Brain fog | And how to beat it

Concentration becoming clouded and a mind fug descending? Try some of these ways to a clearer head

• Eat a healthy diet – what you eat directly effects your brain and how it functions. The best diet to follow to keep your brain and body in good shape is a Mediterraneanstyle diet. Eat plenty of daily veg, wholegrains, nuts, seeds, fruit and olive oil as well as fish, eggs, beans, poultry and limited red meat. And don’t forget to keep hydrated – your brain is a thirsty organ.

• Prioritise sleep – sleep deprivation can make you forgetful, clumsy, irritable, moody, depressed, demotivated – and hungry! Aim for seven to nine hours and no less than six or more than ten. This can be broken up into a night-time sleep and a daytime nap if that suits you better.

• Go with your natural rhythms – your circadian rhythm works best with regular sleep habits so try to go to bed and get up at roughly the same time every day, even at weekends.

• Get organised – make life easier for yourself by setting some systems in place. If you keep forgetting to make payments, set up some direct debits, book in a regular weekly shop, add reminders on your phone, and stick to a bedtime routine. And make lists of everything!

• Avoid multi-tasking – focus on one thing at a time and you’re less likely to make mistakes, and feel stressed or overwhelmed.

• Try mindfulness instead of autopilot – consciously give things more of your attention rather than doing things without thinking.

• Slow down – relaxation techniques such as yoga, deep breathing, self-massage and meditation can all help you to put the brakes on a bit.

• Know your limits – taking on more than you can handle is a recipe for stress. This might seem impossible when you’re overloaded with work and responsibilities, but you have the power to make different choices when it comes to your responses and thoughts.

• Do activities that challenge the brain – learning a language, a new skill or an instrument is linked with changes in the brain. Increased cognitive activity helps preserve the volume of your whole brain and the size of the hippocampus, the part of your brain involved in memory and learning.

  Adapted from Beating Brain Fog: Your 30-day Plan to Think Faster, Sharper, Better by Dr Sabina Brennan (Orion Spring). Read more about beating brain fog in our February issue, which is in shops now. Buy this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe

More from our February issue…

More ways to look after your wellbeing…

Think: Love mindfully

Valentine’s Day might feel a bit yucky and commercial but showing someone you care doesn’t have to involve candlelit twosomes or cheesy cards. Say it with actions instead.

Appreciate – what most people want is to be understood and valued. Making people feel good about themselves is a key element in mindful loving.

Accept – you need to let go of your opinions sometimes. Remember agreeing to disagree is an option!

Listen – put your phone down, stop rummaging through your bag and really give somebody your undivided attention. Everybody deserves to be listened to. Empathise – remember that other people are just as complicated as you are.

Laugh – you can’t be angry, sad or anxious when you’re laughing and it’s the quickest defuser of rows.

Respect – each other’s need for independence as well as togetherness. Try to be perceptive.

Passion – love shouldn’t just be directed at one person. It can be a passion and energy for friends, family, humanity – any of life’s pleasures. Practise it whenever you can. 

Read More Time to Think by Nancy Kline (Cassell, £11.99) and The Little Book of Love by Tiddy Rowan (Quadrille, £5.99) 

This post was first published on Valentines Day 2015.

More from our February issue…

Reader offer | Baking for sharing

Come new year, it can be therapeutic to spend some relaxed time in the kitchen. Perhaps using leftovers to create something simple and hearty like a fruit loaf or bread and butter pudding to share. The word ‘company’ derives from the Latin cum panis, literally ‘with bread’. When we bake, and share the results, we deepen our connection with our companions or ‘with bread ones’. Sharing happens on many levels: at home and in the community. In these days of cake sales and pot-luck dinners, the chance to give and share baking may bring new connections.

It’s a creative process, too, allowing you to identify yourself – you put a bit of yourself into your baking, nurturing friendships from the warm heart of your home.

READER OFFER

Read more in The Art of Mindful Baking: Returning the Heart to the Hearth by Julia Ponsonby (Leaping Hare Press). The Simple Things readers can save 50% on all titles in this series. Use the code SIMPLETHINGS when ordering at leapingharepress.co.uk.

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More from the January issue…

More on mindfulness…

How to be mindful

Mindfulness - learn the basics of this super-useful sanity saver

“In bringing your attention to the breath, you’re necessarily bringing your attention to the present moment,” says Zen master Julian Daizan Skinner, author of Practical Zen (Singing Dragon). He suggests you aim for 25 minutes, starting with less and building up to that if you need to.

