When I rather nervously shared a personal post about dealing with brain fog at work on the social network LinkedIn last week, I had no idea that it would have such an enormous impact.

It's been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. Women have stopped me on the street to talk to me about it.

I've been overwhelmed by hundreds of messages from people sharing support and their own experiences of it.

Usually I cover technology news. But given the response, it felt important to talk about this as well.

"Brain fog" isn't a medical term. But you may well know exactly what I'm talking about.

That moment when you suddenly can't remember the word for something really obvious, or you're mid-sentence and you lose your train of thought. It's infuriating, and it can be embarrassing.

Where was I?

Ah yes, for me, as a woman in my 40s, it's coincided with perimenopause – the stage in my life where my hormone levels are changing. There can of course be other neurological conditions for which brain fog can be a symptom too.

If you're in a job where public speaking is part of what you do, it can be particularly terrifying.

"I've spent 30 years being professionally articulate," wrote Janet Edgecombe, an internal communications expert.

"All of a sudden I'm forgetting the words for basic things. 'That grey thing in the thingy that we cook chicken on'. My husband replies 'oh, the baking tray in the oven'. Hmm. 'Yeah, that thing'."

I also heard from teachers, start-up founders having to present pitches for money to investors, women running workshops, delivering speeches – and fellow journalists trying to report live on-air, like me. But of course it can also hit mid-conversation, in a more intimate but no less frustrating way.

My post was about my decision to hold a page of notes on the BBC News at Ten. A story had broken late in the afternoon, following an already busy day, and by the time we reached 10pm, I knew I was getting tired and I could........

© BBC