How to Deal With an Aging Brain?

An anonymous reader writes "I'm sure this is something all older Slashdotters are aware of: as I get older my once-sharp brain is, well, getting worse. In particular, I'm not able to remember things as well as I once did. As a geek my capacity in this area was always what defined me as a geek. Nowadays things seem to go in OK, but then leak out. A few weeks later I've mostly forgotten. So, I ask Slashdot: how do you cope with your mind getting older? What's your trick? Fish-oil? Brain Training on the DS? Exercise? Or just trying harder to remember things?"

Comments

Or..

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply take yourself out of situations where it matters ;p

Seriously though.. where I work a lot of the "older guy's" tend to migrate into roles where they don't need to keep mountains of info bouncing around their head all the time. Roles where people come to them for guidance and advice.. but don't expect them to know the ins and outs of the systems. Let the young guys be the walking encyclopedias while you chill-ax into retirement.

Re:Or..

[weave]

Yeah, that's called management -- and it makes things worse if you really care. You get out of doing the fun stuff day to day and spend it all in meetings and dealing with personnel issues. It quickly speeds up the brain rot. :-(

Re:Or..

[Anrego]

I like to think you need a combination of old stubborn guys deeply set in their way.. and new young go-getters fresh out of academia with all sorts of "agile methodologies".

What you said is true.. if your entire management thinks CS died with COBOL .. then you're in trouble..

On the other hand if your entire management is young go-getters with little experience in the realities of software.. all sorts of bad things happen (*cough* executable uml)

The constant struggle between the new guys to get some of the neat stuff they saw in uni into the mix and the old guys who think it's all a bunch of nonsense will in the right balance lead to a happy medium.

Re:Or..

[lysergic.acid]

yea, i suppose it's better to have a good balance of old & new. it's not just about counterbalancing each other, but also because when you have to convince a stubborn old-timer whose approval you need to proceed, it makes you think more carefully about your proposals, which puts that much more scrutiny on radical & untested ideas.

it's always good to have a little tension to force people to put more thought into their idea/position since they'll have to defend it against opposing viewpoints. it also helps to stimulate discussion, which itself can lead to new innovations or improvements on existing proposals.

i think most businesses understand that you need little new blood as well as experienced senior managers. but government & politics is a different story. even elected officials tend to always be middle-aged individuals. perhaps voters put too much weight on experience, which is often equated with qualification/aptitude, and not enough weight on actual intelligence & ability. someone who's relatively young and inexperienced can still be more knowledgeable or competent than an older seasoned politician. someone who's not a "professional politician" is also more likely to bring a fresh perspective with them, one that is more in touch with the electorate. they're the ones who're likely to see the problems with the existing system and make the necessary reforms.

Re:Or..

[arminw]

....Don't forget nutrition...

Since your brain, as all nerve tissue is mostly fat, eating good fats is a very important part of that. Some fats are easily damaged or broken. On a molecular level it is analogous to eating shards of broken glass. Modern factory fats are processed with high heat and pressure, resulting in damaged, broken fats. For non-heating applications, such as salads stick with virgin cold pressed olive oil. Avoid soybean and canola and other vegetable oils. In and of themselves these are not bad, but it is their processing that damages them and makes them dangerous to your body as a whole. You cannot build a decent house with broken and cracked bricks. Likewise your nerve cells cannot be rebuilt or repaired with broken fats. Semi-solid NATURAL fats, such as coconut oil and butter are good for frying because these can take moderate heat without breaking up into dangerous fragments. Fry things at the lowest practicable temperature. Avoid exposing *any* food to high temperatures that can cause dangerous broken molecules to be generated

Homogenized milk breaks up the fat globules into particles small enough to keep the cream from separating out. Unfortunately, that also makes the fat particles small enough to be able to pass from the intestine, undigested, directly into your blood. That then helps clog arteries. Pasteurization kills possible pathogens, but also destroys the enzymes that enable you to properly digest milk. That is the biggest reason for lactose intolerance. Hydrogenated industrial fats, such as margarine, are very bad for your body and brain. These help clog arteries, starving the brain of oxygen and nutrients.

In general, any food "...ated" or "...ized" should be minimized. Refined sugar, white bread and especially high fructose corn syrup, such as found in most soft drinks should be mostly stricken from your diet. Live as much as possible on minimally processed, natural food. Get enough exercise and fresh air. Getting enough sleep and at least one good day of rest a week is also important.

