Bye Bye Brain Fog: Stop Draining & Start Refilling Your Business Brain
By Doreen Warfield, Studio Strong
Okay I’m going to say something that might make you feel a little called out.
You’re a smart, capable business owner. You built something real. You show up every day and get things done. And somewhere around 2pm you are sitting at your desk wondering where your brain went.
I know because I do it too. And I spent way too long thinking it was just stress or not enough sleep or too much on my plate.
It’s actually a fuel problem. And once I figured that out everything changed.
Here’s what few people have told us
Your body makes a compound called creatine every day. About 1 to 2 grams, in your liver. Sounds fine right? Except your muscles grab most of it before your brain gets any. Muscles are greedy like that. They take their cut and your brain gets whatever’s left.
For women the gap is even bigger. We store up to 80% less creatine than men do, partly because we tend to eat less red meat and fish where creatine comes from in food. Add in the hormonal shifts that hit in our 40s and 50s and your brain’s fuel supply takes a real hit right in the middle of the decade when most of us are running our busiest, most demanding businesses.
That foggy, slow, can’t-pull-the-number feeling in the afternoon? Fuel problem. Not a character flaw. Not a productivity issue. Fuel.
The thing that surprised me most
Most people who take creatine take 5 grams a day. That’s what the label says. Works great for muscles. Your brain needs 10 grams before it even starts to benefit. At 5 grams your muscles take their share and your brain gets almost nothing.
I know. Nobody told me either.
A German study found creatine doesn’t start showing up in brain tissue until you hit 10 grams daily. And then there’s research on sleep-deprived people that honestly stopped me cold. People who took 20 to 25 grams didn’t just avoid the brain fog that comes with bad sleep. They actually performed better than when they were fully rested.
Think about what that means for the week before a big pitch. Or the day after a late night dealing with a business fire. Or honestly just a regular Thursday in Q4.
What this has to do with strength training
Here’s the business case for getting in the gym and I mean this seriously.
Creatine lives in muscle tissue. The more functional muscle you build the better your body stores and uses creatine. Which means your brain gets more of it on the days you need it most. The meeting where you need to be sharp. The conversation where you need to think on your feet. The 4pm decision you can’t push to tomorrow.
The time you spend training is not time away from your business. It is literally building the hardware your business runs on.
The practical part
Start with 10 grams of creatine a day. Give it a few weeks. I noticed the difference faster than I expected and so have a lot of my clients. If you’re traveling or know you’ve got a rough sleep stretch coming, some research supports bumping to 20 grams temporarily. Talk to your doctor first especially if you’re on medications.
Buy creatine monohydrate from an NSF-certified brand. That certification means someone actually checked what’s in the bottle.
And skip the gummies. 98% of creatine gummies contain no actual creatine. You are a business owner. You know a bad ROI when you see one.
The bottom line
The afternoon slump is not just annoying. It’s the meeting where you couldn’t pull the number. The email you reread four times. The decision you pushed to tomorrow. For a business owner that adds up fast.
You’ve invested in your business in every way you can think of. This one costs about thirty bucks a month and takes thirty seconds a day.
Want to go deeper on the research? There’s a great breakdown of Dr Rhonda Patrick’s video – except it breaks the video down into bullet points – best part read it at your own pace (probably less than a minute), and ask follow-up questions!
Doreen Warfield is a certified personal trainer and co-owner of Studio Strong in O’Fallon, IL. Studio Strong works with busy professionals who want to feel as sharp as they perform. By appointment only. 629 West Highway 50, O’Fallon. studiostrong.fit or 618-581-0193.
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