This happens to me too. In particular, if I concentrate at say 95% of ability on a hard problemset for 2+ hours without a break, I’m often “fried” for a few hours after that. In my journals, I sometimes call it “synaptic backlash” — I don’t know that it’s actually happening on that level, but it feels like I overtaxed some inner mechanism of the brain somewhat.
That said, I think there’s a lot of potential explanations. Here’s a few I’ve come up with —
*Actual, physical strain — eye strain, tension in body, staying in same position/posture for long periods of time.
*Forgetting to hydrate or eat while concentrating. (Sometimes I feel like hell after a long work session, and then realize I haven’t eaten something in a day, eat, and I’m good again shortly afterwards.)
*Potentially over-consuming stimulants when concentrating — empirically, I go much harder on coffee and nicotine when I’m working on hard problems, but oddly, I seem to forget that I do that. Then I get caffeine/nicotine headaches, but sometimes forget the simple cause-effect relationship of why it happened. (I know that sounds stupid, but I used to do this quite commonly without realizing what it was.)
*General fatigue effects prompting explore/exploit tradeoffs. These two papers on paper that Kaj Sotala shared with me were gamechangers —
Also, a subtle effect that might explain some of it — regular normal homeostatic pressure means we often lose some “cognitive horsepower” throughout the day as sleep pressure builds, circadian/ultradian rhythms cycle, and various biological processes happen. If you’re only performing at 60% of your theoretical max capacity, you might not notice a −10% decrease in cognitive processing ability… if you’re up at 95% of theoretical max capacity but experience a normal −10% decline as a result of just hours passing, it can feel like you’re… I don’t know how to describe it, but “losing the problem” or some such… it’s likely that at close to our mental limits we more acutely feel the normal loss of cognitive ability that just comes as the day goes on via normal biochemical processes.
That’s my $.02 — this is still an active area of inquiry for me, it seems important and relevant to long-term well-being...
This happens to me too. In particular, if I concentrate at say 95% of ability on a hard problemset for 2+ hours without a break, I’m often “fried” for a few hours after that. In my journals, I sometimes call it “synaptic backlash” — I don’t know that it’s actually happening on that level, but it feels like I overtaxed some inner mechanism of the brain somewhat.
That said, I think there’s a lot of potential explanations. Here’s a few I’ve come up with —
*Actual, physical strain — eye strain, tension in body, staying in same position/posture for long periods of time.
*Forgetting to hydrate or eat while concentrating. (Sometimes I feel like hell after a long work session, and then realize I haven’t eaten something in a day, eat, and I’m good again shortly afterwards.)
*Potentially over-consuming stimulants when concentrating — empirically, I go much harder on coffee and nicotine when I’m working on hard problems, but oddly, I seem to forget that I do that. Then I get caffeine/nicotine headaches, but sometimes forget the simple cause-effect relationship of why it happened. (I know that sounds stupid, but I used to do this quite commonly without realizing what it was.)
*General fatigue effects prompting explore/exploit tradeoffs. These two papers on paper that Kaj Sotala shared with me were gamechangers —
http://www.viriya.net/jabref/why_self-control_seems_but_may_not_be_limited.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856320/
Also, a subtle effect that might explain some of it — regular normal homeostatic pressure means we often lose some “cognitive horsepower” throughout the day as sleep pressure builds, circadian/ultradian rhythms cycle, and various biological processes happen. If you’re only performing at 60% of your theoretical max capacity, you might not notice a −10% decrease in cognitive processing ability… if you’re up at 95% of theoretical max capacity but experience a normal −10% decline as a result of just hours passing, it can feel like you’re… I don’t know how to describe it, but “losing the problem” or some such… it’s likely that at close to our mental limits we more acutely feel the normal loss of cognitive ability that just comes as the day goes on via normal biochemical processes.
That’s my $.02 — this is still an active area of inquiry for me, it seems important and relevant to long-term well-being...