Thinking hard makes the brain tired
economist.com
economist.com
It doesn't feel good.
The key distinguishing what I felt with burnout from just being mentally tired is that no problem, no matter how hard it was to solve (or even if I failed miserably at solving it) has ever caused me to instanteously feel 100% mentally exhausted. By contrast, when burnt out, even fairly trivial work tasks would trigger this.
So in the meantime, I'm kind of just putting in the minimal effort at work, not doing any side projects, and going on lots of really really long walks. That seems to be slowly helping.
I have read more about being able to use short and long term disability, which might help, or be a viable part of a strategy. If you do this, I'd recommend having your own insurance and not using your state or companies disability insurance.
What I found helps is spending as much time outdoor as possible, preferably in the sun and in the wild nature, especially if they're light hike. Try to do that at least half a day every weekend.
Hope you get better.
I did once have an experience with nitrous oxide where I heard something similar and subsequently had a pretty major shift in my thinking process for awhile.
It has been a little over 2 years since I left my job from burnout, now I am doing something completely different and a lot less intense. But I don't think I could ever go back to what I once did. I have permanently blowen out half my cylinders. ;)
I've been pondering changing my job, but I worry that I'd be just a low performer in the new place.
Changing the problem from having to figure the simple but tedious thing myself, to having to review someone else's solution, is like switching to a less obstructed track. > 50% of the time, ChatGPT is wrong in some way. But it's also close enough, and/or mentions some magic phrase or a hitherto unknown to me library function, that it's both interesting and motivating.
1. It lowers the activation energy of getting started; for me motivation tends to come after action, and it gets me to that point.
2. It taps into the intense drive of "someone is wrong on the internet!" as per https://xkcd.com/386/
3. It's a new and different way of working so it doesn't trigger the same mental scar tissue.
4. It's vaguely social and high-status (delegating tasks, correcting and reviewing), as opposed to feeling solitary, so it tickles different reward centres.
5. More gets done for the same effort, so the cost/benefit equation is better and the feedback loop tighter.
I’m paraphrasing, and I don’t remember the specific episode. But look it up because it might help start turning it around for you.
What definitely does not help is using stimulants to try to push through. I feel like I’m seeing more and more social media posts from people who deepen their burnout by trying to use excessive caffeine intake (or stronger prescription stimulants) to try to ignore the warning signs and push on.
It is like overclocking your brain. Sometimes it is what you want, but it comes at a cost.
The main fixes I’ve found for myself are:
- Get a lot of exercise and sunlight (if possible) to counteract the caffeine’s effect on sleep.
- Resist the urge to have more caffeine than usual when tired. It works well as an enhancer to a well-rested brain, but when used to compensate for sleep deprivation, it’s counter-productive.
Eventually I figured out that a solid blast of cold brew in the morning and none the rest of the day worked better —- almost like medicine. Like you say, if I feel I need more then it’s a lifestyle problem.
i think a lot of people drink cups and cups of coffee because the first one just isn't strong enough. get a strong buzz first, get your shit done, and then let it coast down. probably why many europeans start with a strong espresso and asians drink less-caffeinated tea throughout the day. drinking coffee all day long seems like a solution in search of a problem.
Because for me stimulants have helped against the symptoms that are described for burn out. By that I mean things like lack of motivation, helplessness, frustration, anxiety, incapability to feel pleasure, cynicism, sense of failure, self-doubt, etc.
While stimulants have a withdrawal period, I prefer to have an option to be productive and motivated for a certain amount of time and then when I don't have to do anything, it's fine to comedown as opposed to being constantly in that depressive state of mind.
Because stimulants remind me that it's possible to feel motivated, essentially. Otherwise I would never feel motivated. It would be a constant grayness.
And I can learn from the mindset I was able to have while being under the effect.
I also do few weeks of breaks to reduce tolerance and dependency when times are easier.
On top of that both anger and anxiety attacks, you know all the fun stuff.
Of course this is different for almost anyone but I’ve spoken with some folks who’ve had similar-ish symptoms.
Related: see also Ballmer Peak[0], which is particularly funny because the effect is, to a degree, real.
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[0] - https://xkcd.com/323/
So each month I have a period of a little over a week of break.
RE my break, I maybe had only a day of "withdrawal" that was more of a little panic mode, that lasted until I realized I'm really managing just fine, only maybe slightly less so. Week later, I was still managing fine - though everything was noticeably harder, and I was only compensating with habits developed since starting the treatment (and perhaps novelty of such long break itself).
I consider this a feature not a bug. Now go focus on important things in life: money, sex, and exercise. Don't overthink. Learning another state management method in new generation of Angular, unwinding a mess created by CV-driven FOMO hysterics, acrobatics in Java design patterns... they're all not worth it.
not that easy is it
Nobody really noticed. My raise this year didn't keep up with inflation. I could have let the project fail like it should have, rather than burning myself out. Maybe I would have received some of the blame, but chances are I'd still just be making the same amount of money if I had just cared less.
You've gotta toot your own horn. Relying on others to do it for you is a surefire recipe for disappointment and disillusionment. Think of it like a business. If the business does no marketing, what's going to be the result? Bankruptcy.
I've known many bitter people who did something great, and nobody knew about it because they thought it was unseemly to write papers about it, present about it at conferences, etc.
It's often necessary to make sure they notice, by telling them. A good method is to email your manager a weekly summary of what you accomplished, including extra hours you spent on it. This is especially worth while if you're working remote.
Now, if only I had the space for it…
And here's an example of an apartment woodshop, you can get started with many less tools than this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybvuuVRlSWc
r/handtools is another good place for questions/information on that.
Your body learned that 'working really really hard for this resulted in very little tangible reward' and then probably concluded 'i will not work very hard for long periods of time without seeing reward'
Probably the hardest part is understanding that 'i made a number in a database increase' is not actually a reward.
