Attention, Please: Reclaiming Our Focus With Two Powerful Plants
If your brain’s been foggy or fried, these two allies—Lion’s Mane and Ginkgo—might help you steady your mind again.
I started an alcohol cleanse about a month ago— nothing extreme, just a reset. I wanted to feel better in my body, and mostly, I did. My sleep was deeper, my mornings quieter, my energy less jumpy. It was a good kind of stillness.
But here’s the strange part: while my body was thanking me, my mind was… foggy. I lost focus mid-thought, and I felt like I had misplaced my memory somewhere between the coffee mug and the flight manual.
I figured it would be simple — cut the drinks, gain some clarity. Easy enough… in theory.
Instead, I walked around with this weird mental haze, like my brain was lagging a few seconds behind the rest of me.
So, I decided to give myself a little help during the recalibration. Not with caffeine (I’ve already got that department covered), but with natural allies — slow, steady ones that rebuild focus without the crash.
⚡ The Plants Step In
When I started looking for ways to clear the fog, two herbs kept popping up — both promising sharper focus and steadier brain power: Lion’s Mane and Ginkgo biloba.
I’d already been flirting with Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceus) a few weeks before the cleanse — just a small experiment to see if the hype was real. And it did help!
My focus came back online, my creativity stopped taking naps, and my brain had that quiet hum you get when it’s actually cooperating for once.
(You can see Lion’s Mane in the picture below)
Then I took a break from drinking, and the whole system short-circuited. The clarity I’d built turned to static. My brain kept stalling mid-thought, like it forgot what gear it was in.
My body felt good almost immediately from the cleanse, but my brain was still on the struggle bus even after a week.
So I figured, why not give it a little backup?
That’s when I reached for the herbs again. I kept up with Lion’s Mane and added Ginkgo biloba — the old brain-circulation standby — to see if I could clear the fog a bit faster.
(You can see Ginkgo biloba leaves in the picture below)
There’s something poetic about turning to a tree that’s been around for over 200 million years when your brain feels like a dial-up modem.
After taking it for a week, things shifted.
The first thing I noticed was recall — names, numbers, steps in my flight checklist — coming back faster. Then came the focus.
That gentle click when your mind finally locks onto a task and stays there without tugging itself away every few seconds.
No rush. No jolt. Just clarity that felt earned.
🌿 The Carpenter and the Plumber
Lion’s Mane and Ginkgo work differently, but together they make sense — one rebuilds, the other keeps everything flowing.
Lion’s Mane is the quiet carpenter of the brain. It helps repair and rewire, supporting nerve growth and long-term clarity. It’s slow work — more like mental renovation than instant results — but you can feel the structure returning, piece by piece.
Ginkgo, on the other hand, is the plumber. It gets the circulation going improving blood flow, oxygen, and overall communication so the system runs smoothly.
It’s less about building and more about clearing blockages, keeping the ideas and energy moving.
In my routine, Ginkgo runs the day shift. I take two capsules between meals when absorption is greatest.
Lion’s Mane clocks in at night. I take it before bed, mostly because that’s when I actually remember to — a simple add-on to the rest of my wind-down ritual.
✈️ Finding Flow at 3,000 Feet
I notice the difference most during in-air flight training.
When you’re learning to fly, there’s a lot happening at once — scanning the horizon, watching your altitude, listening for radio calls, remembering which lever does what.
It’s a lot like learning to drive for the first time: you’re hyper-aware of every sound and movement. It’s clunky and awkward until your brain finds its rhythm.
Lately, I’ve found a rhythm, partly from practice but also from the plants. The Ginkgo, especially, seems to help my mind keep pace with the cockpit.
My focus feels steadier now, the fog that once made me triple-check everything finally giving way. It’s not laser focus, more like the quiet kind that sneaks up on you and says, hey, you’ve got this.
☀️ When the Body and Brain Finally Sync
The cleanse started as something for my body — a simple reset to sleep better and feel like myself again. And it worked.
What I didn’t expect was how much the herbs would straighten out my brain in the process. Lion’s Mane and Ginkgo didn’t give me superpowers. they just cleared the fog enough for everything to line up again.
Now I just feel steady in the best way. Not glowing-aura bright or post-yoga serene, just clear-headed enough that my brain finally exhales and remembers how to be still.
So if you’re in that foggy middle space right now, don’t panic. You’ll find your footing again. We always do.
For me, it was Lion’s Mane and Ginkgo.
For you, maybe something else entirely.
Either way, here’s to the moment the blur fades, and the world looks sharp again.
🌱 P.S…
I get many of the herbs I don’t grow at home or in capsule form from Gaia Herbs. (I don’t have any affiliation with them, but I love their products). They focus heavily on non-gmo ingredients and have rigorous testing for quality and potency.
🌿 Offbeat Botanica — Blue Lotus (Nymphaea caerulea)
If Lion’s Mane and Ginkgo are about sharpening your edges, Blue Lotus is about softening them just enough to let the light through.
This dreamy water lily has floated on the Nile for millennia, where Egyptian priests steeped its petals into wine before ceremonies meant to spark insight and connection.
They called it the flower of consciousness — not because it made them more productive, but because it opened space to see differently.
Science explains a little of the mystery: the Blue Lotus flower has natural chemicals called nuciferine and apomorphine. They can make people feel calm, relaxed, and a bit dreamy — more like drifting in a gentle flow than staying sharply focused.
It’s not something to use for work or to get more done. It’s a plant to use with care and respect, the kind that’s meant for quiet moments, not quick results.
It won’t help you finish a spreadsheet, but it might help you notice what the spreadsheet made you forget.
Focus for imagination. Presence just because.
A plant that teaches us that loosened attention can still be luminous.
✈️ Dream Check-In — Riding the Bumps
I went up this week, and wow—it was bumpy.
The wind tossed us around so much it felt like the plane and I were getting batted around by an invisible cat.
Every jolt made me want to tighten up—grip harder, correct faster, fix it. But the more I fought the wind, the harder it pushed back.
So I tried what my instructor always says: ride the bumps.
Easier said than done. But once I loosened my shoulders and trusted the plane to do its thing, it got a little smoother. I was still white-knuckling it, just… with slightly more chill.
By the end, I was mostly just happy we landed in one piece — but hey, at least turbulence on a commercial flight will feel like a gentle nap after that.
Until next week — stay curious, stay growing. 🌱
— KC
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