1 Find a comfortable sitting position and create a firm triangular base for your body. You can sit cross-legged on the floor, with your bottom on a cushion so your hips tilt forward, keeping your spine straight, or sit upright on a chair with feet firmly planted on the floor.
2 Make it your intention to sit still, but if you need to move occasionally, that’s fine. Don’t force anything.
3 You can either shut your eyes or keep your eyes gently focused on the ground in front of you.
4 Slowly bring your awareness to your breathing. Don’t try to change it, just watch it. Notice where it is in your body and bring your attention there.
5 Mentally count your breaths. In-breath: one. Out-breath: two. And so on, up to ten. Then start again at one.
6 Thoughts, worries and memories are bound to arise and that’s fine. Just notice them. Allow every moment to be exactly as it is.

Turn to page 85 of February's The Simple Things for more on our Mindfulness special. 

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View the sampler here

More food for your brain:

More from the February issue:

Mindfulness | Colour therapy

There could be thousands more colours than your standard rainbow seven, if you take a moment to consider how you might name them.

Anyone who’s ever had to choose a paint for a wall or a piece of furniture will have found themselves immersed in colour charts and sampler pots where there’s more to colour than their product codes or Pantone reference. Every shade, tone, and hue comes with its own name– chocolate comtesse, mineral grey, crushed oregano, millennial pink. In a description of just two or three words, a whole world can be conjured up or reimagined.

But what about all those colours yet to be given names? What would you call the blue the sky turns 20 minutes after a summer sunset, for example? Or the particular grey the clouds look when half the sky’s about to storm and the rest is brilliant sunshine? How should you describe the colour of your mother’s eyes, or define the shade you like your tea? Don’t let the paint companies have all the fun. It’s a mindful practice to look carefully at the colours around you and really see them.

ART PROJECT

Start a colour experiment to recreate colours you love in paint in a journal, logging what you mixed and in what proportions, and then name your colours however you like – striplight yellow, garden shed brick, bank holiday traffic. Baby’s comfort blanket, granny’s dining table, mum’s golden flecks. Colour can capture moments, memories and places as well as words or pictures.

Get hold of your copy of this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe

View the sampler here

More from the August issue:

More mindfulness:

Mindful moments | Download a chatterbox to colour in

Pretty much any activity can be a mindful activity, it’s fair to say, but colouring in, carefully and attentively, is particularly suitable. These beautiful illustrations by Emma Farrarons combine a colouring exercise with simple, fun and imaginative activities to help make any day a little more mindful. Download Emma’s chatterbox now or turn to page 52 of June’s The Simple Things for more mindful activities and colouring doodles.

Remember how much fun you had making chatterboxes as a child? Create a mindfulness chatterbox filled with eight different activities to help remind you to break your day and make time for mindfulness. Fold a square piece of paper as shown here. Come up with your own ideas or you can use the template as a guide.

More from the June issue:

More mindfulness:

Get hold of your copy of this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe

View the sampler here.

Think: Two mindful exercises to remind yourself what's truly important

Why is it that we are so hard on ourselves - and other women? In their new book – WE: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere (Thorsons) – Gillian Anderson and Jennifer Nadel explore how we can transform criticism into compassion. Turn to page 38 of May's The Simple Things for more from Gillian and Jennifer, or try these two mindful exercises:

BEING IMPERFECTLY PERFECT
If we don’t embrace our so-called imperfections then how can we expect anyone else to?

• If you feel yourself becoming afraid that you’re not measuring up to contemporary notions of what women are expected to be, remind yourself that they are unrealistic so instead of trying harder, do the opposite.
• If you’re ashamed of your singing voice, sing out loud. If you worry about your weight, wear something tight. If you wear foundation because you fear your skin tone is too uneven, try not wearing it at all.
• Do whatever it takes to remind yourself and those around you that you are real. You’re not a cut-out from a magazine, so don’t erase those parts of yourself that don’t fit the image. Show the world that you are perfect just the way you are.

GAINING PERSPECTIVE
This exercise will connect you to that which really gives your life meaning.

1 Have your journal ready and then centre yourself by taking five deep breaths in and five slightly longer breaths out. Close your eyes and imagine you are a much older version of yourself, coming to the end of your life. Look back at your time and ask this older you what has really mattered. What are you glad to have experienced, and what do you care about most?

2 Open your eyes and write down what the older you has to say. Stay in this future state with your wiser self until you feel she has given you all you need to know.

3 Now close your eyes again and allow yourself to time travel back to today. Centre yourself in the present. Take a look at what you wrote down and think about how you spend your time now.