Counterpoint: this is like considering various peculiarities of software from 1980s to be features in 2020s. Yes, our bodies are well tuned. To an environment we've lived in until our ancestors, thousands of years ago, boarded a metaphorical rocket ship, and left it flying under constant acceleration.
In certain aspects, we're quite far from the environment we evolved in, and evolution has lost the ability to keep pace some time around when it granted us with ability to develop a language more complex than a few grunts.
It's true this kind of thing can crop up even under the best labor conditions, but much much less frequently. Startup founders do run into it and they own their work product.
Still if workers get a significant share of the total value they produce and have good control of their working conditions (and can change projects easily), I suspect this will get a lot better.
this reminds me of the men in black scene [1] where Will Smith moves the table. you get to decide what kind of person you are
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dijVbM9DpxU&ab_channel=Creep...
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[0] - Related concept: "society is fixed, biology is mutable". The flip side of the well-known (if annoyingly overused) adage, "you can't fix social problems with technology" is that if your problem is a social one, you've already lost. Social problems are unsolvable by direct approach; literally anything else is easier than getting people to coordinate at scale, when it means enduring a short-term personal loss for a long-term distributed gain. If you have that kind of problem, pray there's a way to medicate, industrialize, capitalize, code, or CRISPR your way out of it.
[1] - Unique at the scale we're talking about. There's a huge gap between us and the next animals best skilled at adapting themselves or the environment.
I read this list as: requires stable employment, requires stable employment, is torture. The first two items... are not something I can focus in lieu of my job, they're literally the point of it (I long ago gave up on the idea of Finding Fulfilling Work That Is Also Your Passion And That Is Net Good For The World).
For me, I needed(/need - this is not a solved problem) to find a way that works for me, and also take it in the tiniest of little bites.
I tried for years to get into running. Never worked. I hate running. I tried to go to the gym, but all the classes went way too hard for me and my local didn't do "just show up and lift", only classes. I tried riding a bike, but I could never find a way to do that where I wasn't dodging cars, rain, hills and heat.
Finally last year I bought a rowing machine and a heart rate monitor. I put my headphones on, listen to a podcast, and focus on keeping my heart rate in a specific zone for a certain amount of time. If it's hot, I turn on the AC. If I get sick of it, I stop. I dont have to dodge cars, so I can completely dissociate and listen to the podcast so long as the number is where I want it to be.
It's great and generally not torture, which is nice because apart from team sport it's literally the only way I've found that isn't.
For me, all common forms of exercise feel like torture when doing them, or when thinking about doing them, or both. Most of it isn't even for physical reasons, just a combination of anxiety, procrastination, and the kind of general sports aversion you develop when you get prescribed glasses when you're 7 y.o. and thus go through 10+ years of schools not being able to effectively participate in team sports during PE classes...
As for buying a machine, I highly recommend going to a gym during a quiet period if you can find one that will let you do a trial or a day pass. Then you can try all the machines and find the one that you think sucks the least. Rowing is good because it does loads of muscle groups, but ultimately that doesn't mean anything if you hate it.
E: the thing that changed the game for me was a good hr monitor. Smart watch was full of crap, and just listening to my body made me go way too hard too fast.
The sun is too hot, the wind is too cold. The puddles are a twisted ankle just waiting to happen. I don't want people to see me running - it makes me self conscious of every part of my body and my running form. I don't want to check the little free library during my exercise - that's a break in my flow.
On a machine, I don't have to worry about any of that. I just go, and when I reach my time goal, or I don't feel like it anymore, I stop. I can close my eyes if I want to without worrying about falling over. I can make all the exertion noises I want to if it's hard. I don't have to walk all the way home if I go too hard too early by mistake and get a stitch.
And the best bit is that your way and my way are both totally valid ways of exercising. The important bit is not how we exercise, the important bit is that we exercise.
Meanwhile, I go to kung-fu training and get pretty annoyed when I have to skip a class once. Sports can be wayy more fun and I wouldn't worry about the social aspect so much - adults can behave better than teenagers.
Of course, I run in quiet areas where my mind can drone off and think about interesting things.
The point is, I mistook my dislike of running, cycling and HIIT for a dislike of exercise for basically my whole 20s, and it turns out that's not true at all. I just had to figure out the version that worked for me.
One should avoid running on concrete pavements. Consider alternatives such as grass or tarmac.
Increase your cadence to at least 170 strides per minute. More if you can. This forces you to lower stride length. Overstriding is a main cause for shin splints.
Also try to think about your hips when you run. An anterior hip tilt will put excess stress on shins and quads. Tense your glutes when running to keep hips level. Imagine you are carrying a bowl of water in your hips and try not to spill!
Also weak glute medius will cause knee pain and potentially shin splints. Try strengthening up the glutes and shortening stride length.
Good luck!
These are great tips! I've had issues with weak / under-activated glute medius for years, but I didn't think about that causing the shin splints. I'll give the 170 stride a minute tip a try.
Thanks!
Sarcasm?
Not all forms of burnout results in trauma responses, but they all require extended recovery. Burnout is preventable, but once it has been reached, the damage has been done and rest is required. No joke: 3-6 months is the usual recovery time.
Paths to occupational burnout: - No mental rest from work. "Taking it home with you." Often skipping breaks to keep focused. - Jobs that require high amounts of mental processing for long periods (customer service, development, troubleshooting, multitasking, urgent-response).
"Brown out" is the stage when you're still capable of functioning in spurts, but your brain/body is sending warning signs (that we have been taught to ignore).
