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Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

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Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#431

Post by tablatom »

malux85 wrote: post #416
mfer wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diet and physical activity play a huge role in mental clarity and energy level. The diet part of that we're only beginning to really understand in the last 10-15 years after some research breakthroughs in looking at our gut. Western diets (e.g. the standard american diet... what we actually eat) is fairly bad for our health which impacts our abilities. I would recommend folks look into the Blue Zones. Where people li…

Me too, I'm 37, and I did a radical diet change -- No sugar, no carbs, no dairy, no gluten. Only meat and vegetables and fish and some fruit. After a year of this I've dropped 20kg, and my mental clarity is back where it was when I was early 20's. I think it was mostly the no sugar that did it. Exercise too - I walk 2-5 km a day Oh and cutting down what I eat too -- I only have 1 meal a day, and a smoothie in the aft…

That's pretty radical on the diet. Was it difficult to adjust? I'm pretty thin as it is so I'd be worried I'd waste away!

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#432

Post by ryanwaggoner »

theptip wrote: post #344
vogt wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind sharing the routine, or a general outline of how you approached weight lifting from “zero” to “one”? I’m approaching 36 and haven’t lifted anything in 10+ years. But reading sentiments like this is motivating me to start again. I’m just scared honestly - my body has atrophied quite a bit the last 4-5 years at minimum

Typical good advice is to do some simple barbell compound lifts like Rippetoe’s Starting Strength. Deadlift, squat, pull-ups, hard to go wrong with that base. Make sure you ramp load gradually if you have lifted in the past, your muscle memory can return faster than your connective tissue strength leading to injury risk if you stack the weight aggressively.

Make sure you ramp load gradually if you have lifted in the past, your muscle memory can return faster than your connective tissue strength leading to injury risk if you stack the weight aggressively.

This! Dealing with this right now :(

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#433

Post by dmos62 »

You've received so much feedback, so I imagine my comment will be lost in the weeds, but I'll say it anyway.

I want to work with programmers like you. I really do. I don't want colleagues that can dive through stacks untangling complicated messes effortlessly. I want colleagues that are sensitive to every cognitively burdensome aspect of the codebase and _need_ to fix it to continue working. These are programmers that will be methodical and wholesome in their approach, and will deliver code that is easy to work with. I'll choose a programmer like you over a young-gun-star-code-cowboy every day of the week.

That said, if I were you I'd ask myself if the problems I'm having are inherent in the problem I'm solving, or in the approach I'm taking. I'm somewhat younger than you, but I have horrible working memory (sounds similar to what you're describing), and my self-development as a programmer has been mostly centered around finding ways to make that irrelevant.

Also, you might be interested in the Huberman Lab podcast. He's a neuroscientist and has episodes about ways to improve things focus and creativity.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#434

Post by mfer »

tablatom wrote: post #431
malux85 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too, I'm 37, and I did a radical diet change -- No sugar, no carbs, no dairy, no gluten. Only meat and vegetables and fish and some fruit. After a year of this I've dropped 20kg, and my mental clarity is back where it was when I was early 20's. I think it was mostly the no sugar that did it. Exercise too - I walk 2-5 km a day Oh and cutting down what I eat too -- I only have 1 meal a day, and a smoothie in the aft…

That's pretty radical on the diet. Was it difficult to adjust? I'm pretty thin as it is so I'd be worried I'd waste away!

I did a radical diet change, too. I'm wired where I can just do that. I've read most people can't and trying often leads people to failure. If you aren't wired to just pivot on a dime you might try a system that works for you.

My major diet change was to eat like the healthiest of the Blue Zone folks. I wanted great energy now and longevity of it and my life. A diet that gives me energy now but leads to heart disease wouldn't cut it.

For that, I went plant based whole grain.

How much you eat matters, too.

A good technical book on diet is The Proof is in the Plants [1]. It covers what we need in our diets and why. For example, how much selenium do we need and what are sources of it. Despite the book title talking about plants it also covers meat and dairy. Everything covered in the book is based on the latest scientific research. It's written by a dietitian who can reference the studies.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Proof-Plants-science-plant-based-plan...

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#435

Post by hbrn »

> I don't know if this task is just an especially bad fit for me, or if my mental abilities are declining?

> The code I'm porting is average code, not terrible, but plenty of little things to complain about.

There might be a third option: struggling is a signal that API is convoluted. The code might be alright, but the design is bad.

You seem to be focusing a lot on API implementation (how it's done in another language), not the interface (what the API is doing).

Ask yourself: can you easily explain what should happen when each entry point is called?

If you can, why are you so attached to the old implementation? You should write it from scratch without relying on the old code. Old code is there to expose past knowledge (e.g. edge cases you might have missed), but not as a base for new implementation.

If you cannot, then API has a bad design. It might be alright for computers, but not for humans. Obviously accepting that it is bad doesn't solve your problems.

I had a similar case when I was ~28. What worked for me, is having a picture of how I would build it today, if I were to do it from scratch. This picture is usually much simpler and easy to keep in your head. Then, understanding the diffs between old and new design. The diffs essentially are the flaws of the old design, but now they are also the requirements you have to implement (assuming fixing API interface is not an option).

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#436

Post by GrinningFool »

Practical tip: many editors will track call stacks for you. In VIM it's ctrl+[ (go to definition/push stack) and ctrl+t (return from definition/pop stack). I assume vscode and others have similar functionality.

There might be some setup to make it work with any given editor (including vim) but it's worth it because it provides an immediate productivity boost - if you forget where you are, you can 'pop' the stack, check it, then 'push' back down to where you need to be.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#438

Post by johnea »

I would posit that in reality, you just don't give a fuck the way you used to.

Because seriously, you have a couple of decades to go before you hit real physical performance decline (assuming you don't have early onset alzheimer's or something)

I would also point out, that not really giving a fuck is a much more informed position...

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#440

Post by hagmonk »

tablatom wrote: post #427
hagmonk wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sharing my own anecdata: my Oura ring shows that on days I drink, RHR is 10bpm higher and HRV about 15ms lower. Exercise has a huge impact on sleep quality too. My theory is that when you're young, your body has a much wider margin for error. A few drinks or sloppy exercise routines never seemed to impact my work. As I've aged, the margin has shrunk, and now there's a measurable effect that I can no longer ignore. Ag…

Is the Oura a good purchase? I've been really eyeing the health benefits of the Apple watch but there's no way I want a portal into the digital world that's a flick of the wrist away. It's bad enough with the phone pickups.

In terms of wearables, it's quite unobtrusive because it's literally just a ring. There is no display to become distracted with. The inside of the ring will glow when it's taking measurements (red for blood oxygen, green for heart rate) so that might surprise you when the lights are out, but that's about the extent of how "intrusive" it is.

The battery life is very good, I typically get several days to a single charge, which is far better than the Apple Watch. But most importantly it's comfortable to wear during sleep - indeed it takes the majority of its measurements only while you're sleeping. YMMV but there's no way I can wear an Apple Watch to sleep, while the Oura ring works perfectly. I've worn the last two generations of Oura ring and would definitely recommend.

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