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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.

#241

Post by markus_zhang »

Same boat but for different reasons. I'm 40 and have a 2.25 yr kid. I was doing fine before the kid was born but my mental capacity deteriorated a lot since then. It's a combination of depression, loss of sleep and increased pressure from work.

That said, I still managed to pull out a few nights of programming (the Synacor Challenge) and debugging, occasionally till 2AM while I barely get much sleep because we are trying to ditch the pacifier.

I have a feeling that humans can still burn extra mental energy when really driven, to certain limit. But in 40s we are driven by far fewer things than in 20s, and we need more rest for these burns. The up side is I know ourselves better now than in our 20s so I can at least achieve something. Back when I was in my 20s I spent most of the time playing games and failed to learn anything properly.

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

#242

Post by sph »

amelius wrote: post #10
pentaphobe wrote: post #2

I've experienced this periodically since my early 20's - generally in hindsight I realise it was: real life getting in the way, burnout, lack of interest (I was interested in the idea, but on some fundamental level - not the activity) - also occasionally just a feeling of Groundhog Day (ie. Some code tasks can just feel a little too familiar - even if novel, and that saps my joy) Either way, at the time it was quite…

It could also be attention span problems caused by social media.

And technology in general. There is a video by HealthyGamerGG that explains how using smartphones or computers turns off a crucial part of the brain that knows what is important and you should focus on.

The longer you're in front of a screen, the more you lose awareness of yourself and what you enjoy. Taking frequent breaks away from screens is important to stay motivated and restore that drive towards meaningful things.

It's sounds wishy-washy how I explained it here, but the video has a more scientific explanation of this phenomenon.

https://youtu.be/zBgCRJluWTc

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

#243

Post by oneplane »

jb1991 wrote: post #222
dr_dshiv wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. Do you think we will ever get a pill to replace exercise?

Exercise is a source of enjoyment, why would you want to replace that?

Perhaps the pill we'd need is one to make everyone enjoy exercise at some minimum base level. Plenty of people I've talked to were either not enjoying exercise at all, or did enjoy it while they were doing it, but have a lot of resistance to getting started every time they plan to do something.

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

#244

Post by gapan »

rightbyte wrote: post #209
pohl wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is good advice. Just a few days ago I randomly stumbled upon a youtube video where someone was using — blast from the past, here — a hunk of green bar line printer paper as a big scratch pad to write on. It made me wonder how I ever got out of that habit. That stuff, when it was ubiquitous, was the best scratch paper ever, and I used to do it all the time when I was young and, one would think, at my cognitive pe…

I would want one of these Etch'n'Sketch but with a pen and some higher resolution. The variant where you pull a lever to reset it. Whiteboard markers are too wide and I am left handed so I erase as a write. And using paper makes it feel like I am wasting paper.

Those things exist. You press a button instead of pulling a lever. Search for "drawing tablet" or "writing tablet". I've got a 20" one by Xiaomi, but there are lots to choose from, very inexpensive too.

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

#245

Post by rendall »

I read a study that programming skill improves with age. And another that cognitive decline doesn't really happen until the late 60s if then.

You might have some decline in motivation due to other reasons, not least anxiety about aging!

If your colleagues who are enthusiastically porting that API were the same age as you, you would attribute your lack of focus to something else. There is no reason to latch onto age as the explanation.

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

#246

Post by mensetmanusman »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #208
FPGAhacker wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had a very successful similar experience with regard to excercise.

Hmm. Do you think we will ever get a pill to replace exercise?

Maybe centuries from now we will be able to replace movement with a bunch of chemicals that confuse the muscles to think they moved, but movement actually causes a lot of hydraulic pumping effects throughout the lymphatic system that physically diffuses toxins into a waste stream.

It’s probably not possible from a physics standpoint to replace motion induced pumping/diffusion with pure chemistry.

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

#248

Post by xyproto »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #134
jb1991 wrote: post #17

I don't know you personally but I doubt cognitive decline has anything to do with this. As we age, we usually end up with more and more life responsibilities, beyond just the work we are doing. All of that is input to the brain and requires energy in response. The brain is not infinite. I often feel as you do, but then I have periods where I am as light and agile in my productivity as 20 years ago, maybe even more so…

> As we age, we usually end up with more and more life responsibilities As somebody who far away from 40, how is one supposed to "look forward" to getting older given this likelihood?

Life is more fulfilling, but with more responsibility comes more things to worry about.

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

#249

Post by ok_computer »

cr3ative wrote: post #8

Sounds like you've identified your problem with the task - you can't hold the entire state of the problem in your head all at once, but maybe you would have been able to in the past. This seems like something you can overcome. Have you tried writing these function calls out as a flow on a piece of paper, or in a flow chart, document, something like that? A reference which you draw to be able to tell where you are the…

I second the idea to draw out in a simplified flow chart like visio or excel boxes or graph paper. Nothing fancy, no ISO standard schematic, just journal sketches. The context being not the entire system design but for a single call what is the flow. That helps me in the weeds and out of the editor thinking. Also it may be 2h to do it for a simple case but I’ve found spending that drafting time helps think about the problem in entirety and saves time in the editor.

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

#250

Post by talkingtab »

I agree with much of what others say: if you want to assess your mental ability, first count how many other tasks/responsibilities/distractions/obligations etc, you have in your life. When I was young, to a large extent I could concentrate on the task. And I ran. Later with two kids, a dysfunctional wife and dysfunctional job - not so much. I'm over 65 now. I still like programming. I have lost some quickness in some kind of memory, but that is made up for by a much, much deeper understanding of the patterns. I'm not sure how to describe it.

And thinking of patterns, perhaps that is part of what you are up against. I find that trash code is increasingly hard to sort through. Does the API itself make sense? If not, then maybe you are better off thinking about how it should be written. As a starting point.

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