How much of your energy is focused on the things on your list? How many of the items on your list have to do with looks, achievements and material possessions? How many are about relationships and love? If you keep this list in mind you’ll find that the awareness it gives you will gently result in your priorities starting to shift.

More from the May issue:

More Mindfulness:

Get hold of your copy of this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe

View the sampler here

Think: How to look at art slowly

When you’re visiting the latest exhibition, don’t get swept along with the crowds. A slow, mindful visit inspires the imagination and piques cultural curiosity.

We’re now more open to arts and culture than ever. Last year, visitor numbers to museums and galleries increased by six per cent compared to 2013, yet we only spend a measly 15–30
seconds looking at a painting. It’s easy to see why. Visit a major arts institution for a mega exhibition and you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a rock concert. The surge of the crowd towards the ‘hit’ paintings, the determined ‘me with Matisse’ selfies, the pressure to see the star turn – the whole experience can be exhausting. But we can choose to slow down. A gallery or museum isn’t somewhere to do battle before collapsing in the cafe, but an opportunity to calm the mind.
 

How to look at art slowly

1 Try to visit a gallery or museum in quieter times, such as early morning, late afternoon or evening.
2 Treat gallery walls like a postcard rack – we pick a postcard we like without hesitation, so have the confidence to do the same with great works of art.
3 Don’t spend ages reading the labels or listening to the audio guide.
4 Take time noticing and recognising your reactions. The piece might be showing what you need more of.
5 Don’t worry if you’re scratching your head at the meaning.
6 Remember, unless you have to write an essay, you’re there to feel, not learn.

Turn to page 80 of October’s The Simple Things for more of Loma-Ann Marks’ Arts in Mind feature.

Five must-see exhibitions for winter 2015/16

Ai Weiwei
Royal Academy of Arts
19 September — 13 December 2015

Ai became widely known in Britain after his sunflower seeds installation in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2010 but this is the first major institutional survey of his work ever held in the UK and it bridges over two decades of his extraordinary career. Curated in collaboration with Ai Weiwei from his studio in Beijing, the Royal Academy presentx some of his most important works from the time he returned to China from the US in 1993 right up to present day. Among new works created specifically for the RA’s galleries and courtyard are a number of large-scale installations, as well as works showcasing everything from marble and steel to tea and glass. 

Works to Know by Heart: Matisse in Focus
Tate Liverpool
20 November 2015 – 2 May 2016

At almost three metres square, The Snail is one of Matisse’s largest and most significant paper cut-out works. Made by cutting and tearing shapes from paper hand painted by his assistants in a range of bright colours, Matisse began experimenting with this cut-out method in the late 1930s, adopting it wholeheartedly by the late 1940s when ill health prevented him from painting.
Shown alongside The Snail will be additional Matisse works from the Tate collection that span the genres of portraiture, landscape and still life, encompassing sculpture, painting and works on paper. Displaying works from 1899 onwards, Matisse in Focus will represent over 50 years of this giant of modern art’s fascinating and impressive career. 


The World of Charles and Ray Eames
Barbican
21 October 2015 - 14 February 2016

Charles and Ray Eames are among the most influential designers of the 20th century. Enthusiastic and tireless experimenters, this husband and wife duo moved fluidly between the fields of photography, film, architecture, exhibition-making, and furniture and product design.
From personal letters, photographs, drawings and artwork, to their products, models, multi-media installations and furniture, The World of Charles and Ray Eames includes not only the designs for which they are best known, but provides an insight into the lives of the Eameses, the Eames Office and the breadth of their pioneering work, bringing their ideas and playful spirit to life.
 

Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture
Tate Modern
11 November 2015 – 3 April 2016

American sculptor Alexander Calder was a radical figure who pioneered kinetic sculpture, bringing movement to static objects. Calder travelled to Paris in the 1920s, having originally trained as an engineer, and by 1931 he had invented the mobile, a term coined by Duchamp to describe Calder’s sculptures which moved of their own accord. His dynamic works brought to life the avant-garde’s fascination with movement, and brought sculpture into the fourth dimension. Continuing Tate Modern’s acclaimed reassessments of key figures in modernism, Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture will reveal how motion, performance and theatricality underpinned his practice. It will bring together major works from museums around the world, as well as showcasing his collaborative projects in the fields of film, theatre, music and dance.
 

