
HN: How can I make my brain/mind sharp again? - BirdWatcher
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.<p>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?
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evo_9
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.

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Mutabor
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.

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detst
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.

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samratjp
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.

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seasoup
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

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pook
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.

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marilyn
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.

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silkseed
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. :)

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BirdWatcher
Thanks. You're likely right.

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

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tlack
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.

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BirdWatcher
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.

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wowik
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.

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

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

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

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zexvux
Get a job?

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

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gte910h
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.

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joeconyers
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.

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gte910h
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.

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dedward
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.

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tocomment
How long do you recommend for the meditation?

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

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tocomment
Sorry somehow I missed the fifteen in your answer. Do you think ten minutes
would do anything?

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locopati
Try it and see. More will have a deeper effect, but I believe that any amount
of focused mind-clearing has great effect (even 3 focused deep breaths at
times throughout the day helps clear the head).

