Clearing Brain Fog with Meditation

I have definitely had my fair share of brain farts…probably more than my fair share.  I remember in my last semester of University, my very last exam was for wireless communications.  I knew my stuff in that class.  I got 100% on the midterm and pretty much every assignment.  I had three exams in a row that last week and wireless was my last.  I had been so stressed finishing up final projects and studying like a mad woman for all my exams that I had nothing left for my wireless exam, I was completely burnt out.  But that day when I wrote the final, I had the biggest brain fart of my life.  I literally blanked on everything. I must hold a record for the longest known brain fart – 3 full hours of nothing but black. I still have nightmares about that exam.

That is what stress can do to the brain.  And when you’re chronically stressed, those farts can start to feel like the daily norm.  Back in 2016, I was really unhappy at work.  I didn’t even realize how unhappy I was.  And the stress was taking its toll on me.  I started to feel really unintelligent.  I couldn’t remember simple things.  I’ve always relied on my memory.  In fact, my memory is so good, that I sometimes pretend it’s worse so that people don’t think I’m obsessed with them (I used to hate the nickname “Phanstalker”, I was afraid people would think I was following them around writing down every little detail).  For most of my life, people have leaned on my memory, at work, at home and pretty much everywhere. And I often have to remind myself that people don’t always remember every little thing about me not because I’m unimportant to them, but because they simply don’t retain things the way I do.

The brain fog continued through 2016 to the point where I couldn’t even remember what someone had told me the day before. My boss was getting frustrated with me because I couldn’t recall project performance indicators and couldn’t justify status slips, which made work even more frustrating.  It’s bad enough when you know you’re messing up, but when others, who’ve always relied on you, start to notice it, it gets pretty frustrating. By early 2017 I knew something was really wrong.  I started reading more and started playing n-back on my phone.  Nothing was working.  Then I found Kundalini yoga.

In August of 2017, I started practicing Sat Kriya and Kirtan Kriya every day.  After 2 days (I’m not kidding, it was actually only 2 days), the fog began to lift.  I was starting to remember things again, and I was feeling much smarter. It felt really miraculous.  After about a month, I was back to my remember-everything normal.  And it felt really good.  I wasn’t missing appointments or forgetting details anymore. And believe me, now that I know what it feels like not to have my memory super sharp, I will never take it for granted again.

What I didn’t know then was that Kirtan Kriya has actually been studied for its effectiveness in helping patients with early onset alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment.  The studies showed that Kirtan Kriya was just as effective as brain exercises in improving language skills and memory recall, but was more effective in improving spatial awareness (which is important for tasks like driving and remembering where you parked your car).  You can read more here:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/prime-your-gray-cells/201606/yoga-and-kirtan-kriya-meditation-bolster-brain-functioning

Personally, I didn’t find anything worked at all for me, except this.  Now, I’m back to my old nerdy ways.  I love watching jeopardy and reading dense books.

Here are two videos that will help you to do Kirtan Kriya.  The first is a quick explainer video and the second is a fully guided session, which features me playing the tibetan bowl.  The whole thing is only 11 minutes and well worth it if you’re experiencing any kind of memory or mental impairment.

Try my guided video and let me know how it went.  Do you feel any difference in your memory?

Explanation

Guided Session