Ask HN: What is one thing that improved your cognitive skills the most? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is one thing that improved your cognitive skills the most?

39 pointsThrowawayuns49 comments

I’m wondering what people here are doing to help with their concentration, memory, energy etc

Hilariously my comment sounds like Radiohead's FITTER HAPPIER MORE PRODUCTIVE song but I swear I shot up 10 IQ points and work reputation by:

Stop drinking alcohol, as said elsewhere. It takes about 2-3 weeks of sobriety to regain 80% of the capacity you lost. It's also extremely hard on your emotional regulation, work motivation, patience, and ability to concentrate long after you think you can't feel the effects.

Stop eating carbs, namely because it makes you sleepy and unmotivated. I replaced carbs with tons of fiber and vegetables, like red cabbage, matchstick carrots, and expensive fermented foods. Don't try to imitate your old crappy diet. Stop trying to eat the best meal every night.

Perfect your sleep schedule. I used 10mg EXTENDED RELEASE melatonin about 1 hour before bedtime.

Fight less with your spouse, play boardgames.

Meditate or stare at the wall to learn how to be bored. A lot of "intelligence" is just tolerance for boring/temporarily unrewarding things. Meditation has a lot of benefits as far as clearing out some of the crud.

Exercise, even 5 minutes a day. Anything.

Make sure to work in a variety of settings. If you can take your computer to a park bench and use your phone as a wifi hotspot, great. Being in nature is speculated to improve brain health.

> Stop eating carbs, namely because it makes you sleepy and unmotivated. I replaced carbs with tons of fiber and vegetables, like red cabbage, matchstick carrots, and expensive fermented foods.

There's nothing with carbs, just that you may have been eating too many to begin with. Many many vegetables contain carbs. People shouldn't stop eating carbs, but should reflect on their intake and adjust such that they're not consuming too many, particularly simple carbs as its so easy to do.

I find the problem is more that processed foods tend to be overloaded in carbs. Most flavored drinks have lots of carbs. BBQ sauce and ketchup is basically carbs and water. Low fat food replaces fat with carbs. Hot dogs and burgers replace meat with carbs.

And then you eat a hot dog with the bread and feel like it's the bread that makes you feel bad, when it's really both of them together.

I agree, high carb and high fat food are so palatable and available everywhere, which makes them convenient.

It doesn’t take much to go above your RDI. Unfortunately to support a healthy diet you really do need to cook your own food most of the time.

When most people say "stop eating carbs", they are usually referring to the foods that have extreme amounts of carbs/sugars - "fast/junk foods", bread.

I know, but it frustrates me when people blanket say "stop eating carbs" plenty of instagrammers say that they've "quit sugar". When its just that they've quit simple processed sugars.

It sends the wrong message that carbs and sugar are bad, then they're not as long as you're not eating multiple chocolate bars.

Replying to 2 of your comments. I phrased "stop eating carbs" in the manner I had to speak to myself when first improving my diet because I HAD to use that kind of casual/humorous/forceful language. I agree I should have clarified that I really meant to restrict high glycemic index foods, but my comment was already very long and wasn't aware this specific phrasing would be so heavily scrutinized.

> Many many vegetables contain carbs.

Nobody is saying to stop eating the dietary fiber subset of carbs.

They said "stop eating carbs", there's no distinction being made, which is the point I'm calling out.

My frustration is with people and instagrammers who sprout "I quit sugar", "I quit carbs", when they haven't. They've just cut eating too much simple or processed sugars/carbs.

It sends the wrong message.

Yes I probably oversimplified my stance. I still eat carbs, just drastically reduced my intake. Especially highly processed carbs, and now aim for complex carbs as much as possible.

You sit on the Sugar Cane Council?

Im on the balanced diet committee. But I actively lobby against the ‘cut all of x because I can’t control myself and you should too’ Union.

> Perfect your sleep schedule. I used 10mg EXTENDED RELEASE melatonin about 1 hour before bedtime.

Why are so many Americans reliant on melatonin? I don't know anyone who has significant sleeping issues, and no one who takes melatonin. However it comes up quite often in conversations with folks from the US.

Are people there more likely to be stressed because work doesn't let them switch off?

