Author | Lightnews

Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 20h

Read the full piece here:

After Years of Chronic Illness, I’m Convinced These 3 Daily Practices Are the Antidote to Brain Fog

I joked with the checkout assistant as I held up the queue at Tesco while I tried, repeatedly, to pay for my shopping using half a dozen…

bethanyknight.medium.com

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 20h

These practices won’t cure brain fog.

But they create a safety net of structure, self-compassion, and calm predictability, that helps you function on even the foggy days.

Externalise what's difficult.
Create gentle structure.
Give your brain grace.

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 20h

3. Opening + Closing Duties

Like a café routine: start and end the day with small check-ins.

Morning: glance over your calendar and priorities.
Evening: reflect and reset.

These bookends help contain your day and remind you it’s okay to stop.

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 20h

2. Morning Brain Dump

Empty your mind before the day’s demands stack up.

Stream-of-consciousness writing, voice notes, or a quick list over coffee — whatever helps you unburden your brain and make space to think.

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 20h

1. External Brain

When your brain’s unreliable, build a reliable one outside yourself.

A “catch-all” system gives you a backup.

It doesn’t stop brain fog, but it lets you find what you need in seconds.

When your brain’s at low capacity, outsource the mental load wherever you can.

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 20h

Brain fog isn’t just inconvenient — it’s a thief.

It steals your productivity, confidence, and sense of self.

After years of chronic illness, these 3 daily practices have become my antidote to brain fog.🧵

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Reposted by Bethany Knight 🚢

Jonathan Edward Durham @thisone0verhere.bsky.social · 1d

List of suspects for the Louvre heist:

- the muppets
- George Clooney and his friends
- the beagle boys and ma beagle
- literally any cat
- the snake from Disney’s Robin Hood

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 1d

Yes! Please make a point of existing in the real world, the world of things made by people, and form your own opinions, and then go and make new things.

lou-ellen @louceph.com · 1d

please watch movies and read books and play games and look at art, please view it with your own eyes through a lens you made yourself and not just through video essayists and ending explained videos please im begging you

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 2d

Friend link, in case you don't have a Medium account:

Are Your Energy Crashes Preventable? How Strategic Rest Changed Everything for Me

I spent two years believing my unpredictable energy crashes were just my new normal.

bethanyknight.medium.com

Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 2d

For two years, I thought unpredictable energy crashes were just my "new normal" with chronic illness.

Then I discovered strategic rest: scheduling recovery breaks BEFORE I felt tired.

The push-crash cycle wasn't inevitable after all.

Are Your Energy Crashes Preventable? How Strategic Rest Changed Everything for Me

I spent two years believing my unpredictable energy crashes were just my new normal.

medium.com

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Reposted by Bethany Knight 🚢

Evan Slash Reed Peterson (they/them) @evslash.bsky.social · 3d

Today #selfcare looked like nerdgaming, scary movies, kittens.

What did it look like for you?

#TakeYourMeds
#DrinkMoreWater
#ToDefeatTheNazis

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 2d

- Lunch outside.
- The slowest of slow walks with my elderly dog.
- White noise to make my family seem less loud.

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Reposted by Bethany Knight 🚢

The Autistic Coach | Matthew (he/they) @theautisticcoach.bsky.social · 3d

Stop pushing through.

That’s how we broke.

If it costs your self-regulation, it’s too expensive.

Rest is essential - it’s not weakness

It’s strength.

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 2d

Friend link, so you can read for free: bethanyknight.medium...

Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 2d

Productivity culture rewards exhaustion and shames rest.

For people with chronic illness, that message isn’t motivational — it’s harmful.

Here’s why rest isn’t laziness, and what needs to change.

medium.com/@bethanyk...

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 3d

How to help, and, even more importantly, how to accept help. I loved this suggestion: "My suggestion is to make a list [of ways people can help you] when you’re not at your lowest. What little tasks would be nice to pass along to someone else on any old day of the week?"

medium.com/@sophielucid...

Instead Of: “Let Me Know If There Is Anything I Can Do”

How to help and be helped when it feels impossible

medium.com

Reposted by Bethany Knight 🚢

Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle @drdoylesays.bsky.social · 3d

Just for today, speak to yourself w/ warmth & realism (no, they're not incompatible, no matter what Trauma Brain says). Try it on. Consider compassionate self-talk a recovery tool you're experimenting w/.

No pressure, no rush. You're developing a tool. No more, no less.

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Reposted by Bethany Knight 🚢

Jonathan Edward Durham @thisone0verhere.bsky.social · 3d

Not fight or flight but a secret third thing and it’s this guy who lives inside my head

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 4d

Friend link, so you can read for free:

7 Common Mistakes That Sabotage Your Pre-emptive Rest Schedule (and How to Avoid Them)

Have you ever noticed how quickly your energy reserves deplete when you’re already running on empty?

bethanyknight.medium.com

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 4d

Most people only rest after they crash.

Here are 7 simple mistakes that sabotage pre-emptive rest — and how to fix them.

7 Common Mistakes That Sabotage Your Pre-emptive Rest Schedule (and How to Avoid Them)

Have you ever noticed how quickly your energy reserves deplete when you’re already running on empty?

medium.com

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 4d

Friend link, so you can read for free:

How I Learned Rest Wasn’t Lazy: My Letter to My Newly Diagnosed Self

The medical system isn’t designed to help people with chronic conditions. It’s designed to keep us productive.

bethanyknight.medium.com

Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 4d

When I was newly diagnosed, I thought rest was something you did after the work.

Now I know rest is the work.

Here’s the letter I wish I could send to my former self.

How I Learned Rest Wasn’t Lazy: My Letter to My Newly Diagnosed Self

The medical system isn’t designed to help people with chronic conditions. It’s designed to keep us productive.

bethanyknight.medium.com

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Reposted by Bethany Knight 🚢

Long Covid Kids @longcovidkids.bsky.social · 5d

🌟✨ From the artist: Elizabeth Jelley

‘This #artwork is a representation of what my life has become and what I no longer can do because of Long Covid. The news articles in the background showcase how I must constantly be aware of any news on my condition.

The shadow figures
#LongCovidKids #Artwork

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 5d

Interesting thoughts about the term "brain fog." It's definitely something I've considered before, and I've never really found a term that fits better for me.

A Chronic Voice @achronicvoice.com · 27d

““When my #BrainFog is bad I cannot process people’s #speech. I describe it as words floating past me like pretty butterflies – I hear them so know they are there, but they have no meaning.” ~ F”: buff.ly/4HciD9K

from @limberation.com
#CognitiveImpairment #cognition #disabled

Brain Fog? Cognitive Impairment? Which Sounds More Serious?

Do you experience cognitive impairment/brain fog? I am over the term brain fog. Let’s be honest here, it is cognitive impairment.

buff.ly

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Bethany Knight 🚢 @bethanyknightwrite.bsky.social · 5d

Today's Long COVID brain fog fun:

Repeatedly getting confused between my glasses and my earphones.

Why does putting on my earphones not make it any easier to read?

#longcovid #brainfog

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