Ask HN: tips for fueling your brain each day?

When I get tired, either at night or in the afternoon, it "feels" like it's my brain getting tired more than my body. It's harder to concentrate, make decisions, and see things clearly.

My core solution is pretty simple: do various things to ensure I get a good night's sleep (which for me is 7.5 hours without waking up) and take a 20-minute nap in the afternoons. If I do these two things, my mind feels stronger for longer, more often at its best. If I don't, it can feel weak and drained and distracted.

I have also found eating less sugary foods tends to help, as does exercise, though I can't see as direct a impact on brain energy as sleeping and napping.

I suspect there's a lot more I could do. The brain consumes a great deal of a person's energy, perhaps even more dramatically for folks like me (and I suspect many on HN) whose minds are always buzzing with thought all day long, and I'd like to find more ways to "feed" it on a day to day basis.

So I ask you fellow hackers: what sleep, food, exercise, or other habits have you found to be most effective in fueling your day-to-day brain power?

Good tip. As someone who doesn't do well with coffee -- it makes me twitchy -- I find green tea helpful. I drink it several days a weak, in part for the general anti-oxidant health benefits, in part for the caffeine boost. But I feel like it sharpens my brain to use my available energy better, more effectively, so perhaps unlike most caffeine-consumers I tend to drink it only when I already feel fully rested. It doesn't seem to provide extra energy when my brain is already tired. In fact I fear in those cases it just prevents me from taking a quick nap which helps much much more to recover my brain energy. That's my experience with green tea so far -- I definitely want to explore it more.

Also, for food, I follow the Upgraded Life / Bulletproof Diet. Also awesome and amazing, but I was almost eating paleo 2.0 anyways. Before this I was following the Slow-Card Diet as described by Tim Ferriss in 4 Hour Body.

For sleep I recommend these things. I've been experimenting for the past month and I now regularly sleep only 5 hours a night and I feel AWESOME all day with the Bulletproof coffe / Bulletproof diet combo and these things:

1.using F.Lux or just turning down your screen's brightness an hour before bed time 2. 20 minutes before bed I like to take a 15 minute shower. Start with hot water and lather up, followed by 10 minutes of progressively colder and colder water and sit in the shower for 3 more minutes under ice cold water. The temperature change will cause your body (Brown Adipose Tissue) to try to burn up the outer layers of fat (White Adipose Tissue), heating up your system. You will fall asleep pretty quickly as an added benefit, as long as you try to go to sleep right after. 3. Have some saturated fats before bed. That 'groggy' head you might wake up with is because you are dehydrated and have low blood sugar when you wake up.

If you into it you will find tea is popular with monks for sustaining meditation. Tea has more than caffeine, there are other useful compounds as well. Much better for focus than coffee.

If you are good at power naps (i.e. can drift off in under 10 minutes in the right conditions) you can try a tea rebound nap; make a strong cup of tea and drink it quickly just before you lay down for a snooze. You'll drift off before it hits and by the time your 20-25 minute timer finishes your brain is doubly refreshed.

I find the 'hard-reset' aspect of a nap to be essential some days, and it is completely different in nature than the 'energy' aspect. More to do with unresolved problems to solve than actual energy.

I find drinking a lot of water keeps me alert. I read that the brain uses a lot of water so I started drinking water and trying to stay hydrated at all times. Not sure if its placebo or it actually works. I have also started meditating recently and I find it very good to relax before I go to sleep. It also keeps me happy and sane.I use this site, I haven't upgraded to the paid version. http://www.getsomeheadspace.com I find the below a good blog for productivity and well being articles. http://www.bakadesuyo.com