It's rooted in American marketing and lack of regulation. Many people don't view melatonin as the hormone it really is. Kinda wild we can buy unlimited amounts of it with no regulation. Pretty cheap too.

I have yet to hear a clinical neurologist actually recommend melatonin for sleep management. It is highly disruptive and while you may feel you slept well, there will be nagging consequences which result in negative net gain.

Some people can't get good sleep in the US mostly because of non-stop noise/parties at night. Dogs barking, sirens, people fighting, etc. In Germany you can call police on your neighbour if they are louder than a ceiling fan. No such laws in the US.

> Stop drinking alcohol, as said elsewhere. It takes about 2-3 weeks of sobriety to regain 80% of the capacity you lost.

Capacity of what? And have you got any source on that?

The question was phrased toward the individual's anecdotal experience rather than clinical studies, and this was my experience. I phrased my answer with "you" in a casual manner. In my experience it took about a month of sobriety to restore both an ability to enjoy life even at times when I normally did not drink(from things like more interest in conversations to more patience) and fully participate mentally, but the most drastic gains were made in the first 2-3 weeks. It's impossible for me to tease out which aspects were psychological versus physical.

It likely affects different people differently. Moderate alcohol consumption doesn't seem to have a long term cognitive affect for me. No difference in cognitive abilities if I had 2-3 drinks the night before or a few months before. I'd imagine heavy drinking has a different impact, but have much experience on that. Overall, it would likely be healthier to not drink.

Hangovers and negative cognitive effects of drinking increase dramatically as people age. I’m guessing you’re 30 or under.

I noticed a dramatic drop in my memory which I attribute to drinking. I stopped two years ago but I’m probably not back to where I would be if I hadn’t been drinking.

>>I used 10mg EXTENDED RELEASE melatonin about 1 hour before bedtime

Alright this point of yours is not like the others. Using drugs to sleep is always ill advised unless really medically necessary

Can you explain more your comment about carbs? Maybe some farther reading.

It's well established that foods with high glycemic index can cause tiredness. As for your original question, it's directed toward my own experience but I phrased my response with "you"... either way refined carbs reduced my energy levels.

it's impossible to fix sleep schedule when you want to make more money.

Most of my experiences with late nights have been due to: Watching Netflix Playing video games Drinking

I find that if I skip those things I can go to bed early enough to get 8 hours and still wake up early enough to get to work first thing in the morning. Your mileage may vary especially if you have kids

Or just if you're not somewhat privileged

Sufficiently privileged to know about the importance of sleep?

To have the time to focus on things like that

You will be more productive if you get enough sleep. If your compensation is a function of your value you can afford to sleep.

I don't know about that, but I know bitterly that chronic sleep deprivation basically deatroyed the "RAM" of my brain, now it's really difficult to concentrate and go through difficult problem without rest. So instead of gritting through step 1 to 10, I have to take a rest after step 3, then make sure that step 3 was property done, then take another rest after step 6, recheck 6, and so on.

I'd argue one of the edges smart people have is to have a large RAM. They can think through all 10 steps in one shot, maybe 20-30 mins, while people like me have to take triple that time, even a full day because something interrupts us in the middle.

Conclusion: don't f**ing get kid(s) unless you really want them, as air and water, and are willing to sacrifice cognitive ability.

I agree that marriage, kids, and the complexities they present are a drag on cognition.

Can't blame anyone except myself. I actually knew that but still decided to sink into it. Back in the day I did a calculation of how much time I can save by NOT going into marriage and getting 1+ children, that calculation grossly underestimated the time saved, even without the deduction in cognition.

Repeated sessions of deep concentration in a particular subject or problem over a prolonged period clearly creates neural growth. I've tackled several extremely complex projects in my life, and in each case I found that I became increasingly proficient at working on them as time progressed. I started to realize epiphanies typically aren't that you suddenly discovered something, but are that your cognitive ability ultimately progressed to the point where you can fully understand something. By the way, in each of these periods I was regularly napping because of the mental fatigue. I have a sense that a lot of the neural growth happened during those naps.

Stop Drinking. Plenty of sleep. Relaxation away from screens. Long Walks. Pulling and pushing heavy things. Surfing.

All of these here worked for me, except surfing. Way to far inland in Canada for that to be a thing.

