Brain Fog and fatigue are common symptoms associated with a chronic condition such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome. These are symptoms that result from chronic stress.
When you are under constant stress from whatever source, your body reacts by sending hormones and neurotransmitters into your blood stream. These chemical signals are picked up by your heart and result in a in change in heart rate variability.
Heart Rate Variability and Brain Fog
Heart rate variability is the way your heart speeds up and slows down moment to moment. It is not the same thing as heart rate.
To explain heart rate variability I like to use the analogy of passing a car on the highway. You’re driving your car and in the lane ahead of you is a slower car. You signal, move gradually into the left lane, accelerate, pass the slower car, gradually move back into the right lane, then deaccelerate to your cruising speed. Nice and smooth, Right? Suppose in a different way, you drive within a few feet of the slower car, slam on your brakes, jerk the car into the left lane, smash the accelerator to the floor and pass the car, again you abruptly jerk the car back to the right lane, and finally slam on the brakes to bring the car to its cruising speed.
So in the first scenario we call it variability smooth or coherent, with the second scenario it is choppy or an incoherent variability.
It turns out that the variability in the heart’s moment to moment rate can also be incoherent or coherent and this heart rate variability is transmitted by nerve impulses to your brain. An incoherent heart rate variability causes your brain to shunt or detour impulses away from your brain’s frontal cortex, the thinking area, into the emotional areas of the brain. As a result, it is harder to process thoughts while you become more engaged with your emotions.
This phenomena is experienced as brain fog and fatigue.
In complementary and alternative medicine we help our patients eliminate brain fog by breaking the cycle of incoherent heart rate variability with holistic treatments such as HeartMath, Mindfulness meditation, Hypnosis, and Yoga.
CAM Wellness Institute – Irritable Bowel Solutions
CAM Wellness Institute is located in the heart of Fairfield County in New Canaan Connecticut 50 minutes from New York City. Our goal is to empower people with the knowledge and natural solutions to better health.
