Diet, sleep, and exercise are needed in combination. The highest performers across many professions tend to sleep the most. Exercise helps make better use of the foods you are eating and produces the hormones you need to think clearly.
As for supplements to help, examine.com has a bounty of information: https://examine.com/topics/Cognition/
This cannot be stressed enough. I have started to sleep at least 7.5 hours each day. But most of the days it is proving to be difficult and I am able to complete only 6 hours. Still having a routine comfortable sleep has worked wonders for my mood and productivity.
If you have trouble sleeping, try going cold turkey on coffee. It will suck for a couple of days, but you'll feel better.
Once you get used to it, turn it back on sometime temporarily. It's incredibly blinding.
I've also experimented with intermittent fasting, only eating between noon and 8pm. That also, for me, helped eliminate the slump.
After I started morning exercise, I almost never get the afternoon doldrums, and if I do, it can be attributed to either poor sleep or poor diet. I feel solidly productive for the entire day now; though on lazy weekends, I'll take a solid long nap.
For more context, at a minimum I do 3 days of CrossFit at a competitive gym (meaning it can be a bit more than what you would typically find for that kind of exercise programming), normally at 5:30am. Food typically starts off with overnight oats and/or eggs, bacon, spinach, cottage cheese, and the like. Lunch bounces around, but often includes salad and/or rice and some meat. Dinner is usually similar but of better quality compared to lunch. And I try to be asleep before 9pm.
Snacking (or binging) on junk foods or lack of good sleep can sometimes bring afternoon slumps, but not very often. If those do hit, working from a different spot helps. Maybe standing instead of sitting, working from a couch instead of a desk, or working in the kitchen with coworkers milling around.
Fasting, done right, can also improve mental clarity.
I've heard a lot of anecdotal stuff about keto and magical side effects, but I really wonder if it's effects are from losing weight/eating a better balanced diet. In my experience it's really easy to overeat with carbs. Sugar in particular gives me crazy cravings.
First I started a "future food" liquid diet (Queal) together with running 5K 3 times a week. The change in diet (I was eating mostly precooked and fast-food) and the exercise worked pretty well.
Then I switched to other future food providers, but I was finding it difficult to gain muscle while not gaining fat. As it turns out, it's all in the macros. Most Soylent-like products are catered towards sedentary people who come from very crappy diets, or who don't mind having a less-than-ideal diet for convenience.
At one point I was already almost doing my own DIY powders (using one commercial brand as a base and adding my own fat and protein, to keep the carbs low). Then, after 3 or 4 months reading and researching the ketogenic diet, I decided to go all in and start my own DIY ketogenic powdered food diet.
I enjoy tinkering with pretty much everything, so coming up with a proper formula and tweaking it was and still is an amazing experience for me.
I encourage you to at least give keto a try. It's true that "whole food" keto is a bit hard, and it's also hard to keep track of all the micronutrients you need and where to get them. Either way, the benefits are incredible.
Apologies for the lengthy response.
Edit: Oh, sorry for not addressing one of your points. Actually, the amazing increase in brain function is felt quite early into the diet, when no weight loss (other than water encased in glycogen) has happened yet.
>I was finding it difficult to gain muscle while not gaining fat.
If you're doing some kind of strength program, once you squeeze out your noob gains your progress will stall pretty hard unless you're eating a caloric surplus. It's an insanely frustrating dilemma: do I want to get stronger and fatter or lose some weight and get more muscle definition?
Regarding my DIY, it's around 90 €/month for 2000 kcal with 90 g protein, 28 g fiber and all micronutrients covered. Of course, I'm from Spain, where EVOO is dirt cheap, and it accounts for all of my non-protein calories.
*: Or, rather, not a deficit. Calorie deficit/surplus stops making sense once you take hormone regulation and fasted/fed state into account.
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/one-dose-kitchen-spice-impr...
I do feel more energetic when doing sports. Not sure about my brain yet. :D
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MT-TEMWooXMZ5u5CxMbi...
Even better if I bike to/from but the greenway isn't ready yet so it can get real muddy.
Growing up with American public school lunches, I never really became a lunch person. I just let breakfast carry me to dinner. Avoiding grains and sugars allows my blood sugar (and thus insulin) levels to stay constant throughout the day. I’ve found that if I spike blood sugar with grains and sugars I tend to be generally unproductive after I eat, and barely productive at all when I get the inevitable sugar crash.
My overall philosophy, divided by macronutrient:
* Lots of high quality protein (grass fed beef, free range chicken, tempeh, etc)
* Minimize high GI (glycemic index, meaning it spikes blood sugar and insulin) carbs
* Healthy fats (avocados, flax seed oil, etc)
Raw almonds are a good example of 2 & 3 combined
I'm not perfect but it takes a while to develop habits and I've gotten into a good habit.
