Firstly, you are not alone. Many of us share your sentiment. The reason for this brain fog or “mushy brain sensation” might be because you brain hasn’t been to “gym” for a few weeks. Memory, like muscular strength, requires you to exercise it. The more we exercise the brain the better it can process and recall information. Here are some key ways in which you can regain your mental sharpness:

1. Are you up for the challenge? Brain-boosting activities demand your full and close attention. The brain thrives on a challenge and the more interested and engaged you are in the activity the more incentive to continue with it. By learning to play a challenging new piece of music, learning a new painting technique or joining a toastmaster’s club will challenge your mental rigor.
2. Push the envelope. Challenge yourself. Find an activity that allow you to start at an easy level and work your way a more advanced level. This will help you stretch your capabilities and advance you to more dynamic tasks.
3. Healthy body, healthy mind. Exercise increases oxygen to your brain and relaxes the central nervous system. It also reduces the stress hormone, cortisol in your body. Physical exercise also reduces the risk for disorders that lead to memory loss, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Having a regular sleep schedule, limit screen time before bed and cut back on caffeine is essential for good sleep hygiene and memory.
4. Human connection. We are made for connection and our survival depends on it. Relationships create new neural pathways in the brain. It releases the bonding hormone oxytocin whilst reducing cortisol.
5. Don’t stress the small stuff. Chronic stress destroys brain cells and damages the hippocampus. The hippocampus region is involved in the formation of new memories and the retrieval of old ones. Managing your stress with exercise, medication, meditation or outdoor activities will help improve your memory.

The uncertainty of Covid-19 has created very high anxiety levels in most of us. Whilst anxiety is a normal reaction to uncertainty and change, children might find this time especially scary and distressing.

So, my first suggestion for you as a mother, is to create more structure and predictability at home and outside of home. Establish a routine and an action plan to deal with uncertainty. It is essential to discuss the symptoms and causes of Covid-19 with your daughter honestly. Help her understand the measures that the shops, public spaces and the government have already put in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Talk to her about what she can anticipate when she leaves home and goes to the shop or other public spaces. Write out a plan for action to deal with the possible situations she might face in public spaces. Discuss the plan with your daughter and ask for her input. Create a specific routine for leaving the house that she can follow. This will give her a sense of control and predictability. Also, give her a specific role and make her responsible for communicating the items on the shopping list. She should then use the list as a guide and tick of what you have already put in your trolley. This will help her focus on the list and less on the other customers in the shop.

If she gets overwhelmed or frustrated in the store you need to revert to an action plan. This action plan might involve reciting all the precautions that the shop has taken to ensure the safety of customers, doing some breathing exercises and just moving to a less crowded area in the shop or even leaving the shop momentarily. Should your daughters continue to show sign of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) please consult a mental health professional. Children diagnosed with OCD usually need to work with a therapist and take medicines to help manage their behaviours and the accompanying thoughts and feelings. You can consult your general practitioner and request a referral to a child psychiatrist.

This time of Covid-19 have left us all feeling emotionally and financially vulnerable and exposed. It is as if everywhere we look the media warns of possible job losses and unemployment. These messages can create significant distress in us all. We might even feel defeated or helpless in the anticipation of changed in our workplace. It is however important that we know that we are not alone and that so many other South Africans are experiencing this same sense of anguish. It is very normal to feel feeling hurt, angry, helpless or depressed. It is also not uncommon to feel betrayed by life, by God, by your bank or by you employer. This might feel very overwhelming and feel like it is never going to get better. The truth however is that change is the only constant in our lives. It brings new opportunities and renewed trust in a bigger plan. A bigger plan which require us to also take proactive steps like the following:

• Give yourself time to adjust. Give yourself some breathing room and know that it is OK to not be OK. Don’t let negative emotions fester. Express and name your emotions. You have never been in this situation so take some time to adjust.
• “This too shall pass”: Remind yourself that this is temporary. It will pass! Turn this into an opportunity to learn from this experience and master new skills.
• Reach out to others. Reaching out for support and getting some reassurance form friends and family helps put difficult situation in perspective.
• Change your lifestyle. Doing the same thing over and over, will not bring a new outcome. Managing you physical and emotional health with exercise, mindfulness activities, listening to music or podcasts is all helpful ways to bring about change. Ensure that you eat healthy, sleep enough and maintain balance between your work responsibilities and the things that bring meaning to your life.
• Focus on what you can control. You can’t control the future but you can control your reaction and behaviour in the present. We are most powerful when we are fully present in the moment. List what you can control and focus your energy there.

Complaining is one way of expressing our fears. Complaining is a “cry for help” in a distressing or unfamiliar situation. Fear helps us survive by avoiding, or withdrawing from or anticipation danger. Of our survival reactions, fight, flight, freeze is the most well-known. Complaining is a fight reaction. That does not mean that you are fighting with you friends, but rather that your way of coping with the uncertainty is to take action and say something. The more action we can take in uncertain times the less like we are to get traumatised.

One way that families or communities deal with fear is by minimising it or comparing it to others situation. This method of remembering the “less fortunate” during our times of need helps us distance us from the intense emotion of the situation. It is also seen as a moral bypass, as we do not fully acknowledge our experience of the situation as worthy. So, it is very common that friend and family might try to remind us of the “less fortunate” in an attempt to deal with their own distress and feelings of helplessness.

It is however essential that we have an opportunity to express our concerns and worry. You are allowed to feel frustrated and angry when you are not allowed to express your feelings. This does not make you weak or a bad person. For your brain-body system what is happening to you is big and significant, so don’t let anyone tell you differently. It is important to finding the right audience for expressing your emotions and sometimes it may mean that you will need to see a therapist who can help you manage all the overwhelming emotions.

The guilt starts almost immediately after we realize we’re pregnant. When we see the two blue lines on the home pregnancy test, we are often overjoyed and at the same time consumed with guilt. It is as if in a split second our world changes and we become responsible for a life that is not our own. What follows, is an internal dialogue on how well we are equipped to raise this child. We evaluate our abilities and often feel “not good enough” or “perfect enough” for the task. We also start looking at our world and think about what the future might hold for our baby.

Like most things in life there is never a right or a good time. Life brings constant challenges and we need to swim with the current of life. To think that there is a good time to have a baby or a better world to bring the baby into is to assume that there is a perfect time or world. Feeling worried and overwhelmed by the unknown is very normal and part of pregnancy. No mother ever feels like she has all her ducks in a row by the time the baby arrives. There is always a part of her that say…I could have prepared better, or read more books or attended more prenatal classes. Control what you can and focus on the fact that you baby is going to have loving parents that will be there for them when the world becomes uncertain. Babies do not need a perfect mother or a perfect world. They just need a ‘good enough mother’ and ‘good enough world’ to flourish. As humans we are resilient and we are wired for survival. So trust in your baby’s ability to face the challenges of our everchanging world.