We’ve all had those days when we feel a little out of it. You misplace your keys. A joke goes over your head. You sit through a meeting and can’t remember what it was about afterwards. That’s brain fog.

Brain fog happens when your mind is distracted and overwhelmed by stress. As a result, you have less mental energy to focus on the task at hand. You literally don’t have the brain power to support both at the same time.  One major cause of brain fog is poor sleep.

Every day, your billions of brain cells produce waste with every task and function they perform. This waste builds up until sleep allows the cleaning crew to come in and clear it away. Depriving  yourself of sleep is like locking the cleaning crew out of the building.  You need that waste cleared out in order for your brain to function optimally. That’s why sleep deprivation reduces clarity, focus, and the ability to learn and retain information.
The US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute reviewed the benefits of sleep on emotional health and wellbeing, physical health, and everyday performance. They reported that getting insufficient sleep makes you less productive during the day. In work and school, sleep deprived individuals took longer to complete tasks, had delayed reaction time, and were found to make more errors (source).
The effects were cumulative. Even just losing 1-2 hours a night could add up to having similar effects on performance as going a whole night without sleep.

Microsleep occurs when we’re overly tired.
The sleep health site Tuck defines microsleep as the following (source):

Microsleeps are brief, unintended episodes of loss of attention associated with events such as a blank stare, head snapping, and prolonged eye closure which may occur when a person is fatigued but trying to stay awake to perform a monotonous task like driving a car or watching a computer screen.
– Tuck

You could be standing in line at a grocery store, sitting in a meeting, or even driving, and not realize that you’ve had a brief moment of microsleep. This isn’t just embarrassing and unprofessional, it’s also dangerous. For those who work in occupations that require full attention, sleep deprivation can pose serious risks that affect more people than yourself.
Prevent microsleep before it happens and improve focus by getting more sleep tonight. Start by going to bed an hour before you usually do. Gradually set an earlier and earlier bedtime until you’re getting the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep a night.

Not only will you feel more rested, but you’ll see benefits on your focus, concentration, and performance.