[HN Gopher] Why thinking hard makes us feel tired
___________________________________________________________________
Why thinking hard makes us feel tired
Author : rntn
Score : 147 points
Date : 2022-08-11 19:15 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| jyounker wrote:
| Being poor takes a huge amount of mental effort. This would
| explain in physiological terms why it's hard to make good
| decisions when you're poor.
| havblue wrote:
| This has always been an embarrassing issue for me: Lose track of
| the lecture. Try really hard to concentrate and catch up. Nod
| off.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| I suspect that nodding off in meetings or lectures, a lot of
| time, is caused by too much CO2 in the air, caused by poor
| ventilation and a room full of exhaling people.
| eminence32 wrote:
| It seems like the headline overstates the findings (as headlines
| are wont to do), but it's interesting nonetheless
|
| > participants who spent more than six hours working on a tedious
| and mentally taxing assignment had higher levels of glutamate
|
| > too much glutamate can disrupt brain function, and a rest
| period could allow the brain to restore proper regulation of the
| molecule
|
| It sounds like the next step is for some studies on the effects
| of glutamate
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| Glutamate can act as an excitotoxin. Excitotoxicity is believed
| to be associated with neurodegenerative diseases.
|
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2015.0046...
|
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncel.2020.0005...
|
| Related- conflicting research findings and anecdotes on
| glutamate toxicity from MSG consumption might indicate certain
| people are more susceptible to the negative effect than others.
| Raising this question often invites comments on: whether or not
| cautioning against MSG is actually racist; misdirection about
| the sodium being the prime issue with MSG; and comments from
| those with vested interest in MSG (MSG producers, any food
| producer with MSG, Yeast Extract, or "Natural Flavorings" in
| their ingredients list, etc.)
| bryceacc wrote:
| from the first link:
|
| >L-glu along with glutamine is the most abundant free amino
| acid in the central nervous system
|
| this would suggest that L-glu is highly regulated in the
| body. Abundance usually means there should be storage of it
| if level swings can bring "inbalance" to it's usage.
|
| on top of that, from this study:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3698427/
|
| >In the brain, Glu, which is locally produced completely de
| novo from glucose, acts as a major excitatory
| neurotransmitter, and its activity regulates synaptic
| plasticity, learning, memory, motor activity, and neural
| development. But dietary Glu is almost impermeable into the
| circulating blood. Also there is the blood-brain barrier
| against Glu in between blood and brain so as to not to
| incorporate into it the brain.
|
| if high MSG(or just G from other sources) consumption did
| cause neurodegenerative diseases, shouldn't we see that data
| clearly in places that consume more in culture?
| [deleted]
| Phileosopher wrote:
| I've noticed this phenomenon anecdotally. It seems like my
| impulse to NOT eat junk food goes down significantly on the days
| I drive home after working on a hard mental problem. On easy
| days, I'm craving celery.
| skinnyarms wrote:
| There was an old (but popular) study that showed people were
| less likely to make healthy snack choices when they were asked
| to memorize more digits.
|
| https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/209563#metadata_info_ta...
| Silverback_VII wrote:
| jackconsidine wrote:
| Grandmasters apparently lose 6000 calories during classical chess
| games [0]. That's a few marathons worth of calories.
|
| [0] https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-
| grandmaste...
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| 6000 calories seems absurd. But having played chess tournaments
| I have lost a bit weight during them despite eating generous
| amounts of bacon, eggs, hash browns etc at the hotel breakfast,
| then more crappy fast food in the evening, with mostly sleeping
| and relaxing in between. So I feel like there must be something
| to it. Although 6000 kcal in one game is ridiculous, even
| factoring in nervously pacing the playing hall when it's not my
| move.
| Tenoke wrote:
| This myth is complete nonsense, I'm not sure how people still
| share it. The author provides no evidence and simply made some
| sensationalists estimates based on heart rate and blood
| pressure during games.
| goostavos wrote:
| Hacker News always has crazy takes when it comes to anything
| diet related. It's always strange.
|
| I totally agree: it's completely preposterous that they're
| burning 6kcal sitting still regardless of how much they're
| thinking. People don't seem to realize how hard it is to burn
| that many calories when _moving_. That is advanced athlete
| levels of caloric burn. Does this caloric burn similarly
| apply while they 're "training", or just at tournaments? Do
| they need to put down Olympic level meals every day just to
| sustain?
|
| What about other people who's job is thinking? Are
| mathematicians also forced to devote a significant part of
| their day just to ensuring can chew through 6000 calories
| worth of food? Or is there something about board movements
| that consumes extra calories? L shape? 3 calories. Straight
| line: one calories. If we could pin down which type of
| thought burned 100x more calories, we'd be onto something
| powerful here.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| > Hacker News always has crazy takes when it comes to
| anything diet related. It's always strange.
|
| HN has crazy takes on everything not within the very narrow
| sphere of tech expertise that is common to everyone on this
| board.
|
| You notice it for diet-related things since you are a
| (relative) expert on that topic.
|
| But it's also the case for anything economic, political,
| scientific, or sports or hobby related, and so on.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Actually, it is not HN, but generally nutrition is one of
| the most bullshitted topics in the world. Everyone has
| their perspective completely conjured up from thin air.
