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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.

#441

Post by hagmonk »

jghn wrote: post #374
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…

My having an Apple Watch opened my eyes on how much alcohol affects my sleep, and thus everything else. Even as little as a single drink can have a disruptive effect that night. A real bender might take a couple of days for the effects to completely wear off. Last year for unrelated reasons I wound up not drinking at all for a few weeks. All of my heart & sleep metrics were improved by large amounts. When I zoom out…

Yeah that's a great point, the data really makes you pause and say "is this worth the cost?"

The other wearable that has had an extreme impact on my lifestyle has been a Dexcom CGM through Levels. I could write pages about this, but in some ways it has been more impactful than anything else. Knowing how your body reacts to particular foods, and seeing the immediate feedback is super eye opening.

And it extends into sleep as well, looking at what your blood glucose does overnight based on stress, exercise, what you ate, when you ate it, it's quite amazing to see how this subsystem in your body is reacting.

I'll never forget the first time I ate sushi (which mentally I thought of as a "light" food, even a snack) only to see my blood glucose rocket past 200 mg/dLf.

You can also see the effect of alcohol here. Not just with carbohydrate heavy beers, but with the fact alcohol itself suppresses your blood glucose levels, since it causes your pancreas to spike insulin, which disposes of glucose. So it's yet another way alcohol causes a disturbance in your body's attempts at homeostasis.

Alas, a CGM through levels is quite pricey because of US healthcare bullshit about giving CGMs to people without a diabetes diagnosis, but doing a month or two of CGM once per year I think it's a great investment (approx $200 for three sensors which last a total of 30 days)

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

#442

Post by bherb »

Starwatcher2001 wrote: post #361
denton-scratch wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got severely dinged for saying in a standup that I had forgotten what I was doing the previous day. So I bought an A4 hardback notebook, and started logging everything I did. I wish I had been doing that since I started in this business; it's a really good work habit.

I tried paper and log books for a long time (I've got half a filing cabinets worth), but no matter what system I used I couldn't always find what I wanted. (When did I last modify routine xyz, and why?). Moving to flat ascii files meant it's searchable and has longevity as it doesn't need any specific tool or app. I can also carry the lot around with me - very useful on site. Cheers.

How do you organize the files? One per day? Task? Project?

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

#443

Post by emiliobumachar »

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

I'm not who you asked, but I'll share my experience escaping sedentarism in advice form:

Start with push-ups. They're fast and require nothing but a flat surface. You can always transition to lifting weights later.

Start today, ideally right now. Seriously. It's your only chance. Tomorrow there'll be an even better reason not to.

Don't worry about initial quantity. You can start with two push-ups, that's fine. It'll take ten seconds if as much.

Repeat every day.

When you feel it got too easy, increment by one starting the following day, not at the moment.

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

#444

Post by Jorengarenar »

tablatom wrote: post #81
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…

I'll second this. Based on my own experience (I'm 50) it's all about energy levels. When my energy is high, I can code like I did two decades ago. Probably better. I guess the difference is that in your twenties, energy is almost for free. As you get older, you've got to be smarter about it - all the usual things - diet, exercise, avoiding stress... Not that I'm good about those things - I do OK but not great. Someti…

>I guess the difference is that in your twenties, energy is almost for free.

Where can I obtain this for free energy?

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

#445

Post by giancarlostoro »

Maybe this just isn't the job for you? If I were in your shoes, I'd be thinking less about the existing code, and more about what it does, and any edge cases, I would also review the code of your peers to see if they're just verbatim copying it, or if they're just making sure that you get the same output you need.

Another thing you could do is, become the guy who builds all the documentation for the new codebase + unit tests. If you're confirming the two code bases are "exact" you will need a lot of testing.

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

#446

Post by aternal »

"Youth is the most precious thing in life; it is too bad it has to be wasted on young folks."

When I was young, hungry, eager, I would drive fast and take chances, fail fast often, move fast and break things, you get the idea. I would have ripped apart that API and put it back together in record time, paying no attention to any debt I have accrued.

Years of mistakes have earned me the caution necessary to not deliver products that ruin my nights and weekends, disappoint clients, or make my company look incompetent. It sounds like your experience is correctly preventing you from making those mistakes.

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

#448

Post by malux85 »

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!

Yes it was difficult - giving up sugar was very tough, everything has sugar in it and the cravings were strong.

After a month though my taste buds changed, and I really enjoy the taste of meat and vegetables now.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to eat some vegan ice cream, and I thought I would treat myself to a couple of scoops in a cup thing, and after just 2 bites it was sickly sweet, the amount of sugar made me feel really ill, and it felt like I was eating poison, so I threw it away.

Quite interesting. I do miss some foods (pizza :( ) but the mental clarity alone is worth it.

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

#450

Post by ranting-moth »

The following are things I've identified myself, in case it's useful for anyone else.

When people say X is bad for you, they're usually right. But how bad is it? Will it affect you 5%, 10%, 50%? When you combine many bad things, they'll gang up on you together to make your life hell. They also affect you more the older you get.

Bad things:

* Lack of sleep

* Lack of exercise

* Social media

* Drinking/drugs

* Interruptions

* Unresolved/ongoing family/friends issues

* Bad and/or irregular diet

* Not doing things you like to do.

The feeling you describe using the contrived SHA-512 task, is of total, utter panic and hopelessness, putting it mildly.

I don't know how deep into this you are but it left unchecked it turns into a vicious cycle. Then those bad things mentioned above are more likely to knock on your door and make the problem worse in the long run.

Throughout my career I've sometimes had to use pen and paper to keep track of my thoughts while reverse engineering (which you are doing) or debugging spaghetti. File/Class names with function names and simple diagrams have been very helpful.

I've found out that trying to save time by not setting up a proper debugging environment is a very bad thing. Ideally you should be able to run both old server and old client on your computer. Write a very, very simple client that speaks to the old client.

Add logging and breakpoints to the old API. Step through it and write notes on paper.

Mental abilities declining? I don't know. I've encountered code that I struggled with at any point it my life. Perhaps the other devs know the code better or have had similar experiences. Perhaps you're working on a more difficult part of the code.

I'm guessing this old API was written over a long time. As such it'll have warts and bug fixes that are not trivial to understand. Do you know the language and framework it's written in? If not, write a very simple API in that lang/framework to understand it.

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