Also, learn how any medicines you take long term (more than a months) work. If their operation blocks or inhibits an otherwise normal or needed function, could that be good in the long term? In most technical systems, blocking or inhibiting an otherwise normal, designed in function, is almost universally bad. Why should that not also be the case for the operation of your complex body system? Your body is a marvelous machine that will serve you better if you take care of it. Your whole body, including the brain CAN work better, even when you get older.

Re:Or..

[theaveng]

+1

And I'll add a little quote from Albert Einstein: "Why bother to meoorize that which you can look up in a book?" The ability to DO the problem and solve the equations is more important than to remember how many megabits a PCI Express can carry.

Re:Or..

[badzilla]

You don't want to memorise what you could look up in a book? No MCSE for YOU!

Re:Or..

[IICV]

Maybe I've just been reading too much Respectful Insolence, but I'm going to need a citation to a peer reviewed medical paper for each of those claims. What you wrote reads entirely too much like the sort of pseudoscientific twadddle you find all over the internets - four paragraphs consisting mostly of plausible-sounding but probably ultimately wrong science, with randomly scattered common sense ("Get enough exercise and fresh air") to make it all seem more reasonable.

re Pay attention

[jelizondo]

Stop using M$ crap, it has been shown to cause brain rot

Not knowing your age, i can't say if it is the onset of advanced age. I'm 47, I find that
and I don't pay attention, at least not as much as I used to, and therefore things are
harder to remember.

I get distracted because I think that I know where the conversation, lecture or whatever is
going and then I find out it took a different turn somewhere and I lost it.

Once I pay attention, I find that the old grey matter is still serviceable.

Learn new things

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn new things. That's how you "exercise" your brain. Things that are tough and cause "brain pain" are generally best for you.

Use it or lose it. No magic pills will help. Same for body, as for mind.

Re:Learn new things

[tomhudson]

Learn new things. That's how you "exercise" your brain. Things that are tough and cause "brain pain" are generally best for you.

Use it or lose it. No magic pills will help. Same for body, as for mind.

Absolutely! I'd add:

1. Read books. Exercise for the brain, (visualization, following the plot) as opposed to passively watching TV
2. Do crossword puzzles, sudoku, whatever else makes you "figure things out". Computer games that exercise your mind (eg: sim city) are a lot better than shot-em-ups
3. Play board games with others - gets you to interact with others, as opposed to being a "loner" - and this exercises other parts of the brain. Trivial pursuit, cranium, pictionary, risk, monopoly, etc.
4. Exercise your curiosity. Try to figure out "why" something is the way it is, or :how" something does what it does, without just "looking it up on the innertubss". Sharpen your powers of observation.
5. Lead a healthy lifestyle. Walk a few klicks every day outdoors, rain or shine, sleet or hail (in other words, get a dog that has to be walked). Don't smoke, don't drink to excess but don't be a teetotaler either (moderate alcohol use does NOT kill brain cells, contrary to the old story about "every drink costs you 100,000 brain cells". NO hang-over, no damage, and the other health benefits are worth it).

Do this for 40 years, and you'll be just as sharp at 50 as you were at 20. In other words, if you didn't get into the habit of doing this as a kid, you're probably fscked.

let the computer remember stuff

[Punto]

The notion that memory == intelligence is just wrong. Just get over it, and let a computer do all the memory for you. Use your brain for what it's uniquely qualified to do.

Other way around for me...

[aztektum]

I use to be very anal about remembering every detail. As I've gotten older I'm less concerned with this. I use technology (Outlook calendar/tasks, smartphone, Google Calendar for personal) to remember less and remind me when needed. I only concern myself with concepts and only sweat the details when it comes to actually doing the job.

I feel far less stressed out than I did when I'd try to remember every little ol' thing simply because I thought I needed to be a pedantic nerd. As a bonus I'm realizing there is more to living contently and I feel I have more time to spend on other things.

On top of it all I also make sure to leave the damn things at home when I'm going to do something and don't want distractions. Work can pay me 24/7 if they want me to be available 24/7. Otherwise when I'm not at the office I don't really care.

I do still take the time to know the important things: Birthdays, anniversaries, etc..

Try Memory Training

[cervo]

Seriously there are a ton of books out there on memory training and it works. Back in college I read quite a few of them and tried out some of the mnemonic techniques and they worked wonders, I can still recall some of the nonsense lists almost 10 years later. Ultimately to get really good requires a lot of time an effort which I was not willing to put into it.