Gotta underscore sleep, though. When I started doing "no screens" 30 min before bed, and being strict about the time, I started sleeping better and feeling better. Better sleep meant less coffee, less jitters, and more focus.

edit: a word

I feel that the basics like sleep, going outside before 10am and exercise were the most helpful. I also picked up tons of useful tips from Huberman Labhttps://hubermanlab.com/understand-and-improve-memory-using-...

Ample sleep, healthy diet, quality exercise, walking through natural areas, and a good social life.

Ample sleep and a good social life are often contradictory.

There are several things that I believe have increased my cognitive abilities. If I had to choose one, it would be 1.

1. Keeping learning and applying new things. New skills like new programming languages, new math, new strategy games, new situations in life in general.

2. Teaching. Whether a peer or a junior or anyone. I taught people since very early in life (say 6th standard). I believe this to be a knowledge multiplier.

3. Programming is a superpower that enables you to think in newer ways, solve problems in newer ways. Learned Prolog, Scheme, Haskell, Ruby, C++, Julia, APL- even if I don’t use them in my work/projects. I kept learning newer things- genetic algorithms, ML, non-linear dynamics, game programming, and coded newer things. This is great.

4. Meditation. It made me calmer, helped me make better decisions. More focused in learning, find patterns quicker and more intently. It's an anti-dote to scrollvirus infested world.

5. Exercise. Doing less is fine as long as I do it regularly.

6. Sleep. Always slept 7-9 hours since childhood.

7. I believe even small exposures to newer areas of knowledge increases your intelligence. It doesn't remotely make you an expert in those areas, but it makes you better in your field/s.

8. Art is really important and significant in my life. Performing arts and consuming them- are both great and enable different things in your life. Reading novels had made me more empathetic and exposed me to different worldviews. It has been valuable. When giving a presentation/convincing someone of a view- all the instincts I learned from performing arts kicks in. Some would call me crazy but while writing theorems, this happens, too. Also art is a great escape, using which you can turn off from the real world and heal from pains/unpleasant situations which enables you learn new things. Learning to play a piece on piano/guitar is like solving a programming problem (yourself, not memorize it). Your brain is in fire.

9. Solving problems regularly makes your brain better in the short term. Like solving Codeforces problem or automating a significant something in Factorio. Just like if you want to look in better shape for few hours, 20 push ups achieve this for you; solving 2 codeforces problems each day for 6 days will enable you to be in sharper state for the next two days.

10. Believing yourself as a force of good in the world helps you stay motivated in trying times.

11. Having a close friend/SO helps a lot.

The sooner you realize that cognitive skills are tied to your mental and physical wellbeing, the better.

Get bored. Omega 3. Cardio improves brain function more than weightlifting (sad). Do what you are good at and interested in, don't waste energy and don't accumulate stress with stuff that's not for you (this is huge and very underrated, although it cannot be done 100% of the time obviously).

I hear that non-fish derived omega-3 is better because it's less likely to have oxidized before/during extraction. Not sure how true that is, but wanted to throw that out for discussion.

Block time on your calendar for deep work. Eliminate interruptions during deep work time.

Learn the pattern of common logical fallacies. Practice finding them in yourself and your interlocutors.

Write down your thoughts. Writing things down forces you to structure them.

Talk to people you disagree with. Actively challenge your own assumptions and conclusions. When you lose an argument you gain knowledge. When you engage in an argument in good faith (allowing that you could be wrong) you test your assumptions and conclusions.

If I had to pick one thing I would say gaming.

But then I overdid it and played too much and slept too little. Now I rarely play games.

The one thing?

Actually caring about the activity, if I care about what I'm doing everything improves cognitively.

Probably explaining what I think I know/understand to someone else. You have to understand things clearer to be able to do that so it's a forcing function.

The more of this you do the easier it is to categorize information and ideas leading to less cognitive load and increasing capacity.

The Pomodoro Technique is a life saver

Thinking, lots of purposeful thinking. Reading, carefully choosing what to read, thinking about the lessons learned and figuring out how to put them in practice.

Turning off overhead lights around 9pm and getting sunlight in the morning. This gave me a consistent sleep schedule. Sleep is mental strength.

Wait, y’all are out there improving your cognitive skills?

Nothing. It's been a slow decline.

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