25 years of studying the brain: Avoid these 4 habits that destroy our memory | Hacker News Reader

25 years of studying the brain: Avoid these 4 habits that destroy our memory

cnbc.com

11 pointsrapnie11 comments

1. Multitasking too much, 2. Not prioritizing quality sleep, 3. Monotonous activities, 4. Being overconfident in your ability to remember things

Thank you

Getting more sleep advice is good. Multitasking and monotonous activities break the mind? You used it too much? Like loud music deafens and looking at the sun blinds. I don't think so. It's aging and willpower and behavioral changes are a very short term fix. Denial.

Getting enough sleep gets more difficult in winter times when the sun stays low. At higher age eyes need more blue light to stop melatonin production, at young age 50 lumen, seniors need 500 lumen. Simple solution: artificial blue light during breakfast eg https://myluminette.com/

Digging around on that site for something scientific I found this: https://myluminette.com/cdn/shop/files/Light_therapy_with_bo...

Another article: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/bedroom-environment/blue-lig...:

> Strategically timed exposure to blue light can help treat several sleep disorders. Circadian rhythm disorders occur when a person’s circadian rhythms are not in alignment with their environment. Light therapy, and blue light in particular can help realign the body’s circadian rhythms and improve sleep.

I had to editorialize the title a bit, so it fit. Original title: "I’ve spent 25 years studying the brain—I never do these 4 things that destroy our memory as we age". Especially the one about avoiding multitasking struck a chord, as modern times encourages us to do that more and more.

How wide a timeframe determines multitasking? To me it is watching a YouTube video when you should be coding and possibly shitposting on Teams all at once. The code is never good, and you have a nagging feeling that you should turn the video off. It maybe works for more repetitive things like tweaking large xml files with repeating patterns.

On the other hand, consider a coder who also is trying to make it with a music career. Setting time aside to practice and reach out to open mic nights or other opportunities can’t be multitasking can it?

But as soon as ADHD comes into play, you’re looking at music opportunities when you should be refactoring some badly written class. Right back into multitasking.

Avoid clicking on links that look like clickbait.

I'm pretty sure this is included in point 1. If you're working and you click something to distract yourself, that's included in 1, going from the examples the author gives.

Tldr; 1. Don't multitask. 2. Sleep hygiene. 3. Don't have a boring job. 4. Write stuff down to remember it better.

Life changing stuff.

No doubt this Professor explained it differently or is just doing this fluff piece to promote their book because the above is nothing ground breaking.

For what it's worth though they are right to focus on multitasking. Forget pop psychology, no one can multitask effectively, nor can they task switch continuously in an effective manner. You will always just end up doing 2 or more jobs poorly.

I am a low-RAM single-threaded processor that utilizes a poor multitasking scheduler

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