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_burnout?wprov=sft...
also at 6 months im trying to get back to work and the interview process and job market sucks so im feeling miserable again haha
Oh and in terms of ChatGPT, I just meant it's something fun that I use for other interesting projects due to how flexible the composability is (LangChain, etc)... not so much directly as a therapist-bot if that's what you were asking.
Interviewing sucks.
My email is in my profile if you want to chat. Good luck with the return to work.
There was no specific point when I felt like: Ok, I am out of this mode, but the transition was visible.
Don't wish this feeling on anyone - its a terrible terrible place to be.
Sometimes I wonder whether "burnout" or "occupational burnout" describes something I have experienced in college. It was not a spectacular or intense thing, just losing interest in my subject completely and avoiding getting started with exercises, even though I was decently good at my subject and loved the hours and hours I spent studying.
Or that without fundamentally changing the set and setting of one's life, one can expect, on average, approximately the same metrics now as tomorrow, and so on and so forth.
Therapy and medication help, for some people, some of the time.
> Sometimes I wonder whether "burnout" or "occupational burnout" describes something I have experienced in college. It was not a spectacular or intense thing, just losing interest in my subject completely and avoiding getting started with exercises, even though I was decently good at my subject and loved the hours and hours I spent studying.
The fact that you use the past tense means you got past it? If so, I'd appreciate any advice
I'd love to give you advice so much, however I forced myself through it and started to work in a different carreer.
Perhaps if you can get out in the real world then you will find real problems and those will likely motivate you (if you are anything like me, anyway). The most motivated students I recall were already working, and they picked and chose relevant academic focus that could help them with their design work (i.e. they could get some value from the academic system). Even though work is often depressing in itself (varies on a huge number of factors).
Ideally, try and discover what really motivates you. I like this idea, although I haven’t tried it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29912252
Edit: perhaps relevant: I was depressed due to a relationship. She ended the relationship with me, and the next day I was long-term happy. Turns out situational depression is a thing, and that it is entirely different from clinical depression (which doesn’t fix itself in a day - exception fast bipolar?). If you feel unhappy, sometimes you have the ability to fix the situation that is making you unhappy!
Good luck.
But if burnout is trauma, is taking a break from work really enough to resolve the trauma? I ask because that seems insufficient in the case of other traumas, e.g. undergoing physical or emotional abuse, surviving violent accidents, etc.
Apparently it isn't, much like in case of physical trauma. GP mentioned people switching careers.
I know a person who got burned out when their boss tried to make them do 2D and later 3D design for the company, on top of their normal assignments, because he didn't want to hire a new graphics designer after the last one quit. Said person gained basic proficiency in some CAD software, Photoshop, Corel, and then burned out on 3DS Max, to the point of having strong physical reactions at the very though of it, even many years later. It's a psychological wound that can't heal, and it closed off 3D graphics as a line of work for that person. Trauma is one of the words we used when talking about it over the years.
See e.g.:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18979198/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/mitochondria-may-hold-keys-to...
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
This guy is giving out mental health advice based on not understanding what he is talking about. I think that is dangerous and isn't a place for being polite.
I get the guidelines for inconsequential topics, but pretending something is valid when engaging with something that could be harmful seems like its elevating its legitimacy. In this case there is plenty of reading to do on the topic of burnout causes.
I guess the simplest answer from you would be the answer to this question. If i posted something encouraging people to not take vaccines, how does that discussion get handled? Does every comment and thought really get treated equally with curious responses? I guess to me it seems fair to, be short direct and point out the misinformation even if it appears to be flaming
Anyway stuff like this https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/six_causes_of_...
is why suggesting taking supplements to cure burnout and dropping an irrelevant link to a study about mental illness is uninformed and what I said isn't unsubstantive.
I'll hit report in the future then, thanks for the back and forth and explaining.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fFY2HeC9i2Tx8FEnK/luck-based...
The above advice is solid, but I would add number of others. CoQ10, C in multiple forms, ALCAR, D, Bromelain, concentrated fish oil, etc.
I am also convinced they do not work for me, because of the premises.
If you could fight deficiency with a mind, we would not have deficiency disesases.
> If you could fight deficiency with a mind, we would not have deficiency disesases.
That is so true. The thing is, a lot of diseases get treated as a deficiency disease.
Science is important. In accute phase response deficiency is the norm, as one example.
And/or nasty interactions with prescription drugs when you do it incorrectly.
I’ve taken a break off work for ~7 months but it seems that wasn’t enough to get back to the level I was used to before.
While this sucks, I’m kind of happy I’m apparently not the only one that experiences this
While I am not full luddite (I mean I am on here!) - I fell into a similar funk. I just do not really care for the higher level stuff of computers and technology any more. I love the potential of what we can do with computers but I am also starting to feel that we need to make that connection between the higher mental state of pure information that we use them for today and move more into a state of them interacting with the real world in simple fashion.
This is probably a part of my Stallman streak in me but am also more in line with Jaron Lanier. See the potential and then get disappointed by the results.
But I am so much more into my cooking, premaculture, just chilling with friends or even by myself down by the river. Yeah, I still have a 9 to 5 job but that whole 'tech' angle is just gone. There are occasional little sparks of interest but they rarely last longer than a half hour.
To bring it back to tech in the real world, the idea of a computer monitoring and controlling a little glass house out the back of my house is really cool. But this is something an Ardiuno could do. A lot of things I want to see tech do in my own daily life can potentially be done on an Amiga 1000. I am still into tech but the lens through which I use it has changed a lot.
> Singing my life with his words
> Killing me softly with his song
In you know that you're describing a feeling not trivial, but especially not unique.
I think the key is to take an extended break from work or whatever caused the burnout. Other things may be helpful, but for me this is the only thing that really helped.