Some Books

• Your Memory. How it works and how to improve it. -- Kenneth L Higbee -- One of the best books available on how the memory works as well as the mnemonic techniques
• The Memory Book -- Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas -- pretty good book with a bunch of different techniques
• Master Your Memory with Dr. Amazing: How not to Forget -- M Teitelbaum -- great book with many techniques not discussed in typical intro books on memory techniques

But as far as forgetting stuff, I noticed that I was forgetting left and right when I turned 23. The difference is that instead of just focusing on college or something else, I had a lot of shit going on in my life and was constantly distracted and that hurt my memory. Now it is even worse. I think as you get older and you have more of a life, you just are more distracted and a lot of stuff you just won't pay as much attention to to remember as much. I'll bet if you throw in kids forget it....

Maybe improve your diet and exercise?

[dzelenka]

I bet this suggestion gets ignored completely! This IS Slashdot after all!

Easy

[Fantasio]

Get a larger Hard Drive !

Learn it, then write it down

[Caboosian]

I'm fairly young, but this seems like an almost obvious answer to me (yay naivety!). For almost any situation, whether it be a conversation with a coworker, an article about the latest video card, or a night class, writing it down should help a lot. Not only do you have your notes as something to refer to should you forget, you also gain the added benefit of actually writing down what you learned.

Remember high school? If I didn't take notes on a lesson, I was guaranteed to do worse on a test. The same applies even as you get older - writing stuff down, even if the notes are minimal, should help with your memory problem significantly.

Obviously, YMMV, but even if it feels too nerdy for a self-described geek, I would highly recommend carrying a small notebook around just to take notes in. Give it a shot, you might be surprised at how well you begin to remember things.

Re:I use gun.

[retchdog]

Keep in mind, that psychosis tends to diminish your effective mental ability. If you actually want to keep your job and perform well, the first thing you'd do is try to drop this irrational suicide-complex. (After that, you might want to consider that you don't actually care that much about your performance, and that you are living an act of collectivist desperation.)

Something you might want to consider is that you are engaging in the oldest and most inefficient form of collectivism: self-debasement to a figure of power, wrapped up in a mystical sheath of righteousness and "power".

Get psychological help while you're still drawing breath and a salary.

Why did this not happen until I'm old?

[rasper99]

I started on a very, very cool tech R&D project in April at the age of 50. It's one of those things that is so involved that when anyone starts working there their brain swells up for the first month as it is filled up.

I have said many times why couldn't I be like 30 or 40 when my brain worked better and come across something like this?

I make up for the slowly decreasing short term storage by making a lot of notes. Make short term notes for what you are doing now. Then after the rush is over take a few minutes to flesh them out a little in case you have to do it again in a month and have forgotten what you did. It's not unmanly to make notes if it helps you kick the young whippersnapper's butts.

Don't multi-task as many things at once. This helps even the young. I used to work on six systems at a time. Now I do like two and get them right. If you're going to do things over and over take the time to script and automate if there is a ROI. Share the scripts, etc. with others to help save everyone time.

I draw on my 29 years of professional technical experience. I use the professional maturity gained over the years to spend an appropriate amount of time carefully crafting an important email or document. It ends up saving time in the long run.

Over the years you learn what works in business and what doesn't. Tech knowledge is important but learning how people and business works is important too.

I use my 29 years of IT experience in so many different things to my advantage. Last week I reduced a problem down to system tuning. I used those old skills and made a lot of people happy. In the old days system tuning was a way of life. Younger people who haven't dealt with low horsepower and don't do know things like that.

Use your experience with people and maturity gained over the years. I've got a deck of punch cards of assembly code on my desk to remind me how good I've been over the years. Today people can hardly imagine using assembly much less reading a dump. Might just have to do some of assembly in the future to get stuff to run faster.

Wrong problem

[mike_sucks]

Remembering stuff isn't what makes you a geek - remembering stuff is what your hard drive and the Internet is for. Being a geek is all about applying your one-eyed devotion to [hardware|software|cameras|games|knitting|etc] to the fullest extent and doing nifty things with it.

It's pretty well known that young people are better at raw ability where older people are better at anything that requires experience. So don't worry about forgetting stuff too much, concentrate on kicking arse with your experience.

If you are forgetting stuff, write it down. But keep on being a geek and stay fit, because mental and physical activity are two primary factors in retaining cognitive ability in old age.

/Mike

PS: wear sunscreen

Re:Growing up, not older.

