Ask HN: How to deal with increasing “brain farts” and small silly mistakes? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to deal with increasing “brain farts” and small silly mistakes?

7 points_xnmw12 comments

Does anyone else suffer from this? To give a recent example, I was doing a fairly simple math problem, while I had to do a small side calculation (16 + 8), which for some reason my brain replied with "22". It took me a second attempt at the whole problem to fix the error.

This is happening more and more often in many different ways. I'm still young (early twenties), in overall great health, good nutrition and exercise (with some room for improvement), I'm not "stupid" I would like to think, I'm a half-decent programmer, and do fairly well in many academic topics, and generally get along in life as a normal person.

I'm wondering if this is a problem related to mental stress and overworking my brain (taking 5 courses as a CS undergrad, along with part-time programming job)? I believe CS and math tax the brain and short term memory more than other professions, so has anyone here noticed this problem, and taken successful steps to reducing it?

Could be a bunch of things, but there's one that almost everyone deprives themselves of, to one degree or another: sleep.

Poor sleep is a major offender when it comes to spotty cognition, whether it's learning, planning, or working memory. Caffeine after 3pm, alcohol after 6-7pm, getting to bed too late, waking too early, inconsistent bed/wake times, exposure to bright, blue- and white-light led screens after the sun sets; all these will ruin your sleep quality in isolation and can really mess things up in aggregate over extended periods of time.

Being extremely disciplined about your sleep is the best way to crush low energy/motivation, mental fog, and even some mood trouble. It's tough to do in this 24 hour era, especially as a young adult in the tech industry, but it's well worth the effort. Don't mind if the first week or so don't feel very different; it takes a month of good sleep to "make up" one hour of lost sleep.

Getting serious about sleep isn't a fast payoff, but the eventual mental sharpness and emotional fortitude is unparalleled.

I was going to say exactly this. When I catch myself having "brain farts", it's usually after several nights of not enough sleep.

If it's not sleep, it could well be stress. I notice I make silly mistakes more often when I've been in a stressful situation for a while.

Meditation's very good for stress. So is therapy, in (almost) any of its varying forms, if you can afford it.

It's also possible that you're not making silly mistakes as often as you think you are. Are you an overachiever, prone to anxiety, or otherwise worried about your performance? All of those could be contributing to making these mistakes prey on your mind.

Finally, if these mistakes are seriously concerning you, have you tried tracking them via a medium that isn't your brain? For any sporadic problem like this, tracking it on paper or a spreadsheet, ideally with other relevant data (sleep, exercise, nutrition, stressors, off the top of my head) can often be extremely useful in pinning down what's going on. The only issue there is that sometimes tracking it can cause you to get more anxious about it - try to do so without judgement and with the expectation that you'll be able to solve the problem.

I didn't think of that! I'm definitely going to try pinning this down by recording values in a spreadsheet. Thanks!

I'd say I'm probably in a similar boat. Though not specifically with maths, but sometimes I look at the code I am writing and think "that variable will work half the time, but it isn't the right one to use there", or "of course that user input needs to be lowercased, why didn't I think of that when I wrote it".

I think much of it (for me) has to do with being completely present and engaged in the action, not half thinking of something else.

Anybody else feel the same way? If so, how have you improved?

Note, I'm not young, in my 40s.

I'm old and from experience, I'd say it's most probably a string of short nights that are starting to catch up with you. That's when I start getting "mental vapour lock."

Regularity is _very_ a good thing when it's diet, sleep, and bowel movements.

5 classes is more than full-time, yes? And adding in that part-time job and life, you aren't leaving much down time.

If you keep trying to use every hour of the day without first allotting your sleep/downtime, your situation will only get worse.

Robert Heinlein has a quote, "Always budget the luxuries first." Paraphrasing makes this apply to you: "Always budget the downtime first." What you have left after that 9-10 hours (yeah, take the time. You need to shower and eat in peace, too) is what you can use for everything else.

Don't think that because you're pursuing a four year degree that you must complete it in four calendar years. Consider what's better for your future, a degree finished according to the calendar with okay marks, or an extra year to finish with pretty good marks?

You're young and you really do have the time.

Side point, but usually 5 classes (@ 3 credit hrs each / 15 hr total) is a standard college work load, even if 12 is the legal minimum. Most degrees are impossible to complete in even 12 hours x 5 years (assuming 128 credit hour program).

Good info. Thanks.

IMHO, if money isn't the concern, then the slow completion is a user issue. I don't have the word for "doing whatever it takes to reach the goal on time."

Sometimes you just need to give up your life outside the the basic requirements (fuel/sleep/work/goal) to accomplish something. It isn't a pleasant existence, but you can reach your goal.

Remembering all the time that it is temporary and will reward you.

Try to get more sleep. This happened to me when I was sleeping less than 5 hrs a day for months on end. It's probably a combination of sleep and stress. When I decided I would sleep more, that day I left work at 2pm, and slept for 13 hrs straight, and that's when I knew i was sleep deprived.

I think this is something that definitely increases with age. I’m just past 25 and I have way more brain fart moments than I did in my late teens and early twenties.

Consistent sleep is a wonder drug.

Yes I've noticed this. Some days I find mental arithmetic to be very difficult indeed. But not only that - it also corresponds with a reduced ability to plan tasks, difficulties in finding the correct words when writing or speaking, and social blundering in that conversations don't flow as well as normal.

I'm not really sure what it's all about but it seems to come and go. This is also on a background of a constant headache that I've had for almost twenty years; it increases in severity when I'm stressed, and I get stressed when I can't think properly (or perhaps, vice versa), so maybe that's related too.

I hope you can figure out your problem. I'll be reading other replies to this question with interest.

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