HN: How can I make my brain/mind sharp again?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1469730

by BirdWatcher • 16 years ago

21 28 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

When I was a undergrad my mind was really sharp, I was clever and great at solving programming problems. Though it now has been about a year since graduation, and while doing other non programming work my mind has gone cloudy. I know it sounds funny, but it feels like their is fog or sand up there. Even looking back at past clever solutions I made, today I don't really even understand them. It's as if there is a mental block there, as if the nerve routing goes to the right place, but the signals just cant make it.

How can I get my mind sharp again and fast? What are some good but difficult problems, which will keep me interested but also work the heck out of my mind?

zexvux• 16 years ago

Get a job?

BirdWatcher4• 16 years ago

I wanted to do this before I go and get a job.

marilyn• 16 years ago

Watch for any of Dr. Daniel G. Amen's programs on PBS or read his books (Magnificent Mind at Any Age, Change your Brain, Change your Life, etc.). I've found the knowledge he shares to be incredibly useful, and practical.

tlack• 16 years ago

Are you feeling depressed and uninspired in general?

Often I find that when I'm not into what I'm doing in my life at that time, I begin to lose the mental energy to form brilliant, creative, highly structured thoughts. Once I get "the rush" again, I can barely turn off the spigot of my thoughts.

Perhaps take a week in a very different setting and reconsider what you're focusing your attentions on.

BirdWatcher4• 16 years ago

No not depressed. As for inspired, no im certainly not inspired. Cant say I have been in a very long time. I can create complex thought in verbal/written debate, but thats because I do that a lot.

detst• 16 years ago

Eat better, exercise, socialize. I don't know the specifics but maybe you're depressed. These things will help. You said you want to you want to take care of this before getting a job but a job itself might help.

Make sure you are doing something productive with your time. If you want to get it sorted out before getting a job, try freelancing, consulting, tutoring or volunteering. Be around other people and feed off their energy. Doing nothing productive with your time will make you depressed and could definitely be the cause of a cloudy mind.

seasoup• 16 years ago

Two things come to mind:

1) Program again, as much as possible. Like any other skill, you forget details of things as you spend time away from programming. Sharpen up again by programming some more.

2) Vitamin D is key in being able to focus, make sure you are getting enough vitamin D... this is true for eating well and getting plenty of sleep in general :) And lay off the pot ;P

evo_9• 16 years ago

Exercise and nutrition are huge. If you are musically inclined (or not even) playing/learning an instrument has been shown to expand the number of connections in your brain.

I would also try meditation, there was several recent articles about how quickly (like 4 days) ones mind becomes 'sharper' from just a little bit of daily practice.

dedward• 16 years ago

15 minutes of plain old clear-the-mind meditation every morning (or as often as you can). Get an egg-timer to assist. The mind is a muscle.

Get appropriate exercise and pay attention to your diet - this becomes more and more important as you age. Get appropriate sleep.

Do some programming on the side, just for fun if you can - you stay sharp at things due to practice, not due to innate unchangeable ability. If you're stuck for ideas, pick any online programming contest - there's a bunch that run continuously and automatically - and endless set of skill-sharpening questions to pick from and work up.

tocomment2• 16 years ago

How long do you recommend for the meditation?

coryl• 16 years ago

"15 minutes of plain old clear-the-mind meditation"

fictorial• 16 years ago

I cannot tell if this is a serious question or a joke!

samratjp• 16 years ago

Sounds like you could use some good ole defragging. Just get out to the nearest nature something place or a quiet spot and just sit there and watch your thoughts race by. Just do it. Don't think about anything in particular but just watch yourself think. This can do wonders if you keep at it for a while.

ratsbane• 16 years ago

Several people have already mentioned exercise and nutrition; along the same lines, drinking plenty of water is kind of a big deal.

Mutabor• 16 years ago

1. Stop smoking drinking. 2. Have fun. Programming is about having fun with ur "robots". 3. Plenty of physical activity to compensate mental activity. 4. Wake up at 6 AM. 5. Live now. no plans. Just catch the moment.

DenisM• 16 years ago

Sleep well and you will do well. Consult your phisician for proper sleep hygiene and follow the advice closely without ifs and buts.

BonoboBoner• 16 years ago

To keep your mind sharp, you need to sharpen it. Challenge yourself with e.g. coding katas: http://codingkata.org/katas/

wowik2• 16 years ago

3 things for me that help clear the fog: 1. Nutrition, diet. Cut bad sugars and fats, increase protein (necessary for 2.), keep balanced meals, take vitamins and minerals if necessary. 2. Exercise. Aerobic (running, swimming, cycling) and anaerobic (weightlifting, pushups, squats). 3. Relaxation and rejuvenation. Meditation, massage, chillout/lounge music, fiction reading.

For more information there are plenty of books on amazon.com on these topics.

wowik2• 16 years ago

Yes one more. 4. Work and sleep. A good chair at the workplace and a good mattress with pillow at the sleeping place.

pook• 16 years ago

Everyone has great advice.

I recommend learning a language or 5. Ocaml, Erlang, Lojban, Japanese, Quenya, etc. Use Mnemosyne and Smart.fm for quick, cumulative study sessions, translate webcomics and such, play golf with old programs in new and differently powerful languages.