A few simple points I normally follow:
* Food takes energy to digest. Don't eat a lot just before you need to think, have a small snack instead. In general, smart your day with a small amount of food. If you eat lots for one single meal, assume you will need time to recover.
* Sugar brings you up fast, brings you down faster. If you do have sugar, caffeine seems to be good for keeping you up a while. Carbohydrates can also help keep you up for a while.
* Caffeine is generally good, but make sure to decaffeinate to bring down your tolerance occasionally.
* Protein seems to generally be good for brain growth and maintenance.
* Fats in small quantities are apparently needed for neural connections, but those can be got in many forms.
* Iron to prevent anemia (which a surprising number of people have).
In general, stuff that is good for the rest of the body tends to be good for the mind.
* Postpandrial crashes are insulin-blood sugar crashes. Just keep the glycemic load in check and you're good to go.
* Carbohydrates can also make you crash hard afterwards. Unless you start snowballing them, but that's a horrible idea.
* Effects similar to that of caffeine can be obtained without having to resort to psychoactive drugs. Meditation, for one, can have a tremendous effect on focus.
* Brain growth? What is that?
* Some fatty acids are essential for survival as we cannot synthesize them ourselves. Also, why small quantities? Dietary fat is generally by no means a bad thing.
* Exactly. And I'd go further and add some electrolytes and other vitamins, too.
Edit: I'm also not a doctor nor a medical professional and this is all based on opinion, papers I've read and personal experience.
>* Postpandrial crashes are insulin-blood sugar crashes. Just keep the glycemic load in check and you're good to go.
Not had much success with this, but not experimented with it too much either. What would be an example where you do this?
>* Carbohydrates can also make you crash hard afterwards. Unless you start snowballing them, but that's a horrible idea.
I had foods like pasta/rice and bananas in mind. I think some high carb foods do act as you say, but generally in small proportions they tend to be beneficial. I think you only get a hard crash (like sugar) when you have too much.
>* Effects similar to that of caffeine can be obtained without having to resort to psychoactive drugs. Meditation, for one, can have a tremendous effect on focus.
I found meditation completely ineffective, but I already have my own form of reducing stress and putting everything into perspective.
Also, there have been plenty of studies done showing that caffeine in general has a net benefit. Other than people with existing heart issues, sensible consumption of caffeine tends to have a net benefit.
>* Brain growth? What is that?
I'm still relatively young and my reasoning is that I haven't stopped growing yet as far as I know, or at least my brain needs to replace this stuff when new connections are made. It's also generally good for every other part of your body.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200301/brain-power-...
http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/role-protein-brain-function-...
>* Some fatty acids are essential for survival as we cannot synthesize them ourselves. Also, why small quantities? Dietary fat is generally by no means a bad thing.
I agree, but I think it's easy to have too much in a diet.
>* Exactly. And I'd go further and add some electrolytes and other vitamins, too.
My assumption is that most people are eating enough mixture of foods to get this stuff anyway. If someone was running low on a vitamin, I think it's more beneficial to eat an associated food.
Iron seems to generally be low for a lot of people from speaking to doctors, a lot of people are anemic and not even aware. Of course, eating green vegetables is a great way to get iron.
>Edit: I'm also not a doctor nor a medical professional and this is all based on opinion, papers I've read and personal experience.
Same.
That's the hard part. When I quit my daily coffee habit, I didn't even go cold turkey. I switched to tea. I still had a constant headache and nausea for two days.
But don't eat until you are "really" full, stop 3 bites after you are not feeling hungry.
I like -and it is proven to be more healthy- to always keep food with me, and not eat just 3 BIG meals, but many small ones
Also Fasting in the the correct timing helps mental attention and clarity
Eg https://qualiacomputing.com/2016/12/12/the-hyperbolic-geomet...
Caffeine/tobacco are some modern less "powerful" ones.
Along these lines, I maximize my productivity by paying most attention to my digital consumption, and avoiding the toxic, addictive, digital foods. Staying off of threads like this one is really, really useful. It’s far more useful than my diet of fresh fish, nuts, and other fatty foods alongside vegetables, legumes, and whole grains that are in all honesty less important than the company I enjoy the meal with.
The what is so much less important than the how.
Sugar and caffeine both have a rebound effect, that big (tasty) sandwich and resulting afternoon hangover, etc.
long term: varied but balanced diet (diversified portfolio strategy), the body likely takes care of all the messy details
Many others here mention sleep and exercise. Hydration should also be considered. I would strongly be in favor is someone suggested a causal link between quality of life and brain functioning. Just look at how long it takes you to die without {air, water, food, sleep, mobility, social interaction} and weigh their importance accordingly.