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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.

#341

Post by kortex »

bqmjjx0kac wrote: post #150
dkarl wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charles Simonyi said: "It’s probably just that aging changes your mode of thinking. Right now, I have to really concentrate and I might even get a headache just trying to imagine something clearly and distinctly with twenty or thirty components. When I was young, I could imagine a castle with twenty rooms with each room having ten different objects in it. I would have no problem. I can’t do that anymore. Now I think…

Thanks in part to ADHD, I'm sure, I have severe tunnel vision while reading and writing code. I need to constantly diagram, take notes, and walk through call stacks (and re-walk) just to maintain my mental model. I am insanely jealous of people who can keep everything in their head. Maybe there's a silver lining in that my methods are more resistant to brain-busting situations, depression, cognitive decline, etc., bu…

The flip side of that is people who can keep everything in their head often write code which reflects exactly that, and that code is very hard for others to scrutinize.

I try to lean into just such a silver lining. I like to write my code for worst-case future-me: what would it take for my sleep-deprived, Monday morning, uncaffeinated brain to make sense of? It definitely helps, especially even considering that approach, I often find I overestimate my future ability to understand past code.

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

#344

Post by theptip »

vogt wrote: post #333
safety1st wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal anecdote: I'm around the same age as OP and until recently also felt like my thinking was slowing down over the years. I went for many years without an exercise habit. About 5 months ago I started lifting weights. The transformation has defied all my expectations and the biggest unexpected benefit is that my mind has become sharper, faster and more focused. I essentially feel like I've reversed a decade's wo…

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.

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

#345

Post by say_it_as_it_is »

mooneater wrote: post #280

You might try lions mane, a mushroom that noticeably boosts my mental clarity. Also, being older we have a lot more on our mind. So methods to help organize and focus are more useful than ever to me now. Take notes, keep logs, etc.

What supplier are you using for lion's mane? I've had good experience with RealMushrooms.

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

#346

Post by throwaway743 »

Been feeling this though I'm not 40 yet, fairly close though. What's helped is exercise, eating well rounded meals, getting good sleep, and knocking out health issues that I was either aware or not aware of by getting regular checkups.

Sounds cliche, but def a list to keep in mind and check off if you haven't. Even just a single 20-30 min workout makes a sea change in cognitive functions

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

#347

Post by stronglikedan »

I felt that way when I was on welbutrin for depression. The fog likely started creeping in sooner, but I didn't notice it for over a year. As soon as I got off, the fog started to lift. Just something to consider if you take any medications.

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

#348

Post by teamonkey »

riskable wrote: post #297
lukehutch wrote: post #123

I'm 46, and while I do think my cognitive speed has declined a tiny bit, my abstract thinking has improved throughout life. The one change I have noticed though is that programming has become insanely complex during the 37 years I have been programming, but more especially during the last 10-15 years. It's at the point now where you can't even create a basic website, to modern standards, without spending months of wo…

Don't compare web development with "normal" software development. Writing code for the web is 10,000 layers of added complexity far above and beyond literally any other kind of programming. "Normal" programming involves writing code that will run on one specific thing with (usually) one specific use case using tools (and often whole languages) made for that purpose. Web programming involves writing code that will run…

> Writing code for the web is 10,000 layers of added complexity far above and beyond literally any other kind of programming.

Video games? Mission-critical real-time embedded code? Operating system development?

I don't want to knock anyone down, but web programming is not the most complex or challenging thing going, it's just software development.

True, it's made more difficult and annoying than it should be, because you need to deal with a jenga-like stack of badly-designed and poorly-documented APIs, forced to use languages and systems with inherent flaws, and have your targets constantly shifting due to the latest fad. But then, that's not unique to web dev, it's just worse.

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

#349

Post by patch_collector »

vogt wrote: post #333
safety1st wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal anecdote: I'm around the same age as OP and until recently also felt like my thinking was slowing down over the years. I went for many years without an exercise habit. About 5 months ago I started lifting weights. The transformation has defied all my expectations and the biggest unexpected benefit is that my mind has become sharper, faster and more focused. I essentially feel like I've reversed a decade's wo…

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

You might look into a trainer for a few sessions. I'm in a similar situation, and just getting back into lifting with a set of at-home weights. Thankfully, one of my company benefits is an in-house trainer who you can sign up with for a few remote sessions. She's putting together a plan for me, then will do a few zoom calls to make sure I'm doing the exercises right, and hopefully that'll take care of things.

Years ago, I used a trainer in a gym to kickstart a plan, and I found it very useful.

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

#350

Post by adenozine »

Are you getting enough magnesium? I know this is just some guy in the internet, but you may as well give it a try after you talk to a doctor. I take it, and I have noticed a distinct improvement in my sharpness, so to speak. Perhaps clarity might be a better descriptor.

Anyhow, good luck!

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