A stressful gauntlet of trying my hardest, only to be met with failure, which generated self-loathing and hopelessness, eventually resulted in an emotional "snap". It wasn't gradual; I think I felt it the minute it happened. It was sudden. It was, "Oh, suddenly I can't bring myself to care anymore." It was like dropping a heavy load onto the ground and finally being free.
It felt exactly like "a defense mechanism has been installed in my brain preventing me from hurting myself like that again". From then on, I had much more self-compassion, regardless of how things turned out, and I felt emotionally decoupled from my performance or self-perceived intelligence. (Disappointing people still hurts when it hinges on those things due to the personal connection, but impersonal metrics like grades or money or whatever ceased having an effect.) I couldn't work or focus as hard as I did before, when I self-flagellated myself to with shame and insecurity. That seemed like a potent fuel source, like coal or gasoline: powerful but dirty/unhealthy long-term. ;p
I don't feel like I have that anymore. I can't really "push through" using it. But I'd say I'm only debuffed like 10 or 20% -- not by a HUGE amount, and what motivation I marshal now feels a lot more sustainable and grounded in my actual, day-to-day well-being. I think learning and striving from a place of self-security and self-compassion feels a LOT better, even with that debuff. (Compared to from a place of "OH GOD I GOTTA DO THIS OR I'M NOT AS GOOD AS THAT PERSON OR GOOD ENOUGH FOR THIS OH GOD OH FUCK[0]".)
So, oddly, for me, it felt (and feels) great.
>When I have to think hard about something for work I have to push past that and then I feel an intense dissociation while I do.
I don't even feel capable of pushing too far past beyond my boundaries. I simply don't. It's kind of a like high-functioning depression for me, where the "can't get out of bed" factor kicks in at like "175% of your typical day's workload". I still "work hard" on things, and people regularly say I do or say that I'm working all the time, but I only hit like 150% max.
For me, it's also been several years while only a year for you, however. Maybe that changes things!
Also, the "coal" and "gasoline" of insecurity were probably coming from ego. I think that's what broke: my ego. If your starting point wasn't "I have to do this because my ego tells me I should be able to so my self-image is completely wrapped up in it", like mine was, that might also change things.
0: https://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/367/603/ab...
I've found something as simple as a daily calm stretching routine goes a long way towards keeping the mind+body on board with everything else I call on it to do.
Not that I'm some new-age meditation and yoga solve all problems type at all.
But stretching in particular is a surprisingly effective mind+body exercise because there's all these safeguards in place to prevent carelessly damaging your muscles and joints. When you increase your flexibility and condition your mind+body to allow reaching these extended positions, it's like you're earning the trust of the system. It's not purely a physical flexibility thing, there's a huge mental component.
That seems to translate into greater self-trust elsewhere, be it pushing physical limits of endurance/strength or constant long coding sessions.
Luckily I had a friend who knew I was capable of it and pushed me a bit to get through it, but it was exactly like a trauma block. Well doing quantum chemistry research as an undergrad with a crazy Russian professor will do that to yah.
Years later I've largely recovered, but I still shy away from basic arithmetic in front of others. However, I was able to get back to where I can solve math problems and even find it fun on the rare occasion I get to.
In some ways I have a deeper intuitive understanding than I did as an undergraduate, despite my faculties not being quite as "quick". Actually I rarely need to solve an equation to get enough of the answer I need to solve many problems.
1. Exercise. The brain can direct glutamate to be used as an energy source to dispose of excess amounts. Glutamate naturally flows by diffusion from areas of high concentration (in blood vessel wall cells) through the blood vessel wall into the circulating bloodstream, where the concentration is lower.
2. Eat a tuna sandwich or drink an energy drink. Vitamin B6 is a a coenzyme in the synthesis of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA from glutamate. Thinking jobs is also coincident with rising popularity of energy drinks from 2000s onwards.
The Economist is most likely regurgitating Nature:
11 August 2022 Why thinking hard makes us feel tired https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02161-5
https://www.science.org/content/article/mentally-exhausted-s...
> 11 August 2022 Why thinking hard makes us feel tired https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02161-5
And Nature was only citing: Wiehler, A., Branzoli, F., Adanyeguh, I., Mochel, F. & Pessiglione, M. Current Biology https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.07.010 (2022).
N acetyl cysteine is a supplement that does.... A lot! But it's also a glutamate mop.
And what does it turn into after it combines with that glutamate?
Good question!
Glutathione. Amazing.
There's a lot more to it than that of course, glutamatergic dysfunction and, well, nearly any neurotransmitter is so complicated (this is more a general statement to the comment thread readers at this point).
I had not known about the diffusion of glutamate as an energy source! That's very cool and news to me. I'd like to learn more about that at some point soon.
I should note that depending on the level of empathy or understanding of this situation, and argument can ensue after this further piling on the stress.
So I think things like this are really important to understand, and appreciate. This is real!
Time yourself writing sequential numbers 1 through X as fast as you can in 30 seconds. And note your results.
Then time yourself writing the alphabet A through .... as fast as you can in 30 seconds.
Now, in 30 seconds, write A1, B2, C3, D4.....
You would think it is easy to do this because you have been writing numbers and the alphabet your whole life, but context switching is hard.
I show my students that cognitive abilities declined significantly with lack of oxygen. I have them do jumping jacks while reciting the alphabet backwards. There is often a 50% decrease in speed when they are working out.
I can recite the reverse alphabet almost as fast as forward without the added stress. While working out I can do it with a10% decrease. This leads me to believe that the additional stress can be compensated through drilling.
That would be one more classroom nightmare for me. The only way I can recite the alphabet is by singing that stupid song I learned in grade school. To do so backward, I would first have to sing forwards until I reached the next 'backwards' token, for each and every letter, so jumping jacks or not it would be at least 50% slower.