Evelyn Dunbar: The Lost Works
Pallant House Gallery
3 October 2016 - 14 February 2016

A remarkable collection of lost works by WW2 Official War Artist Evelyn Dunbar (1906–1960) goes on show for the first time, including highlights from an extraordinary hoard of previously unrecorded work discovered in the attic of a Kent Coast house. Included in the exhibition are other important rediscovered, unseen or rarely seen works by Dunbar from public and private collections.
 

Read more:

From the October issue

More mindfulness

Unusual words to describe emotions

October's The Simple Things is on sale - buy, download or subscribe now.

Life in colour: FREE colouring card download

Grown-up colouring is having something of a moment; colouring books for adults are currently rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mary Berry in the bestseller charts and this month, The School of Life and the Tate launch a range of eight grown-up colouring posters. Colouring is an absorbing activity that forces you to focus – an alternative to mind-numbing flicking from electronic screen to screen.

Download our free design now, and ready those pencils, felt-tips and crayons. And – you know what? – we really don’t mind if you go over the lines.

Share your coloured-in design with us via Twitter or Instagram – use the hashtag #simplecolouring and we’ll show-and-tell our favourites. And in the next issue you can see how some talented designer-maker types did it, as we feature their designs.

Want more colouring cards?

Buy June's issue of The Simple Things and get a set of colouring cards free.

 

READER OFFER

Mindful colouring needs mindful pencils. Those nice people at The School of Life are offering readers 20% off their ‘The Psychology of Colour’ pencil set (usually £18). Along with musical notes and the letters of the alphabet, colours provide the building blocks of our emotions. An accompanying booklet reveals your inner qualities through colour preference (red: adventurous, witty, a little heartless?) and each pencil is stamped with a defining characteristic (Violet: ambiguity; Light blue: clarity). You get the gist. Use the code ‘SIMPLE’ at www.theschooloflife.com/shop 

Offer closes 24 June.

If you get the colouring-in bug you can buy The Mindfulness Colouring Book (pictured left, Boxtree, £7.99). 

June's The Simple Things is available from all good newsagents, supermarkets and our official online store. Sold out? Download it from Apple Newsstand or subscribe now.

Seasonal mindfulness tips

Cabin fever? A walk isn’t the only way to keep your feet on the ground this season

Pause every now and then and notice the sounds and smells of the season. If you’re cooking, note the flavours and smells of the food. If you're lighting a fire, listen to the crackle of the logs. The essential jobs will feel less like chores if you’re engaged with what you’re doing.

Breathe before you speak. If you feel an argument brewing, inhale to the count of seven and exhale to the count of 11. This powerful pause gives you chance to realise that you have more than one choice or reaction and enough time to think, ‘I’d better not say that.’ 

Remember there’s not much you can do to change how others act or react but you can change your own responses. Pay attention to your triggers. The more conscious you are of these and of your feelings, the more emotionally intelligent you are and the better you’ll behave.

Take five minutes to express gratitude. It’s a way of reminding yourself that every day you experience little blessings and it often helps you find solutions and perspective if you’re feeling overwhelmed. Writing it down can help. 

If you didn't have time for presents for everyone, or to see all the people you’d like to, a heartfelt handwritten card will strike a meaningful chord and stop you feeling guilty.

Taken from December's issue of The Simple Things - still available to buy and download. Or subscribe now, and start with the January issue. 

How to be a mindful eater PLUS three simple tea infusion recipes

Yes, we love food, but it doesn't always get our full attention. Time to reconnect your mind with your mouth and become a mindful eater.

Many of us fall easily into patterns of mindless eating. We pick at food while working at our computers. We reach for the quickest - and usually the unhealthiest - snacks for a quick energy boost. We don't take proper lunch breaks. We are constantly distracted while we eat, by television, by work by our phones and computers. We have lost a lot of the enjoyment of eating and as a result we are guilty of just shovelling food into our bodies.

Turn to page 100 of July's The Simple Things to read Rebecca Frank's rediscovery of the joys and pleasure of conscious eating. And sit down with a cuppa, taking time to enjoy the fragrant flavours of one of these mindful infusions. Glass tumblers work really well, as you can fully appreciate not only the refreshing taste and aroma, but also the visual delights. You can sweeten any of the teas with a dash of honey.

Simple Mint Tea

2-3 sprigs of fresh mint Freshly boiled water

Place the mint sprigs into your favourite tea tumbler.

Pour over hot water.

Leave to steep for a few minutes and you will notice the water start to turn slightly green. Savour and enjoy.

Mindful tea notes: This simple, refreshing mint tea has long been used as a natural digestive aid. It works well if sipped slowly after a meal.

