The Blur: why mental fog starts way earlier than you think
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There’s a story I think about often. Rip Van Winkle climbed a hill one afternoon and fell asleep under a tree. When he woke, his beard had grown long.
He came back down to find his wife gone from the house, the house itself aged, the town transformed. He walked into the tavern where he’d known everyone by name, and he recognized no one. In a blink, life had passed. He’d been asleep the whole time.
That’s what mental fog feels like from the inside.
Not a crisis. Just a slow fade where days blur together, decisions feel impossible, and you can’t quite remember when you stopped being the one choosing your own life.
The thing nobody tells you: it doesn’t start at 65. It starts at 35.
The early warning signs nobody names
You probably know the feeling. That 3 pm crash where your brain feels like it’s moving through water. The decision fatigue by evening where you can’t choose what to eat, what to wear, or whether to answer a text. The mornings where you wake up and can’t remember what day it is. The sense that weeks have passed and you have no idea where they went.
We call it stress. Burnout. Being busy.
But there’s a more precise word for what’s happening: mental fog and decision fatigue—the early warning signs of the same cognitive erosion that becomes dementia later.
The research is clear: an external locus of control (the belief that your life is controlled by circumstances, other people, or fate rather than by your own choices) is associated with lower cognitive function in midlife and is a risk factor for cognitive decline.
Meanwhile, people with a strong sense of purpose and agency—those who believe their choices matter—show better memory, larger hippocampal volume (the brain structure most vulnerable to Alzheimer’s), and significantly lower risk of dementia.
But here’s what the research doesn’t capture: the feeling of it. The slow surrender. The way your mind checks out when you stop believing your decisions matter.
My father’s story: what happens when you stop choosing
My father is turning 89 in less than two months. Seven years ago, he had a stroke. The biggest consequence wasn’t physical—it was cognitive. Dementia.
But here’s what I know now: the dementia didn’t start with the stroke.
It started decades earlier, in Korea, when he learned that his desires didn’t matter. Only obligation. Only achievement. Only what others expected.
He went to the best college, got the best scores, became the youngest person in his political position by 31—with the direct phone line to the ambassador to China. He outsourced his life to a script written by duty.
He came to the U.S. hoping to “make it” the same way, but with “more opportunity” for his children. When he didn’t “make it,” something broke. He aged regretful, critical, and bitter. Stressed about money. Worried about retirement. And then one day, his body said: enough. The stroke came. The dementia followed.
Doctors blamed his smoking, his drinking from earlier years. But I’ve known plenty of people who smoked and drank and never ended up with dementia.
What my father had was something else: a lifetime of not listening to himself. Of outsourcing every decision to external rules, external approval, external obligation. By the time the stroke came, there wasn’t much of him left to protect.
The fog I didn’t know I had
I lived in that fog for years. I didn’t know it at the time.
I was following rules. Eating what I was “supposed” to eat. Exercising because I “should.” Making decisions based on what looked good from the outside, not what felt true in my body. I was outsourcing my wellness to experts and to external validation—even when I thought I wasn’t; rebellion, after all, is externally sourced.
My mind was foggy. My energy crashed by 3 pm. My decisions felt heavy. I didn’t trust myself. Even when I fooled myself into thinking I did.
Then I started learning differently.
I studied with macrobiotic and Ayurvedic chefs, and with Ayurvedic doctors. Then through Kundalini Yoga teacher training and meditation—20+ years of practice. Then through building a business and having to make real decisions from my own authority.
The shift didn’t come from brain games or supplements.
It came from learning to self-refer—to listen to my body instead of to external rules…
Not following someone else’s protocol but reading my body.
Not trusting an expert’s opinion over my own signals.
Deciding from my values, not someone else’s approval.
Noticing what I need, not what I’m supposed to need.
The fog lifted.
Days stopped running together.
I could remember my own choices.
I knew when I needed rest, when to create, and when to reach out for support.
I wasn’t reacting anymore. I was deciding.
The bonus: my energy stabilized. My clarity sharpened. My sense of joy and accomplishment came back.
And with it came something research calls cognitive reserve—the brain’s resilience against decline.
My father never learned this. He stayed asleep. And by the time his body forced him to wake up, it was too late.
Why this matters at 35 (not just at 65)
Here’s what I want you to understand:
The mental fog you’re feeling right now—the decision fatigue, the blur, the sense that you’re not quite in your own life—is not just exhaustion.
It’s an early warning sign.
It’s your nervous system telling you that you’ve outsourced your agency too far.
And the research shows something remarkable: locus of control is modifiable.
People who shift from external to internal control over time show better cognitive function than those who stay external. Your brain can rewire. But it has to start now, not at 65. That said, if you’re older and reading this—the research is equally clear that it’s never too late to shift your locus of control. Your brain can rewire at any age.
The younger you are when you reclaim your agency, the more cognitive reserve you build.
