I am making this post because I don’t see this topic discussed often or at all. I am interested in learning proof based math. Currently I am working through Linear Algebra Done Wrong and Tao Analysis texts and doing the exercises. However, I also struggle with faint musical hallucinations at times, as well as brain fog. To correct the brain fog I take caffeine/sarcosine, however that can agitate me physically causing extreme shaking and cold sweats while still increasing my working memory, so it becomes a difficult trade off. I also find it difficult to consistently work out the steps of a proof—when I page in information into my working memory, often times music in my head or a random thought will scrap my mental scratchpad and I have to keep rebuilding the structure in my head. I’m wondering if there are any people on this forum who have had this experience/have any advice short of “this is psychiatric, so deal with it accordingly”—obviously I am aware of that, but I am not interested in taking mentally blunting medications as to reduce the noise in my head, but want to preserve cognition and be able to do proofs. I also don’t know if I’m underestimating the amount of noise/thought diversions in people’s minds when they do proofs and needlessly self persecuting.
I’ve known many people who experience similar difficulties, and have had some of them myself. I have not found any reliable approaches that work for everyone, or even work for a majority. You’re likely to need to try a bunch of stuff, and figure out what works for you. This takes years (as it’s often weeks or months before you know whether a partial technique is actually useful for you), and changes over time, so it never ends. But for many, some idiosyncratic combination of some the following help a lot. This is not in order, just a brainstorm of things to try:
Daily meditation.
Rigid on/off schedule—pomodoro or the like.
Flexible on/off schedule—permission to work 30 minutes some days, and 10 hours when in the zone.
Psychiatric medication.
Self-managed medication (rarely successful long-term without combining with psychiatric).
Different kinds of music or background noise.
Behavioral triggers—if you notice X is happening, do Y. LOTS of variants of X and Y to try out.
Keep a whiteboard at hand, for short-term notes and memory prompts.
Other note-taking media—voice recording is out of style, but it works for some.
Switch topics often, to keep interest/novelty level high.
Switch topics rarely, to keep sufficient background knowledge in your cache.
Study partners—both for structure of time/topic, and to give a specific audience to summarize for.
I have a proof that this is a solvable problem, but it won’t fit in this margin.
I am making this post because I don’t see this topic discussed often or at all. I am interested in learning proof based math. Currently I am working through Linear Algebra Done Wrong and Tao Analysis texts and doing the exercises. However, I also struggle with faint musical hallucinations at times, as well as brain fog. To correct the brain fog I take caffeine/sarcosine, however that can agitate me physically causing extreme shaking and cold sweats while still increasing my working memory, so it becomes a difficult trade off. I also find it difficult to consistently work out the steps of a proof—when I page in information into my working memory, often times music in my head or a random thought will scrap my mental scratchpad and I have to keep rebuilding the structure in my head. I’m wondering if there are any people on this forum who have had this experience/have any advice short of “this is psychiatric, so deal with it accordingly”—obviously I am aware of that, but I am not interested in taking mentally blunting medications as to reduce the noise in my head, but want to preserve cognition and be able to do proofs. I also don’t know if I’m underestimating the amount of noise/thought diversions in people’s minds when they do proofs and needlessly self persecuting.
I’ve known many people who experience similar difficulties, and have had some of them myself. I have not found any reliable approaches that work for everyone, or even work for a majority. You’re likely to need to try a bunch of stuff, and figure out what works for you. This takes years (as it’s often weeks or months before you know whether a partial technique is actually useful for you), and changes over time, so it never ends. But for many, some idiosyncratic combination of some the following help a lot. This is not in order, just a brainstorm of things to try:
Daily meditation.
Rigid on/off schedule—pomodoro or the like.
Flexible on/off schedule—permission to work 30 minutes some days, and 10 hours when in the zone.
Psychiatric medication.
Self-managed medication (rarely successful long-term without combining with psychiatric).
Different kinds of music or background noise.
Behavioral triggers—if you notice X is happening, do Y. LOTS of variants of X and Y to try out.
Keep a whiteboard at hand, for short-term notes and memory prompts.
Other note-taking media—voice recording is out of style, but it works for some.
Switch topics often, to keep interest/novelty level high.
Switch topics rarely, to keep sufficient background knowledge in your cache.
Study partners—both for structure of time/topic, and to give a specific audience to summarize for.
I have a proof that this is a solvable problem, but it won’t fit in this margin.