[lysergic.acid]

is that why you're always misplacing your keys and finding the phone in the fridge?

people become senile as they get older because the brain, like the rest of your body, deteriorates with age. how much it deteriorates depends on how you live. unfortunately, as many people get older they become less and less active, and it becomes a vicious cycle.

if you learn to place chess when you're young, and you never stop playing chess, you'll still be able to play quite well even in your old age. you won't be as fast as you were in your mid-20's, but you'll probably still be fast in your mid 80's as you were in your mid-to-late-30's. as long as you keep your brain active, the areas that you use regularly will not degrade very much. so yes, in theory if everyone remained active in their golden years, their brain will still function quite well in all the ways "that matter." but that's not how things are in reality.

in reality people become less active, both physically and mentally, as they age. they don't push themselves as hard mentally, and they also stop stretching their mind/creativity. senior citizens also tend to be less socially active, and a lack of regular social interaction/stimulation can also lead to mental decline.

it's got nothing to do with performing menial work for others. neurological degradation is not the same as becoming wiser. nor is becoming more and more useless the same as becoming sager.

Re:Testosterone

[Yo-Yo-boy-wonder]

Elective castration?!?!?!?!?! Why is this modded Informative? I really hope this is a joke.

read like a fiend

[Eil]

Normally I stay out of threads like this, but I take exception to the high number of responses so far that have advocated taking supplements and vitamins. But that's what our society has come to these days, I guess. Got a problem? Take a pill!

I'm not that old but like most of us, I'm aging nonetheless. Here is what I'm doing to try to keep my brain in decent shape.

First, keep your body in shape. Recognize that the brain depends on the body. If you aren't eating right and aren't exercising, then your metal facilities are lower than they should be. Every single study that has been evaluated the link between exercise and brain function has found that there is a direct causal relationship. People who exercise regularly are smarter than those that don't, when all other factors are equal.

Second, keep the mind in shape. It needs exercise too. I usually get plenty of intellectual stimulation from daily geeky activities but when I don't, I read like a fiend. Read fiction, read non-fiction, read technical books (even ones you've already read). Keep learning. You'll never learn everything there is to know, but it's incredibly rewarding to learn as much as you can. In the past few years, I've taken interest in music, electronics, and a foreign language (German). All things that I wouldn't have dreamed I'd dabble in 10 years ago.

If it's memory in particular that you're having a problem with, see about getting more sleep. One popular theory for the necessity of sleep is that it gives the brain a chance to shut down the I/O bus while it evaluates, organizes, and stores information received during the day. Sounds plausible to me because I know I don't retain much when operating on minimal sleep.

Re:First thing, Ouch...

[Rachel Lucid]

Well, I think it's safe to say that any girl willing to hang around on /. IS different from a normal girl, but beside the point...

bring up the intensity level of your work

[k1.seb31]

Interesting question. I hate to admit it but I'm getting up there too, and in the industry I'm surrounded by people younger than me. Think positive though, that is the key. Experience brings a strong work ethic, keeping this up exposes you to different program and design environments etc and you learn how to accomplish jobs better. I'd say just take care of your health and think positive; keep taking vitamins and drinking tea and keep working your brain the same way you did when you were younger.

Re:Newer Version Available

[melikamp]

They are of no use if your hardware is a floppy.

Me Too

[CharlieG]

About 3-4 years ago, I found that lots of "trival" details about certain things started leaking. Here is what I've found works

1) Remember the old hints about "a quiet spot to study" - yes it makes a difference. I find with my 2 kids running around, the TV blareing, the radio on, etc, I can't remember, my brain goes elsewhere (and it doesn't help that I have a chronic wound, and I'm on pain killers almost 24x7). Find a quiet place/time for the deep things

2)Personally, the thing _I_ tend to forget are appointments, and in particular, the details. "OK, I know my wife has an MD appointment one day this week, which day is it, and where and what time should I be picking up the kids that day?" A calendar - be it electronic, or written - the way my WIFE likes it (conflict here - causes extra work) is a lifesaver - write it down (and if you have an SO, have them write their stuff down). You can then "page out" that information till you need it

3)A Journal - Many years ago, a co-worker (Thanks Harry) taught me something important - keep a journal (I don't do as well as I should) - a bound numbered book you keep on your desk. Write EVERYTHING down, every day. Go to a meeting, write it in the book, get a phone call - it goes in the book. Have lunch with someone, in the book. Make an apointment to have lunch with someone? In the book.

This isn't only for memory, but if you faithfully keep the book, leave no blank pages etc, what you end up with a document that is legally acceptable as evidence. Just in case. It's like the scientists bound lab notebook. You'll find that EEs use them, etc -

4)Take a little time each day to have as "quiet" time. For me at least, the ability to sit down with a cup of coffee/tea/glass of water (or whatever) and just "clear my mind" makes a big difference - watch the birds, the clouds, or even (if you can get outdoors) look at a picture, gets my mind into a state where the rest of the day is a lot better memory and stress wise

5)A consistant routine. Remember I said about "offloading details" - I try and do as many things as I can on "autopilot", so I don't get overwhelmed in details - sort of like programming, a lot of the techniques in programming are all about "information hiding" - you can really do a lot of this in your life.