Even with the song I sometimes get stuck, but I also have a dyslexic mind and absolute hate any alphabet exercises. I would absolutely hate your class (but not you necessarily) and would spend my time in there counting down the school year to never have to go again.
On the other hand I wrote Z25 (uh-oh) and I couldn't spot my mistake until I had the computer write it down too. All the letters were there. But I wrote down 16 twice and I didn't spot the error even afterwards because I was too focused on the letters.
I always tell my wife that I am pretty tired because I was thinking too much, she finds that hard to belive because her job involves moving around and so a job where you sit all day is not tiring.
Now I have the science to prove my point :)
A day where I can shut that out and focus on a couple things intensely usually leaves me feeling energized and happy and like I actually did something productive.
I think a good manager tries to keep his team mostly in the second camp, but sadly means spending more of their own time in the first.
Once she's spent a decade behind a desk, the mere thought of doing anything will sound exhausting to her too. It's unnatural and physically deconditioning. The mind being the only "muscle" you exercise makes its unavailability doubly crippling...it's what gives your physical half its marching orders.
She may be dead on her feet at day's end, but if she saw a car coming at her she'd find the adrenaline to respond and move. Myself, I'd struggle to move past "is that really a car driving down the sidewalk? But cars are supposed to drive on the stre--".
In the past I've done a lot of landscaping work on the side, as well as development remotely. My old man has a landscaping company and obviously needs the help at times.
I gotta say also: if you spend your day cutting/pruning a hedge, cleaning the property up - you actually get to look back at all of that and go "Hell yeah, that looks awesome". I never get that feeling of accomplishment with the dev work. In the past, sure - when I've built something big. But it's just not the same. I can't really explain it more than that.
A couple of years ago I wasn't really paying attention where I was and I was on top of a 10m high Macrocarpa hedge that's... about 120 years old. Anyways, I fell off that straight down on to the footpath. Fortunately there was another (much smaller) hedge in the way that was about 100 years old too and that broke my fall except I parted the hedge so to speak. (We fixed it, wired it up and it grew back together). I managed to get up and walk away, I was very very lucky. Damn though I was wired up so much for the rest of the day, I felt like I could've done 50 marathons!
Since then I have stayed away from doing anything like that - because I am a software engineer really, I just have some skills in landscaping with certain tools but at the end of the day for me personally, getting say an injury from a fall or chainsaw would be devastating to my actual career.
If I spend all day programming (8hr)... I'm really buggered and I simply cannot even brain. Cook dinner? Ugh no. If I mow lawns all day and get home (6-7hr), I'm like "oooh what should I cook for dinner, I'll have this cold beer while I do that and ..." it's like COME ON BRAIN.
Too real. If someone gives me two or more items to get I tell them I'm not going without a list. If it's the end of a day, whatever I'm trying to remember just gets pushed out after fifteen minutes.
A broader version of this is only working on a single project for the whole day, or the whole week (if you have multiple projects to work on).
My biggest issue is when I use 100% of that context-switching capacity at work and then have little to give after work. It's cyclical that I do this well, then poorly, then well again. But it does feel like I'm doing this significantly better than I was 3-5 years ago.
Sometimes its easier for me to take the long way around and fix a problem, than to do a short pointless workaround.
Focused thinking about a problem just sort of spawns new threads (some of which get OOM-killed if you keep spawning more). The process seems to need not actively thinking about the problem for the jobs to actually resolve.
It's like thinking about the problem triggers the background calculations to start, it doesn't actually perform the work.
Then you get that famous "aha!" in the shower or when you're off on a walk or whatever.
I always came back to my apartment full of inspiration, with half a notebook full of ideas and plans, which I'd spend the next days implementing, while spawning new background jobs that would mature the next time I was AFK. Rinse and repeat.
Something about this set-up was just insanely good for my productivity. I was much more productive than periods I didn't have these forced breaks away from input.
It was a wonderfully creative & productive situation.
This is already a good situation to be with regard to burnout.
I'd love to do this (and try to when I can), but more often than not it's a balancing act between "rest but fall behind" vs "don't rest but catch-up".
I'm grant funded for the next year, and after that I have some savings to live off that may last another year or so (maybe less if this inflation keeps up), but after that I haven't got a singular clue where my money is coming from.
But I also don't have kids, and don't want any either. If I had or wanted, none of this would be possible. I'd definitely choose the golden handcuffs in that counterfatual.
https://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Brain-Deciphering-Codes...
When we encounter a new problem, our brain spans a decision tree of assumptions from the closest known solution to a similar problem. The area around this tree is searched depth-first, which often brings good results (e.g. thinking about whether you'll put some threshold value at 0.2 or 0.25), but it's best at refinement. The more time passes and the more different things you do, the more the search is moved into breadth-first (which makes intuitive sense - the deeper the tree, the more processing power would have to be put towards it). Often times we literally cannot conceive a good solution to a problem, because our brain is focusing on finding the right deep leaf of the wrong subtree!
Spend your conscious time loading your brain with data. Spend your unconscious time randomly making connections… until “Eureka!”
I went through the Navy's Nuclear Power program a lifetime ago and that was often 16-18 hours of instruction and study (and exercise) per day to do well. When you recognize that you're at that point of mental exhaustion you can sneak in something like a 30 minute nap to power through the remainder of what you need to achieve that day...
My general approach was to physically write down and do some checks to verify that I understand all of the material (reinforced memorization) and get as much in per day like a sponge.. and then sleep on it. The retention was nuts (was top of my class) and it kind of just becomes habit at some point.
I think the odder thing is that if you just keep doing it for decades you notice the missing information too. Those loose associations are still there for sure but the brain can only pack in so much at a given time or some such.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Memory-Palace-Matteo-Ricci/dp/0140080... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Moonwalking-Einstein-Science-Remember...
