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Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#131

Post by atemerev »

GoodOldNe wrote: post #92
atemerev wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidentally, the response of somebody with ADD to Adderall is completely different compared to response of a normal person to amphetamines. It is more like "relaxed concentration" than stimulation. Therapeutic dose of Adderall is way smaller than "recreational" doses of amphetamine. It has to be carefully calibrated by therapist. Higher doses will lead to headaches and, paradoxically, tiredness and drowsiness — not…

"Higher doses will lead to headaches and, paradoxically, tiredness and drowsiness — not stimulation." False. You're right in that it won't help them very much -- specifically because taking overdoses of amphetamines tends to lead to things like insomnia, tachycardia/dehydration, and mania/psychosis.

The effects I described were experienced by me during the calibration period, where I took higher dose than me and my therapist eventually settled on. Perhaps it might work differently for some people, but this is what I heard from other people who suffer from ADHD and tried to take higher doses.

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#132

Post by ambicapter »

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #34
AstralStorm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You meant non-job time, right? There are other inevitable time sinks.

Everyone has time sinks. Just about everyone over the age of 22 works at least 8 hours. 9-5 are lighter hours than anyone I know excluding those who are shift workers. I don't know anyone with a white-collar job that gets off before 6, and many start before 8. I work some of the lightest hours of people I know at 9-6:30. We all find time to network.

So what kind of networking do you do? Go to company happy hour? Freelance? "Connecting" to people on LinkedIn?

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#133

Post by taurath »

tremon wrote: post #80
wepple wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who said any of this has anything to do with a corporate job? do it in the morning, the weekend; then use the benefits of increased cognitive potential at work?

The phrase "maximize potential" reeks of corporate performance, not personal growth. At least to me it does.

Perhaps because thats the contexts in which you hear it most often.

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#134

Post by gradys »

singham wrote: post #44
ideonexus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more literature I read about this, the more compelling I find this. In mammals, the larger the body the larger the brain. That's because you need all those neurons to control all those muscles. I recently read some papers that hypothesize the muscle atrophy we experience as we get older is partially the result of the neurons controlling those muscle-fibers dying [1]. As infants, our brains grow into our bodies by…

Is an elephant really more intelligent than a human then?

Nautilus has an article[1] that explores exactly this question. I beleive the conclusion was that it is the number of cortical neurons, not the total number of neurons and not brain mass that best predicts intelligence, or at least best correlates with our intuitive ranking of intelligence that puts humans and then primates at the top, above elephants.

[1] - http://nautil.us/issue/35/boundaries/the-paradox-of-the-elep...

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#135

Post by taurath »

As someone who previously fit the diagnostic criteria for PDD-NOS as a child and no longer does - I wonder how much of the described effect comes from a potential, sparsely documented trait of HF autism spectrum disorders that starts a person at a lower cognitive level but has more potential than others to overcome such a handicap?

I'd love to see more study in this - at age 15 (whilst heavily medicated) I had the social skills of a 9 year old, generally because of the lag of having to find processes that worked for me where neurotypical kids had a naturally good environment to learn these things. Since striking out and finding my own path I've grown leaps and bounds and many people I respect as having good social skills and emotional intelligence call me charismatic.

My hypothesis is that autistic kids /require/ a rational framework with which to work in dynamic situations, but while young do not have enough well-developed/healthy cognitive maps or experience to achieve a workable one until later. Couple that with low expectations and special treatment - necessary to stave off active pain but eventually turning into a crutch - had I stayed on medication/done what the doctors/teachers/parent said I have no doubt I would probably be on some sort of disability or at the very least not have the skillsets that have given me success today.

All that said, I'm certainly a firm believer of being able to grow cognitively at any age. There's just a hell of a lot of inertia that is very easy to get into - habits die very very hard and require a lot of effort to overcome. When you don't have the ability to do a hard reset and move away, get out of the space you're in it gets harder.

