HACKER Q&A
📣 behnamoh

How do you cope with getting slow/stupid?


I've noticed that everything I do these days takes way more than it did a few years ago. I'm a graduate student and this realization has crushed all hope I had to succeed in my field. Either I've become dumber, or somehow every task - even simple house chores - has gotten way more time consuming and hard. I used to study difficult courses with lots of math and I would learn them easily. Now? I spend a whole day trying to read a couple sample questions and even without solving them, it takes me hours and hours to just read the solutions which are already there. Or for example, I used to read a text/paper/article and be able to retain what I read. Now I get lost in the sentences and can't find my way through the text. I'm 29 and this shouldn't be happening to me. Honestly, this situation, along with the pressure I feel from the faculty and the PhD program, has made me seriously reconsider dropping out. But I know even in the industry I need to be sharp and quick. Have you experienced a similar thing? How did you cope with it/fix it?

  👤 ggm Accepted Answer ✓
Stress can cause this. You might want to speak to a health professional and rule out underlying causes before seeking to understand what aspects of your mental state may relate.
👤 rman666
I’m 57 (and a half). I still code everyday and I founded a “real” AI Startup less than two years ago. Now get off my lawn!
👤 blueflame7
You aren’t getting dumber, you’re getting wiser. You’re brain is tired of studying and starting to question the point of it all which is sapping your willpower. You brain is craving for diversification. Not all lessons are learned in a classroom, in fact some great ones can be learned in a bar. You need a new challenge in an orthogonal field to academics
👤 knaq
Your brain is full.

I don't think that's just a joke. There is a finite amount of space in your skull, so you can have a finite amount of neurons with a finite amount of interconnections and so on.

Some people fill up faster than other people do. You've done quite well compared to normal people.

The biology is even biased toward early learning. Humans have an unusually high ability to keep learning into adulthood, but it's still nothing compared to childhood ability. Learning tapers off in favor of stored knowledge. The elders hold knowledge and have less urge to shake things up, having already figured things out and obtained status.