Brain Fog and Pancakes
Maybe it is a January thing. Perhaps my brain is still on holiday. This morning I have brain fog and I feel about as sharp as a marble. After all, I am normally still on the beach at this time of year. I decided that I would indulge in a stack of syrup and butter-covered pancakes to overcome my brain fog. A perfectly normal elixir for brain fog or maybe a work avoidance technique?
As I stood beside the stove, scoffing down my stack of sweetness, my wife asked why I don’t sit down and enjoy my pancakes in comfort. I pondered this for a moment as I searched through my fog for a reasonable answer.
A knife is required to skim some Butro from the tub and smear it on the pancake. A dollop of syrup and then fold the pancake in your fingers as if to catch the sweet smoothness inside. Eat quickly by lowering your mouth and raising the warm gooey joy so you can stuff it in before the syrup oozes out.
It occurs to me that the 1,175 calories that I burnt this morning while grinding up Orange Road are quickly being replenished. Fortunately, a regular weekday morning run does not require any mental exertion, so a case of brain fog doesn’t impact a morning run. Today might be a case for more running and less thinking. Mind you, every day would be like that if it weren’t for having to pay the bills. The most thinking that I did on my Tyrone Harriers — Greenside running circuit this morning was scheme about when next I would take a trip out to Cradle Moon for a trail run. How messed up is that? While I am running, I am thinking about running somewhere else. It’s good that one run doesn’t get jealous of another run.
I do ask myself, what am I running from? Despite much enquiry on the subject, I don’t have an answer. I am chalking that question up to being a cliché. Any serious runner will tell you that the more you run, the more you want to run. I do it for the drugs! I’m an organic junkie.
The word endorphin is a blend of morphine and endogenous. Effectively it’s morphine that is produced by the body. It reduces pain perception and is the source of a “runner high”.
Anandamide is a cannabis-like substance known as the “bliss molecule” naturally produced by the body while doing something energetic like running.
Phenylethylamine (PEA) is a molecule produced in the brain after just half an hour of running and is like amphetamines in terms of causing euphoria. PEA triggers the body to release dopamine. That is the warm and fuzzy after run reward. Don’t mistake it for the post run caffeine jolt.
I had a full dose of organic drugs this morning. The pancakes with syrup were my sugar dose. I guess that is a high of another kind. As my brain fog lifted, I replied to my wife, “I want to be fully emersed in my pancake eating experience, and if I sit down, I feel like I will be distracted by some addictive device that I would rather avoid. I prefer natural addictions”.
Justin Spencer-Young