I agree the notepad could absolutely be straightforward win for some. However, the OP describes writing the ideas down as a "problem." If the OP says writing down things is a problem, I offer that we can't legitimately propose that same solution as a "win."
I really wish I had a good way to just get ideas into my phone quickly when on the road. Far too often I think I have some good ideas or make progress in something I thought of earlier, but I have no way to "save" it.
I bought a Bluetooth keyboard at some point that I can hook up to my phone if needed, but I almost never have the keyboard with me :-(
Was thinking Mic > Whisper transcription > GPT to take in a rough brain dump including instructions like “scratch that!” and convert it into the form you want (say, bullet points or action items). Should even be possible to dictate concept maps that way. Or even write Python functions on the go.
Although make sure you hit record first, and it records more than 30 seconds if you do.
have idea, press button to record
use syncthing to sync the memos to your machine
run whisper to have them transcribed instantly
use syncthing to sync the whisper output back to your phone (if so desired)
I found about this after covid lockdown where I'd go for 3h long walks.
I remind myself that I have no idea what other people are thinking - only what I think of their actions, the signals from my senses. That may be a weird way to work, but for whatever reason it helps me slow down and reason more carefully about the nature of situations.
As for my own habits, I find concentration and focus addictive. I don’t burn out from thinking deeply and working on intricate solutions. The more I do the better it feels and around the spiral I go. Unfortunately the further I go the less “room” is available for other, often more important, things. So I’m also constantly reminding myself that my brain is a machine that adapts so I need to be careful how I use it. If I train my brain to resist certain tasks by rewarding it for avoiding them, it will become harder over time to perform those tasks. And vice versa.
Brains are fun. :)
Definitely, brains are fun. They can be your best ally and worst enemy.
I just wanted it to succeed so badly, I took on an absolute ton without any systems in place in my own habits and daily life to protect me. I would be in a conference room tracking ten different threads of work day in and day out. Making decisions for every component, directing people, debugging…at first I felt like a god. Everyone was looking to me, we made more progress in six months than the last two years, meetings would get cancelled because I couldn’t be there to make a decision (should have been a massive red flag but it fed my ego).
But the way I work is to put my head down and get addicted to a problem in some sense. I can’t stop until it’s done. I think of these as loops in my brain, and I deeply need to close them. It is both a strength and tremendous weakness. As I climbed to principle engineer and above, this was a huge boon. A few weeks of nonstop coding, then crash for a couple weeks till the next tasks come along. But at a certain level, I stopped having clear cut tasks. The work had huge scope and was totally open ended. I was doing quarterly planning and this quarter’s work wasn’t done yet, etc.
I got lost pushing to be “done” and it never came. One day my brain started hurting all the time. I started crying when I had to think about work, out of nowhere…really scary for me who always thought I was rock solid even after months of long days doing nothing but thinking hard. I tried to push through, ask for more money to soothe my pain, the company offered me a sort of break. But I had to quit cold turkey.
Now I am taking a real break and the thought of that work makes my body tense up. I get tearful again. I am going to take a lot of time to build some workout habits, some set hours of the day where I will never “work”, and do some emotional digging into my loops.
Thanks for sharing! It is so nice to hear everyone’s stories.
This hits home for me, and I believe is a huge source of my burnout right now. It sucks, because I like my job and don't want to leave, but at this point I feel pretty broken and unable to perform like I know I can.
I'm mostly recovered now, but I'm more self aware about cognitive fatigue and how to structure my workdays to avoid it. It's decreased my general level of stress measurably.
- French lessons
- Talking to someone about something techincal
- Talking to somebody that I didn't know very well
- Talking to a loved one
- Reading
If I'm given a clear "this is how you'll know you're done", I can often figure out how to get there and fly through my work. But give me "we think we might want to do this, get started" and I'm exhausted before I even start.
e.g. video meetings are more stimulating than audio meetings because you have more sources of input, and you have to stay alert in real-time. A single email is less stimulating because you can process those in your own time and space out if needed. But a morning full of answering emails is worse than a single video meeting because each email involves loading new context into your brain.
A sibling comment addressed disambiguation already. It's just a lot of work to take input, process it, be aware of context and goals, and get to sensible output. These days, I tend to allocate time just for planning. Executing plans is easy and I can do that when I'm tired, but planning takes a lot out of me.
I'm sure the cognitive impact of exact tasks is different for everyone depending on what your brain is used to. e.g. I'm very introverted; maybe meetings are less work for others.
I've always gotten into a kind of flow state while riding a bike. The exhaustion after hours of riding felt very similar to studying or coding all day.
I finally got another laptop a few months ago. Local guy brings me his Flutter codebase. Good chance to learn a new tech. It was going ok: I was superman for a few days learning the flutter/dart tooling, solving dependency hacks, getting it to compile, fixing bugs, and then, Bam. Can't code any more. Backed away.
Now, still burned out and homeless, but trying to start (another) hackerspace. Good distraction from the ashes of devastation.
I am unsure if I can write software for any sustained period of time ever again. It's scary since that's my only marketable skill and I'm still homeless and constantly scrapping for food money.
Some backstory: Despite repeated insistence from peers, skipped investing in bitcoin and ethereum at their beginnings and repeately thereafter, instead plugging away non stop on a dead SaaS product for a startup for years, which slowly failed; lost my partner, the life I had built, reputation, assets. Probably dealing with some trauma burn-in from this.
As for last summer, I distinctly remember the headaches from participating in the CTF. I had to, you know, think! Cool, solving tasks. Then, Bam! Splitting headaches.. :(
I still wonder if there's some zen place where one can focus intensely on a problem while remaining calm and at peace - never was able to find such a state of mind..
I can go from 0-100mph on a dime, which may have led to the headaches. I'm not passionate about coding, so I dive in without being warmed up.