The more you practice choosing from your body and your values instead of from obligation and approval, the more you strengthen the neural pathways that protect against decline.
The irony is that everyone’s focused on brain games and supplements. But the real protection is simpler:
Are you still in conversation with your own body? Are you still the one deciding?
If this is landing a little too hard because you are in the blur, this is exactly what my paid Wednesday posts walk through—turning ideas like this into scripts, food plans, and real-life troubleshooting.
Upgrade to Wellness Alchemy (my paid membership) if you want the step-by-step map, not just the insight.
Three simple steps to start
You don’t need a protocol. You need a practice. And the cleanest place to start is food.
Not because food is magic. But because you eat three times a day. That’s 1,095 opportunities a year to practice listening to your body instead of following a rule.
To decide from your own signals instead of from an app or an expert or a should.
To build the neural pathways of self-trust in the most ordinary, repeatable way possible.
When you eat warm, on time, and simple—and you actually notice how your body responds—something shifts. You’re not just nourishing yourself. You’re waking up. You’re practicing agency. You’re rebuilding the cognitive infrastructure that external referral erodes.
Here’s what to do:
Step 1: Protect one lunch window (45-60 minutes between 11 am and 1:30 pm)
This is your meeting with your nervous system. Not a meal you squeeze in. A boundary you keep.
Your body’s digestive fire is strongest during this window. When you eat warm, on time, and simple during this window, your nervous system calms, your energy stabilizes, and your 3 pm doesn’t crash.
Step 2: Eat warm, on time, simple
One warm bowl.
- Red lentil soup.
- Mung dal kitchari.
- A simple vegetable stew.
Nothing complicated.
The warmth is easier to digest and grounds your nervous system.
The timing trains your body to expect nourishment.
The simplicity means you’re not making a hundred decisions about food—you’re making one decision from your body.
Before you eat, take 12 breaths: inhale for 4, exhale for 6.
Chew until the food feels warm and soft in your mouth.
Stop at satisfied, not stuffed.
This is self-referral in action. You’re reading your body, not your mood.
Step 3: Check your 3 pm and 9 pm
Does your 3 pm feel steady instead of crashing?
Does your 9 pm feel quieter instead of wired?
These are your feedback signals.
Your body is telling you whether this practice is working.
You’re not tracking macros or calories. You’re learning your body’s language.
The Real Protection
Everyone’s focused on brain games and supplements.
On biohacking and optimization.
On doing more, knowing more, being more.
But the real protection against the blur—against mental fog, decision fatigue, and the cognitive decline that follows—is simpler and harder at the same time.
It’s staying awake.
It’s staying in conversation with your own body.
It’s choosing from your values instead of from obligation.
It’s building agency, not outsourcing it.
My father had a stroke. But the dementia started long before. It started the day he stopped listening to himself.
You’re not there yet. But if you’re in the blur—if days are running together, if you can’t think clearly, if you’re exhausted from decisions that aren’t even yours—you’re on the path.
The good news: you can turn around.
Not with a supplement. Not with a brain game.
But with one warm lunch.
With one decision made from your body instead of from external pressure.
With one moment of noticing: this is what I need right now.
Do that three times a day, every day, for the rest of your life.
That’s not a diet. That’s sovereignty. That’s the antidote to the blur.
That’s how you stay awake.
If you want help designing that one warm, on-time lunch—and reading your 3 pm and 9 pm without overthinking it—this is what my paid members get every other Wednesday: tools, menus, and rhythm maps you can actually use.
Upgrade to a paid subscription and let me help you build your anti-blur rhythm.
—Savitree
I teach people to self-refer—starting with food.
Research Referenced
The connection between agency, stress, and brain health is well-established in neuroscience. Here are the key studies informing this piece:
Locus of Control and Cognitive Function in Midlife
Studies show that an internal locus of control is associated with better memory and larger hippocampal volume, a protective factor against cognitive decline.
Gale, C. R., Batty, G. D., & Deary, I. J. (2008). Locus of control and cognitive ability in youth and adulthood: the 1970 British Cohort Study. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1238–1243.
Sense of Purpose and Dementia Risk
Meta-analyses consistently find that greater meaning and purpose in life are associated with significantly lower risk of dementia and cognitive impairment.
Boyle, P. A., Buchman, A. S., Barnes, L. L., & Bennett, D. A. (2010). Effect of a purpose in life on the relation between Alzheimer disease pathologic changes on cognitive function in advanced age. Archives of General Psychiatry, 67(3), 304–310.
Chronic Stress and Brain Structure
Prolonged cortisol elevation from uncontrollable stress is linked to hippocampal atrophy and memory deficits.
Lupien, S. J., Fiocco, A. I., Wan, N., Maheu, F., Lord, C., Schramek, T., & Tu, M. T. (2005). Stress hormones and human memory function across the lifespan. Reviews in Neurosciences, 16(2), 111–130.