What Else Can You Do to Combat Brain Fog After Chemotherapy?

About 70 percent of chemotherapy patients report a loss of cognitive function, or mental sharpness, after they have received chemotherapy. Most medical programs for treating these kinds of symptoms after chemo focus on anxiety, depression, or fatigue, not on having a better working brain. However, cognitive enhancement, the exercises that help you think more clearly, remember words and places and dates, and keep up with your daily life have the indirect effect of relieving anxiety, depression, and fatigue by reducing the kinds of life problems that make dealing with all the side effects of chemo even harder.

One online version of BrainHQ is free (and linked at the end of this article). It's a great place to start if you have brain fog and you don't want to start taking medications for anxiety, depression, and stress. However, there are other interventions that also help the brain work more efficiently:

• Calendars. Just using a calendar (paper or electronic) helps chemotherapy patients keep up with appointments and personal tasks so that they have greater self-efficacy, confidence in themselves, and better mood.
• Spirituality and religion. Any spiritual activity, whether individual or organized, results in better mental functioning and improved quality of life. The scientific studies don't find differences between different religions in terms of their impact on quality of life.
• Walking. There is currently a study of walking as a treatment for women suffering cognitive impairment after chemotherapy for breast cancer. Early data confirm that walking enhances "executive function" (decision making), verbal memory, visual memory, spatial memory, and self-esteem, and relieves anxiety and depression. In the study, women are asked to walk 10 minutes a day five days a week and build up to 30 minutes a day five days a week. Researchers believe that walking with a pedometer will give the women more satisfaction in the activity.

READ 11 Reasons to Start Walking Now

• Correcting obesity. Weight loss is not always a good thing in people who have cancer. However, obesity interferes with the brain's ability to use adiponectin to create new pathways after exercise. Losing weight, under a doctor's guidance, increases sensitivity to adiponectin which in turn helps the hypothalamus create new memories which in turn increases cognitive function and quality of life.
• Successfully dealing with fear. Confronting fears when you don't have the tools to deal with them isn't good for your mental health or your brain power. However, eliminating fear with knowledge and experience enables your brain to preserve the new pathways needed for learning and change. Getting as much useful information as you can, getting the answers you need, and getting the doctor to do what you believe you need done can enhance your mental sharpness.

If you are having trouble with short-term memory, one of the best possible interventions is a brisk walk around the block. Of course, what you experience as "brisk" will change after you have had cancer chemotherapy. Anything that gets you moving, even if it is just out of bed or out of your chair, will also help with recall, judgment, and the speed at which you process information. And these improvements in your brain power can help you avoid the situations that complicate your life as you recover from cancer.