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#136

Post by taurath »

ideonexus wrote: post #21
CuriouslyC wrote: post #9

One of the most consistent ways research has demonstrated to increase connectivity in the brain is to learn new physical skills. Controlling the body in space appears to be particularly good at stimulating the growth of new synapses (and possibly new neurons as well, though the research is not conclusive here outside the hippocampus). Yoga is a good start. Modern dance, breakdancing, capoeira and gymnastics are all e…

The more literature I read about this, the more compelling I find this. In mammals, the larger the body the larger the brain. That's because you need all those neurons to control all those muscles. I recently read some papers that hypothesize the muscle atrophy we experience as we get older is partially the result of the neurons controlling those muscle-fibers dying [1]. As infants, our brains grow into our bodies by…

As a potentially related point - in autistic individuals there is markedly less synaptic pruning:

http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(14)00651-5?_r...

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#137

Post by sn9 »

anantzoid wrote: post #46
CuriouslyC wrote: post #9

One of the most consistent ways research has demonstrated to increase connectivity in the brain is to learn new physical skills. Controlling the body in space appears to be particularly good at stimulating the growth of new synapses (and possibly new neurons as well, though the research is not conclusive here outside the hippocampus). Yoga is a good start. Modern dance, breakdancing, capoeira and gymnastics are all e…

I used to do boxing earlier in college, and used to hit the gym religiously till last year, when my elbow fractured and got implants to hold it together. After that I wasn't able to do much activity, even if I wanted, apart from running. Even pushups carry a risk of screwing up the implants in my elbow. What kind of physical activity do you think can be done in this type of scenario?

Dance?

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#138

Post by lloyd-christmas »

ambicapter wrote: post #132
lloyd-christmas wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has time sinks. Just about everyone over the age of 22 works at least 8 hours. 9-5 are lighter hours than anyone I know excluding those who are shift workers. I don't know anyone with a white-collar job that gets off before 6, and many start before 8. I work some of the lightest hours of people I know at 9-6:30. We all find time to network.

So what kind of networking do you do? Go to company happy hour? Freelance? "Connecting" to people on LinkedIn?

New grads/young professionals track me down regularly asking for "career advice" (a job). People my age/older email me about potential job opportunities. Coffee with either of them is pretty effortless given that both of them will typically come to you. Meetups[0] after work usually start at 7. I probably get to about 3 or 4 a month which is plenty to build a superficial network outside of my immediate friends and family. I don't have children. Even if I did though, trading 2 nights a month my significant other for personal/career networking isn't all that unreasonable. A friend of mine runs a meetup and he has 3 kids.

I sleep 7 hours, I'm at work/commuting 11 hours. That leaves me with 30 hours on weekdays to divide however I please (obviously there are other basic sunk costs like basic hygiene and eating). I've found that once I quantify the time I have in life, it's a lot easier to notice when it's available and be productive with it. I'm really not even one of those super motivated people. I just like to be conscientious of my free time.

[0] http://www.meetup.com/

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#139

Post by ethbro »

timroy wrote: post #98
singham wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is an elephant really more intelligent than a human then?

No, an elephant needs a larger brain to run its larger body. Humans have enough brains to run our bodies, plus "extra" with which to think, in a manner of speaking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient

I've always thought the metabolic needs must have been just as driving (specifically, being carnivores). Note: not a dig at vegetarians, we're talking about long before the proliferation of tofu and quinoa.

"A gram of brain tissue takes 20 times more energy to grow and maintain than a gram of tissue from the kidney, heart, or liver"

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/04/eating-meat-le...

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#140

Post by atemerev »

Jemmeh wrote: post #122
atemerev wrote: post #11

I can relate to that. I am not super-intelligent, I have ADD, and generally consider myself to be lazy and distraction-prone. However, for some reasons unknown, I have excellent working memory, which allows me to perform feats. Multi-choice exams? Can prepare for anything in few hours. Learn Scala (and another 5-6 programming languages) in a few months? Easy! I don't use password managers, as I remember all my long p…

As a person who has trouble focusing-- A.) Minimize visual stimuli in your work area. Get everything off your desk, and shove your face in a corner. (I've turned my desk to face away from the hallway.) B.) Take notes as you work. I will write 15 minutes of code, take a note on what I'm doing, then get (purposefully) distracted for a minute or two. When I come back to my work, I can look at my note to see what I was d…

Thanks for the advice, these ideas make sense.
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