Brain Farts: The Cause And Effects Of Brain Fart

Brain farts are very common and they happen to everyone. In fact, by the time that most people reach the age of 65 they could be having brain farts once a day (The Science Behind Brain Farts, 2015). A brain fart is a temporary mental lapse or failure to reason correctly. Scientists call brain farts “the tip-of-the-tongue syndrome” or TOT. There are many examples of TOT that happen to people every day. We all have forgotten someone’s name, but feel like we know it. We come so close to remembering it that it’s as if it is on the tip of our tongues. We may use acoustic or semantic cues to help us. Semantic cues relate things to meaning, while acoustic cues are sounding out words or phrases to help with remembering or recall (Rathus, 2010, pg.

Anxiety or worry can frequently alter thought processes and contribute to increased occurrence of brain farts. Constant negative life patterns can change everyday life and can negatively impact our mental and physical health. Anxiety and worry cause stress reactions in the body, this in turn makes our brain and body constantly try to fix itself and regain balance again. Moreover, this contributes to increased frequency of brain farts as the brain is so active trying to stabilize life-systems, it has less energy to carry on things that aren’t as critically important at the time. Kelly Ryan, PhD, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan, explains this extremely well. She states that we shouldn’t overreact to occasional brain farts. She identifies that worry and stress are most commonly the cause. She also said, “When life gives you lemons, like worrying, it will also give you confusion and forgetfulness, simply because of the mental energy it takes to crank out the lemonade.” For example, if you are worrying, you probably won’t remember someone’s phone number as a result of your brain being too occupied with trying to fix your worries. The best method to prevent a brain fart, and improve your well-being is reducing your anxiety. This can be accomplished by figuring out the cause of the anxiety and effectively dealing with the problem. If this is done, your brain will become more efficient