Contrarily, with passion and a slow pre-heat, the headaches probably wouldn't happen. But I am not a passionate coder.
I may need to strongly consider nurturing non-coding tech skills. I'm doing some (very part time) engineering research for food money. No headaches.
Coding may be out for me, that's all. I can still participate in tech otherwise.
A month or so ago, I was offered a prestigious cybersecurity job interview but declined. It would not be sustainable for me.
Very intense screen time gives me splitting headaches and I am generally unable to re-engage with coding.
Just my outside perspective. I've had headaches as well from intense coding but those came from overexposure to blue light. I dialed down brightness, set up a red shift mode after evenings and used shield protector for a while. Went away after few months.
I'd probably be happy to be a teacher if it paid well.
I always think if I ever built a company from ground up we'd have a set of sleeping pods with 15 minute timers in them and actively encourage staff to use them several times a day. If not to sleep, meditate etc.
Repeat until successful. Your body will learn that the "30+ minutes just to fall asleep" count against the rest time.
The eye mask tells your brain it's sleepy time, and if you're at the office also tells others not to interrupt you.
Also a nap doesn’t have to be a deep sleep. Just a period of short and deliberate rest for the mind.
I do 15-20 minute "naps" on a regular basis. I find them to be equally refreshing regardless of whether I actually fall asleep. If I do fall asleep, it's normally only for a minute or two. As far as I can tell, the refreshing effect of a catnap doesn't come from sleeping, but from spending at least a couple of minutes in that weird twilight state that precedes sleep.
That doesn't quite solve your problem, so here are a few things that help me fall asleep quickly:
1) Try to plan your naps so that you avoid stimulating activities immediately beforehand. If you try to nap right after gaming/doomscrolling/social media, your mind will be abuzz and it'll take much longer.
2) Nap in darkness. If you can't turn off the lights, put on an eye mask or pull your hat over your eyes.
3) Stimulating sounds can pull you back into wakefulness. Mask them by listening to white noise.
4) If you have trouble quieting your mind when it's time to sleep, try doing a handful of Vipassana meditation sessions. I found the practice of observing and dismissing thoughts as they arise to be really helpful when trying to clear my mind and fall asleep.
5) Don't sleep where you play. If you watch TV, use social media, or do other stimulating stuff in bed, your mind may be expecting some sort of stimulation (like Pavlov's dog) when you get into bed, which can make it harder to sleep. Either quit doing that stuff in bed, or sleep somewhere that lacks the pavlovian baggage.
A regular work day leaves me noticeably tired, not physically but somehow mentally and it translates to yawning and feeling a bit drowzy. It's like being tired in the head, and sans any bodily aches it feels exactly like a hard days physical work.
Perhaps in future scientists will find a way to restore the chemical balance in internal combustion engine systems, thus keeping them at peak performance for longer.
(In other words: The Economist's article is rather light on actual useful details. The same kind of story applies to a very wide range of topics. It might be more helpful to read the actual scientific article.
ps. For some reason newspapers/magazines never provide a good reference to the actual article and you end up having to go hunting.)
That seriously annoys me to no end
Does anyone know why the heck don't they just provide the damn DOI along with it?
Once I learn something and it make sense, or solve a problem, it seems like the brain optimizes storage and frees up computational power.
Maybe tracking pupil dilation time with your webcam can give you a live reading of how tired you are or how much you're exerting yourself at a given task. I'd pay for this.
E.G: I have a friend that went full nerd on his coding setup. Dvorak keyboard, Full Arch Linux with tiling windows manager. Everything in the terminal, all dev through vim. If it's not a religion, it's at least a lifestyle.
He is very happy with it: the keyboard is so ergonomic, he barely has to move the hand of it. Every task can be controlled out of a few key strokes
Except he didn't notice how much of a burden he put on himself.
Even for very simple tasks I see him struggling because of all the context switching.
If you have to copy/paste something from your web browser to your editor, it may require you to select with a mouse, and ctrl+c, then alt-tab a bit, click on the IDE tab and ctrl+v. Not instant, but this procedure is the same for everything, so it doesn't take much brain to do it.
For him, it's a whole guacamole, because there is a special shortcut to get to the browser, another one to get to the text, then copy/paste, then go to vim with another shortcut, select the proper buffer, paste with a yet another shortcut and make sure he uses the proper mode. Since Dvorak is a different layout than his phone keyboard or his client keyboards, the shortcuts don't perfectly rely on muscle memory.
Every simple task in his setup like that: it requires a lot of effort.
And his whole life outside of the computer is like that too, because he has very high moral standards, so he lives a constrained life in society that is optimized for a totally different life style. However he never cuts himself a slack.
Multiply that by a hundred times a day, a hundred days a year.
He burnt out.
And he has no idea why: all the reasons he gave me were external factor, blaming other people a lot.
But it was not.
He killed himself with a thousand paper cuts, chasing an ideal he theorized in his head but could not only never reached, but could not even assess the real cost on his life.
I think you are over-estimating the effort. Most experienced Vim users not even think about motions when they use them, it's just the muscle memory.
Nevertheless, I can see how much effort it costs him every time I see him performs those tasks. Because I can see him pause to think of the sequence of the things he needs to do to achieve the result for some very basic stuff.
If you have to constantly think about how to use your pen instead of what you are writing about, it's a problem.
But it's an invisible problem if you are attached to your tools, you will never notice it. It's not possible, your tools are so great, they save you time, they make you more efficient, they are most comfortable.
At this stage it's part of his identity.
I can't say for you, as I don't know your particular situation.
But that's definitely the case for him and for several vim + tiling users that I know.
They spent years investing in this.
They will never say anything but good things about it.
But they wills start working on a project, and spend 30 minute fixing something before they can even start on the task. Then every single step requires planning for the basic moves.
