Talk:Brain fag syndrome

Please
Please don't delete this page - if you look at culture-bound syndrome, someone put a link to Brain Fag and I am simply adding the relevant article. This is a serious article. Cheers.--Conmalone 18:04, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Please 2
Dear contributers: please keep this article serious instead of making it a racist slur. It is well known that these symptoms can be caused by a lack of vitamine D. It in fact sounds exactly like the symptoms. No "culture clash" nor is speaking English a disorder that affects the brain. The fact as someone else here states is that it happened in the USA in the 1900's too. If it's about culture clashes and english, Australia, Britain, Canada and the US should all have this massively and exclusively. I think this article belongs to some vitamin D deficiency article! http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/ken121v1

I added a link from "brain fog", which seems to be a western version of the same thing, but associated with other illness that might be somatic. I'm unsure if they should be merged, but brain fag does seem like a very specific West African syndrome, separate from the western version. Herd of Swine 20:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

They are certainly similar, but I wouldn't be in favour of merging the two. Brain fag is a very distinct culture-bound syndrome. Any interest in expanding the article? ;-) --Conor 16:11, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * it's not as culture bound as it sounds, brain fag has a long history in the US. It was in the dictionary in 1900:. I've added some references to the article.
 * The connection with brain fog is interesting. brain fog has been used (in the late 1800s) as a synonym for brain fag, but seemed to mostly have a separate usage of confusion and lack of clarity, rather than an overworked brain.  Both terms fell out of use after the 1950s, but "brain fog" has be revived as a symptom for potentially somatic illnesses such as CFS and MCS (google it, note a high degree of quackery associated with "brain fog").  I would think that "brain fag" would fit better, esp for CFS, but obviously the usage of the word "fag" is problematic, so "fog" is used.  I suspect this might have led people to have more "foggy" thinking than "fatigued" thinking, since the word defines the symptoms in somatic manifestations.   Herd of Swine 19:51, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Seems likely that "fag" is a contraction of "fagged out", Commonwealth English slang for being tired...or reaching the "fag end" i.e. approaching a conclusion. If it is in fact related etymologically to "fatigue", then perhaps only indirectly.drone5 (talk) 08:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Fag vs fog
After looking into google books I see that brain fag and brain fog have a history of being used interchangeably, not to say that the descriptions are strikingly similar. And to me the two articles look like strong candidates for merging. Therefore the tag "distinguish" is rather a wikipedian's opinion. So I am replacing it with the milder expression "Compare", leaving to the reader to decide, whether to distinguish them or not. Twri (talk) 15:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This article is mainly about the modern African usage. The term "brain fag" fell out of use in the West a few decades ago, probably due to negative connotations of "fag", and "brain fog" remained.  Braind fag is more specifically a brain that is tired from presumed over-use, whereas brain fog is a unfocussed brain - usually a symptom of something else.  Herd of Swine (talk) 20:38, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Brain Fag is associated with western classrooms
This article does not mention that the problem only happens in western style classrooms but not in traditional African apprenticeship training.

Too close side-by-side classroom seating replicates the situation of 1960's too close workstations for knowledge workers that produced mental breaks. The evidence that this does happen in classroom type situations comes from est seminars here and around the world. Taking college class notes would replace office knowledge work to supply full mental investment for Subliminal Distraction exposure.

Subliminal Distraction, explained in first semester college psychology lectures about peripheral vision reflexes, was discovered in 1964 and solved by engineers with the office cubicle by 1968.

If the mental break it can cause is mentioned in those lectures, it is treated as something that happened only once long ago not an everyday potential experience. My instructor said, "Subliminal sight caused a problem in the early days of modern office design."

The human physiology involved, from those lectures, is explained at VisonAndPsychosis.Net. The site outline page there has the unrealized history of this problem. It didn't start in 1964. It has always been present in any human population to cause behaviors we today would understand to be mental illness.

Too-close single-room primitive living arrangements holds groups together so that Subliminal Distraction is possible even in native or indigenous culture groups to cause behaviors defined as Culture Bound Syndromes. (Look at Wendigo Psychosis or Ghost Sickness among Native American or First Nation groups in Canada.) When examined CBS's have similar outcomes, but shaped by cultural or ethnic beliefs, once you understand Subliminal Distraction.

I am the copyright owner of VisionAndPsychosis.Net. The original ten year investigation site with the full Culture Bound Syndromes page is available only using the Wayback Machine.

L K Tucker 108.206.18.197 (talk) 19:42, 24 May 2013 (UTC)


 * As interesting as that theory is, it's "original research" by Wikipedia standards until passing through a third party Wiki considers "reliable". Some of the independent bits where specific studies are mentioned can be cited, but not in order to make an argument the way you have. I know it can be frustrating, but Wiki is intended as an encyclopedia, not a journal, is the best way I can put it. They only aggregate information for a summary of current accepted facts, they don't synthesize it into new theories. 97.102.79.98 (talk) 19:25, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Neutral Point of View - Brain fag syndrome is a culture-bound syndrome, a subject to folk medicine, an made-up illness
First of all, the text of this article is in many instances ill-sounding. Anyways: BFS is a culture-bound illness. A condition that has mainly mental symptoms, very rarely somatic ones, and is not a real, defined disease. It is a disease made up by folklore. "discovered in Nigeria" No! There is no mechanism to it! The article should reflect this. - Immernoch EkelAlfred (Spam me! (or send me serious messages, whatever...) 19:39, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Fake?
Is brain fag syndrome real? Kevenoco (talk) 00:24, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Etymology
As the primary usage of 'fag' in contemporary American English is a slur, I've added an etymology section. I see there was some discussion on this topic above many years back. Walkersam (talk) 23:26, 24 April 2022 (UTC)