Also, read more. You'd be amazed at how many great SF novels you can read in a year, or how quickly you can devour Misner's Gravitation at a few pages a day.

I think the overwhelming point of all this advice is to have fun. Do things that induce flow.

gte910h2• 16 years ago

I had a similar issue, turned out I wasn't sleeping enough. Here is an easy way to fix it.

You're likely more sedentary, or not going to bed early enough to deal with when you wake up.

This is a common thing for people to start doing once they start working. Here is how you get back to sleeping normal amounts:

Stop drinking all caffeine by 17 hours before you need to awake the next day to get to work in time (so if you have to wake up at 7 to get to work, stop drinking it by 2pm; you may think it doesn't keep you up, which may be true, however it does make you sleep less deeply). Try dimming your entire house/apartment 11 hours before you need to leave for work, turning off all screens, read, listen to soft music, etc for that hour before bed. No watching TV or doing anything other than sex and sleep in bed.

Then go to bed 10 hours before you need to leave for work, have a real bedtime.

Do this for about 2 weeks, and you'll find you are so mentally alert. You'll feel like your old self in no time.

BirdWatcher4• 16 years ago

Thank you, I will give it a go.

joeconyers• 16 years ago

This all sounds like good advice. I've been using f.lux lately and it seems to help.

I'm curious where you got 17 hours from? I've been cutting caffeine at around 5pm, but I can't help think this is later than I should.

gte910h2• 16 years ago

17 hours is a calculated number.

If you're trying to make sure you're sleepy enough to fall asleep 9 hours before you have to go to work, and you look at the half-life of caffeine: 4.9 hours on average (with a huge personal variance).

If you want to be "uncaffinated" when you fall asleep (which is hopefully <=8 hours before you get up, and a good 10 hours before you leave for work), you get less than 2 half-lifes, aka you get to drop your blood caffeine level to only 25% of what you had when you stop drinking it. Remember, caffeine not only causes you to stay awake, it causes your sleep to be less deep than it otherwise would.

Additionally: Effective use of caffeine means never drinking it in the morning (the only thing caffeine helps with in the morning is treating caffeine addiction. It's an antagonist of adenosine receptors, meaning it makes it so this chemical, which doesn't show up in your brain till late in the day, can't make you sleepy).

If you find caffeine helping you at all in the morning, you need to dial back your caffeine usage. It only starts becoming effective near 5-6 hours after waking up, and it's effectiveness skyrockets as the day goes on. So basically it takes less and less to keep you up the longer you stay awake (and has almost no effect to keep you up before a few hours awake, so morning coffee is somewhat silly).

If you are trying to get the adrenaline surge you can get when: 1. Not a caffiene addict, and 2. an occasionaly drinker of strong coffee, just do a few jumping jacks (like 4-9). It will do the same thing to your heart and you'll have caffeine as an effective tool around noontime which can be used to keep you awake the rest of the day at work, yet not interfere with your sleep.

silkseed• 16 years ago

Warning: Highly unapologetic comment. :) Though, I don't mean to be rude, truly; I've processed the same thoughts and endured the same uncertainty. This was just what I finally realized.

So, everyone seems to be acknowledging the fact that your mind isn't as sharp as it was (maybe I missed a comment).

Thing is, it's simple. No, don't acknowledge it. Sure, there are hardened synapses, but to a large extent that's just an excuse for people to feel sorry for themselves. O_O

So basically, just get over the fact that you think your brain's not an sharp as it was. It's a load of crap. It's still all there, and you need to just overcome to emotional inhibitions that are getting in the way of you using it.

University is a pretty safe environment for exploring --as it should be; that's its purpose if nothing else. As a result, you're pretty well emotionally oblivious to the "what-if fears" of putting everything --all your mind and all your passion- into what you do. Perfect.

When you depart, a profoundly unseen transition takes place; you don't have that environment anymore. So you continue with the momentum you had for a while --couple months, 10 years- and then it's gone. You're learned a new environment that pulls into your mind before everything else a whole mess of things; the clichés of "only what's good enough" and "dreams are just dreams."

And then there's the "age 27 factor" as I've coined from the film Proof. (actually, go it is. It's appropriate.) :) Look back over old work and you think you realize that you'll never be able to do something that great again. Again, load of crap. Honestly, for myself, I'm typically looking back over old stuff and, while realizing the significant merit they held at the time and to the process of moving to where I am now, they're working in a highly limited fashion. What consistently happens is I let their singular weight become a symbol, a pristine concept for the knowledge I gained and I hold them so much more highly that what they actually are. On a personal level, that's fine. But to compare that symbol to actual work, no. Don't do it.

So here's my final thoughts on what it boils down to: Get over it. Your brain is still all there unless you've found little bits on your pillow. It's only a simple emotional inhibition that's preventing you from actually using your brain. Don't blame it on anything else. And finally, your old work wasn't that great. (ok, so maybe it was, but it's not nearly as great as you're holding it.)

That's it. :)

BirdWatcher4• 16 years ago

Thanks. You're likely right.

HN: How can I make my brain/mind sharp again?

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