If you look at how they work, the tools are taking a toll, inch by inch.
I think you are imagining things, because that makes you feel better. None of this is true for experienced vim users. It's true for novices, but that's the nature of learning. I know you won't believe me, but I don't really care.
> They will never say anything but good things about it.
That's not true either, as every tool has pros and cons, and every vim/tmux/i3/arch/linux user is aware of that.
Look at YT/Twitch for any good Vim user, like Primeagen or TJ Devries, or basically any Vim-related conference talks and you will see that your understanding is flawed.
I'm a little confused, because most of these things sound like a great way to reduce context switching / extra keystokes.
I imagine if you're not familiar with this setup, coming from another world, them yes a learning curve will be needed, and that might last for years. I think that'd be just as true with any radically different setup than you're used to.
What's much worse is switching between different types of tasks, like answering emails to coding to helping co-workers to having to jump on a call.
Focus is the driving factor in this for me.
There are also interesting sub cases of this: exercising self control or will power fatigues the ability to exercise self control.
Making important decisions (as in by a judge judging) fatigues the ability to make important decisions.
“Religions of the World” speculates that one of the keys to Buddhas long and productive life was partially a result of his taking time each day for quiet non-action, each week , and for a portion of each year (the rainy season).
High productive humans are in it for the long haul and plan for that.
Short term, high productive corporations are good at making people feel that everything is a life or death emergency and when the humans burn out, they hire more.
I have no idea if she was right, but she did do better than me on the SAT, and she is a doctor now, so suffice it to say I always have a snack when coding. You know, for thinking.
Your brain is evaluating what you might be working on, what the future boss might be like, what your coworkers are like and if any seem particularly compatible or not with you, etc.
That sounds like some hard thinking to me.
I know it doesn't have any fatigue for the next prompt though. So over time it is indefatigable.
I wonder what a deep integration of GPT-like technology with the cortex via BCI would look like and if that could reduce mental fatigue.
Sometimes I think the next metasystem transition is basically like The Borg except it's a bunch of Mini-Borgs. And at first people will be completely horrified but then overnight it will become normal for a large segment of the population to be attached to an Overmind. I think you would call that transhuman.
Pretty sure there would be serious conflict with the normal humans at that point.
TFA advances that glutamate is a byproduct of brain activity and thus its level correlates with brain fatigue. The Economist article does not link to the original research article [1], and besides adding fluff to the highlights, it makes some outlandish conclusion ("no doubt some researchers will now be looking at potions that might hack the brain in a way to artificially speed up its recovery from fatigue") but it's not clear what comes from the research article. Or, more interestingly, how it is intended to fit in the big picture.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27076095
[1] https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdfExtended/S0960-9822(...
This means that he probably did not get as tired from thinking as other people do. But he also slept 10 hours per day.
> But he also slept 10 hours per day.
- Fermi on Von Neumann
// and don't forget about "stack unwinding" before going to bed
So from my experience there seems to be a possibility that when you think you are having brain tiredness you're actually having a physical headache.
When you think intensely, your key insights do not coming during it, but afterwards.
Rest is as important as work.
Further, acetylcholine and nootropics switch to protein burning (makes more carbs instead of burning fat) when carbs run low. That is, the brain has better and more consistent fuel.
Steady blood sugar, stable digestion, easy digestion, and acetylcholine/protein- based backup fueling, and proper nutrition makes it easier to work through marathons. Same with creating a good work environment.
Many aren't even nutrient sufficient. That is, they have deficiencies and aren't meeting all RDAs. See: CRON-o-meter. Common ones are vitamin D3 (+ K2) and magnesium, net alkaline PRAL score, and more calcium than phosphorus.
Or eventually just go exercise and do chores... I find I can reset to the beginning of the cycle in an hour or so.
(Exam week is more or less studying from wake up to going back to sleep, with exams in between.)
Pretty much everyone experiences this, even 18-year-olds. The brain has its limits.
Normally though, time pressure or "get shit done" pressure gets the better of me, and my brain goes into turbo mode. After about 30 minutes of that, the rest of the day is more or less standby mode
"Working Memory Modulates Glutamate Levels in the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex during 1H fMRS" (2018)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5845718/
> "We interpret elevated glutamate levels during working memory task performance to reflect increased metabolic activity and excitatory neurotransmission driven by working memory-related demands."
Practically, it might be beneficial to take cognitive breaks before exhaustion sets in, as well as improve blood flow and oxygen delivery - i.e. get up, walk around, drink some water, meditate for a few minutes etc. on a regular basis. I imagine a full eight hours of solid sleep is needed for a complete return to baseline, although vivid dreams might interfere with recovery.
https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Healthy_napping
... but I'm relentlessly awake in the afternoon. In fact, I've had an issue with taking breaks from work for years now: once I start I have trouble stopping.
i do nap in the late afternoon a lot. is it successful? idk i just do it and it feels good.
What is the prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases amongst chess grand masters or some other intense psychological activity, I wonder if the studies have been conducted on this.
Is it like muscles- pain few days after exercise but over 6mos, significant difference?
From their summary:
> [...] these results support a neuro-metabolic model in which glutamate accumulation triggers a regulation mechanism that makes [lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC)] activation more costly, explaining why cognitive control is harder to mobilize after a strenuous workday.
Pubmed link (with abstract); full text is paywalled:
> A neuro-metabolic account of why daylong cognitive work alters the control of economic decisions. Curr Biol. 2022 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35961314/
Aim to finish these by EOD.
Repeat.
My brain hurts!
I know that they're generally bad for the health but I can't seem to stop buying them, especially when I expect to grind leetcode later at night.
I can't help but eat candy if it's available, so I just learned not to buy it in the first place.
Really easy to become overweight this way.