himself. If the rash fails to return, or at least abates under my dogged perseverance, then I plan to go the full year and record the effects.
Why am I sharing all this?
Well, I’d like to hear what other brain fogers have experienced. What do you think caused it? What worked for you and what didn’t? I’ll post an update of my Lion’s Mane experiment in a few months.
Image © Sean Rankine 2018.
Musings of a Serial Procrastinator 