Ask HN: What is one thing that improved your cognitive skills the most?

I’m wondering what people here are doing to help with their concentration, memory, energy etc

Ample sleep, healthy diet, quality exercise, walking through natural areas, and a good social life.

I don't know about that, but I know bitterly that chronic sleep deprivation basically deatroyed the "RAM" of my brain, now it's really difficult to concentrate and go through difficult problem without rest. So instead of gritting through step 1 to 10, I have to take a rest after step 3, then make sure that step 3 was property done, then take another rest after step 6, recheck 6, and so on.

I'd argue one of the edges smart people have is to have a large RAM. They can think through all 10 steps in one shot, maybe 20-30 mins, while people like me have to take triple that time, even a full day because something interrupts us in the middle.

Conclusion: don't f**ing get kid(s) unless you really want them, as air and water, and are willing to sacrifice cognitive ability.

If I had to pick one thing I would say gaming.

But then I overdid it and played too much and slept too little. Now I rarely play games.

Probably explaining what I think I know/understand to someone else. You have to understand things clearer to be able to do that so it's a forcing function.

The more of this you do the easier it is to categorize information and ideas leading to less cognitive load and increasing capacity.