Re:I use gun.

[phoenix321]

If you cannot compete in job A, you surely have an ability to compete in job B, which in the current marketplace is job A's supervisor more often than not.

If you cannot compete in jobs A-Z, all else fails and you have no idea how to reasonably work from home or self-employed, well, THEN I've bad news for you.

But don't tell me you cannot flip burgers for minimum wage or buy-sell crap wholesale on ebay. I'd refuse to pay your health care just because you're too vain or too lazy to do that.

But then again I live in Europe. Our dear Fatherland takes exactly ONE HALF my entire yearly salary to pay for lazy bums, old geezers and immigrants that can't speak two words of our native language after being here for three generations and who are still actively aggravating people in public transportation.

I like working in Europe, because the public healthcare is sooooo worth half my salary, really. Worth *thousands* of Euros every year, absolutely, because I only have to wait for three months for an appointment with the dentist and any other medical specialist.

Get a job where you can put your skills to use or build skills if you got none. But stop complaining because others are too mean to subsidize your lazy behind. Cost-for-cost, I personally subsidize two lazy bums and one retiree - because everyone with more than minimum wage income does here in Germany.

I'm so fed up with this socialist crap. Some more years and some more increases in health care costs and I will apply for a Green Card to work in Sometown, USA, I tell you. If you or your newly-elected Messiah haven't transformed the rags-to-riches wonderland into mini-me Europe where only the stupid ones still work while the rest has steaks and beer on the dole.

Who should manage then?

[jotaeleemeese]

Something younger technical people forget is that managing a group of people requires more skills than knowing how to obfuscate a perl script.

If technical people are great problem solvers they could apply the skills, allegedly learned doing "fun" stuff, to the problem of implementing productive teams of techies.

This nonsense about management being a dead end for techies needs to be put to rest frankly, a good manager will enable technical people to do their job by isolating them from all the bullshit that comes from higher hierarchical levels while at the same time setting realistic objectives for all the parties involved. Having being a techie should be a great plus for somebody managing other techies, not an artificial hindrance.

synergy is cromulent.

[mysticgoat]

In the original post, the use of "synergistically" is perfectly cromulent. The word has been a part of the pharmaceutical jargon for more than 50 years and is being used correctly in context.

Two drugs exhibit synergism when the effects of giving them together are greater than one would expect from the effects of giving each one separately. Aspirin and codeine are synergistic: when given together in moderate doses, the combined analgesic effect is greater than either given alone. This combination is often used in the early phase of mending a broken bone.

Contrast "synergism" with "potentiation": aspirin and caffeine are not considered synergistic since caffeine has no analgesic qualities by itself. However caffeine does potentiate the analgesia provided by aspirin. Two aspirin taken with a cup of coffee are more effective against headaches or sore muscles than just the aspirin alone. And cheaper than the many OTC pain relievers that are basically just aspirin and caffeine.

Re:Supplements

[Puff of Logic]

That is because if these vitamins are produced in a test tube, rather than by nature, they are NOT much good and indeed may be harmful.

See, this is the sort of post that irritates me. It's complete pseudoscience, with a large helping of truthiness. The idea that "natural" vitamins would be superior to artificially-made vitamins *feels* right to most people, so they accept this sort of drivel. See, here's the scoop: form defines function at the molecular level. All that hand-waving about vitamins produced by nature being better is total crap, because a molecule is either vitamin C, or it isn't. Sure, you could conceivably create an analogue that mimics the form of vitamin C, but that would be a spectacularly difficult and expensive task. People, vitamin C created artificially is *precisely* the same molecule as is found in, say, an Orange. Now, if you want to argue that an orange is a superior source because there's some fibre there too, I won't argue that. But these vague assertions about "natural" vitamins smacks of an agenda that fails the critical thinking test.

false dichotomy

[globaljustin]

The constant struggle between the new guys to get some of the neat stuff they saw in uni into the mix and the old guys who think it's all a bunch of nonsense will in the right balance lead to a happy medium.

false dichotomy...older people do not have to be 'set in their ways' and young people do not have to be full of nonsense ideas...it's fallacy to think so.

the best team is one with a range of experience and abilities all devoted to accomplishing a task or goal. people who are 'stuck in their ways' no matter what age are a drag on a work group or creative team. what's most important is that ego and self promotion are set aside by all

now, if you argue that the 'old and stubborn vs. young and nonsense' is the status quo, I agree. my point is, we should strive to move beyond those limitations.