Do you think it’s really the fact that you were younger or just that you have a lot more responsibilities now?

I’m in my early 30s and I definitely feel less sharp than in my 20s, but I also feel like my priorities have changed and I have more responsibilities at work and at home, so I have much less ability to just be able to do very long periods of focused studying/thinking like I used to in my 20s

I asked my parents about this as they are both accomplished people and work in STEM/academia.

They both mentioned feeling less sharp when they hit their mid-to-late 30s, which corresponds to… when they had kids. I know correlation isn’t causation, but seeing all of my coworkers who have young children now all mention they’ve had a marked decrease in mental acuity for work due to sleep deprivation (and having to prioritize their kids), I’m going to guess this is it.

I also wonder if you just had a month to focus on refreshing what you learned in school how quickly it would all come back.

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mothballed 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

It cannot be understated how much kids interrupt the ability to focus on tasks. The ability to do nothing but focus on solving on a problem for a week straight felt like 100x the productivity of having to totally context switch at the end of the day to someone needing a juice or going into a screaming tantrum because the color of the cup is wrong and that being non-stop until the next work-day, which totally obliterates all the short-term working memory you had of the task at hand.

	▲	jonplackett 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This is a good point. I’d say if having kids was the start of my mental fogginess. Just the lack of sleep must have an large effect.
	▲	pixelpoet 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Pretty sure you mean to say, it cannot be overstated :)

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aDyslecticCrow 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think i would really enjoy a refresh course for university level maths and physics. But perhaps it would be better spent learning new maths and physics, which force a refresh on relevant prerequisite maths.

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tshaddox 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think it’s mostly about your level of interest in taking the test. This can obviously be influenced by your priorities and other responsibilities. Incidentally, I think IQ tests and similar “cognitive tests” are all mostly just measuring the subject’s interest in the test.

	▲	jonplackett 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think interest and concentration definitely play a part - but to say that’s all it measures is kinda crazy

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thimkerbell 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Is this a test whose abilities would survive being retaken periodically? Because having a baseline to compare against would let you know if your cranium was headed south, or if particular circumstances were contributing to that.

(my 2¢: avoid sugar, fast food& other carbs, nitrite meats)