Rosemary Tea

2-3 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves Freshly boiled water

Add the fresh rosemary to your favourite tea tumbler.

Pour over hot water and leave to steep for a few minutes.

Enjoy immediately or strain mixture first depending on your preference.

Mindful tea notes: Rosemary is associated with memory and is a lovely tea when you need focus and concentration on your side.

Lemon, Ginger and Lemongrass Tea

1 inch ginger; peeled and sliced into long thin strips 1 organic, unwaxed lemon A few seeds from a cardamom pod 1 stalk lemongrass Freshly boiled water

Press down on the ginger slices and cardamom seeds with the back of a teaspoon to release the flavours and place them in your favourite tea tumbler.

Slice the top and bottom off the lemongrass stalk and then slice in half lengthways, remove the outer layer, and place sliced inner sections into your tumbler.

Pour over hot water and leave to steep for a few minutes.

Squeeze the juice from the lemon and add to the tumbler.

Stir well and enjoy.

Mindful tea notes: The combination of lemon and ginger is energising, while the extra cardamom adds spicy warmth to boost your metabolism.

Not got July's The Simple Things yet? Buy or download your copy now.

More recipes from The Simple Things.

Living Mindfully

Make mindful living your one simple goal for 2014 and enjoy a happier, calmer and more productive year.

Mindfulness is about living in the present. It's about paying attention to what you're experiencing at this very moment rather than rushing around trying to do a zillion things at once. In this month's issue of The Simple Things (Issue 19, out now) writer Perri Lewis explores  how we can live more mindfully. Make a start now by downloading one of these apps.

Headspace's Meditation App Free 10-minute meditations from mindfulness guru and former monk Andy Puddicombe - or sign up to the Headspace Journey from £3.74 a month. Click here

Mindfulness Meditations with Mark Williams, £6.99 A series of 10 to 40-minute guided meditations in this iTunes album. Click here

The Mindfulness App, £1.49 An easy-to-use meditation app that allows you to meditate with a guide or just to pleasant sounds. Click here

Liz Earle: The Simple Things interview

Sharon O’Connell meets beauty entrepreneur Liz Earle.

Beauty entrepreneur Liz Earle is her own poster girl – projecting an inner glow and revealing her secrets of living well.

Like most of us, Liz’s passion for natural beauty products began as a child. “The earliest memory I have of an interest in that world was making rose water from flowers in the garden,” the dewy-skinned 50-year-old entrepreneur reveals. “My father was an admiral and away at sea a lot, so when he was home, he would always head for the garden. That was his R&R, to reconnect with the land. He would grow a lot of fruit and vegetables; everything had to be practical for him – he would only grow what you could eat or use. On my 13th birthday, my grandmother gave me my first ever hard-back book, which was a copy of Vogue Body and Beauty by Bronwen Meredith – a real classic. It was full of pictures of incredibly glamorous women. That book had a lot of recipes for things like yoghurt and cucumber face packs, which I used to make.”

Later, as a beauty writer, she learned more about wellbeing; “I interviewed naturopaths and nutritionists and – a light-bulb moment – they began to talk about how important it was to look after what you eat, and how what goes on inside the body affects it externally. So I started to read a lot about essential fatty acids, I started taking evening primrose oil, I went dairy-free for a while… and it began to make a big difference to my skin. I was very excited about this and wanted to write more than I could in the magazine world, so I moved very quickly from writing magazine copy to writing books.”

Now as the founder of her botanicals based and responsibly sourced skincare range, the product she's most proud of is her Cleanse & Polish product. “I felt faint on seeing it ranked as a modern beauty icon – alongside Chanel No. 5 and Elnett hairspray – in Vogue’s millennium issue.

Unsurprisingly, Liz is emphatic about the need to regularly both cleanse (“the cornerstone of good skincare”) and moisturise, but is refreshingly non-dogmatic on dietary matters. “I eat chocolate,” she admits, “but I try to eat mostly dark, organic chocolate. I drink red wine… In my youth I was a teetotal, vegan macrobiotic and I think I was very antisocial. It was quite hard to go out. I felt very healthy, but I feel very healthy now and in my older years, I’ve learned that it’s about balance.

“For me,” she adds, with refreshing pragmatism, “good skincare was always about creating healthy, glowing skin – and then moving on to enjoy the rest of your life.”

www.lizearlewellbeing.com Liz's new venture is translating 25 years of knowledge and experience into good advice on eating well, looking good and feeling great.

Read the full interview in issue 17 of The Simple Things.