|
| I don't trust any of these from any person:
| Nutrition Financial Advice Audiophile Advice
| partiallypro wrote:
| I'm sure they are burning more calories, but I doubt it's
| 6000.
| lemonlime wrote:
| No one who understands how much 6,000 calories is could
| make this claim.
|
| That would mean they need to eat 8,000 calories a day for a
| normal 2000 calorie diet. That's like Michael Phelps level.
| That's like: leave the tournament, go back to your hotel
| and eat 7-8 medium dominos _entire_ pizzas in a sitting. I
| hope I don 't need to explain that this is not what chess
| masters are doing.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| The article claims that breathing rate TRIPLES during chess
| tournaments. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, then
| there is something pretty intense going on. If I tripled my
| breathing rate for an extended time period I'd probably pass
| out or something.
| jackconsidine wrote:
| After reading _Behave_ , I hold Sapolsky in high regard. Even
| if he provides weak evidence for the claim, the grandmaster
| in the article loses 15 pounds- or a whopping 11% of his body
| weight- on average during a 10 day tournament which is
| striking.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| I think people are conflating "weight" with "fat". It's
| very believable to me that they lost 15lbs in 10 days, some
| fat, probably mostly water.
|
| I know my weight can fluctuate as much as 10lbs in a day
| depending on how much I've been sweating, eating, drinking,
| exercising over the course of the day.
| czx4f4bd wrote:
| Still not burning 6000 calories.
|
| > In our study, we found calorie expenditure during chess
| competition (156.8 +- 65 kcal) and during running exercise
| (282.9 +- 82.7 kcal) were significantly different from each
| other, simply due to the overload effect of skeletal
| muscles during exercise.
|
| https://journals.lsu.lt/baltic-journal-of-sport-
| health/artic...
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This can simply happen because of a change in eating and
| drinking habits during a 10 day tournament.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| This take seems overly skeptical to me. Regardless of
| truth of the 6,000 calorie claim, that kind of weight
| loss is extreme in such a short amount of time.
| lemonlime wrote:
| To the contrary, you're being underly skeptical. This is
| a huge claim to base of a sample size of one guy at one
| event.
|
| To state the obvious that I hope doesn't need to be said
| to this audience: a sample size of one tells us exactly
| nothing. What's saying this one guy one time didn't have
| a nasty stomach bug?
|
| A crazy claim like this requires some kind of study not
| just one guy's story.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Doesn't stress come into play here too?
| idontpost wrote:
| That's a 5200 calorie deficit per day.
|
| So no, not really. At least not without significant
| dehydration.
|
| I'm more skeptical of the weight loss claim itself.
| washbrain wrote:
| Well, up to 8lbs could be water weight. If you have
| excess calories, your body will retain water. If you
| disrupt that excess you'll rapidly lose 8 to 10 lbs.
| Weight loss often has great results in week one, then
| levels off, so a portion of this _could_ be attributed to
| eating less and increased stress during a tournament.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| 8lbs if you're already severely overweight or loaded on
| carbs, maybe. These guys don't exactly look like they are
| doing either of that. To put it in a different
| perspective, that amount of weight loss beats out strict
| waterfasting at the same weight. You can't get much more
| strict than straight-up dehydrating (because we all know
| dehydrating yourself prior to a mental exercise is a
| great idea) or doing rigorous exercise outside of that.
|
| And no, chess is not rigorous exercise. If it was, the
| room would be too hot for them to wear suits and tuxedos.
| Those burned cals have to go somewhere. For the
| unconvinced, try jogging or lifting 2000 calories worth
| in a suit at room temperature or slightly above without
| taking it off.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I bet food poisoning would do it. Because, like you said,
| they aren't burning those calories - 6,000 calories in a
| single chess game would leave them in a giant pool of
| sweat.
| al_be_back wrote:
| not unless there is such a change, and it has to be
| significant to loose such weight. what does happen though
| is an increase in mental strain as the tournament
| progresses.
| hasperdi wrote:
| It could be attributed to stress, perspiration and change
| in water intake behaviour. In other words water weight.
| dalmo3 wrote:
| They should study people who spend 6 hours in meetings next.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Meetings are taxing. You're trying to ingest the presented
| information, social cues/emotional states and often times
| keeping an eye on slack or what have you.
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| After some intense code challenges I did felt exhausted. I learn
| a lot too because they were out of my comfort zone. I felt like
| kind of needing to recover resting more the next two days.
| NotTameAntelope wrote:
| Brilliant work, and the researcher involved seems quite humble,
| despite her impressive discovery.
|
| Where in the world is Carmen Sandi's ego?
| foxbee wrote:
| I lost 2kg trying to center a div once.
|
| Jokes aside. Interesting article. I think the title assumes an
| answer but in reality the article is a gateway to further
| studies. Worthwhile read nonetheless.
| a_c wrote:
| I don't know which is more tiresome, 3-4 hours of focused
| programming and thinking, or 8 hours attending two children below
| 5.
|
| They are both tiring, but differently. Intensive programming is
| like working hard at the gym. Tiring, but content. Attending
| children is low intensity in attention, but constantly vigilant.
| And you are expected to pay that kind of attention for another
| maybe 4 years. Very different kind of tiring indeed, both makes
| you unable to focus afterwards. So while thinking hard makes us
| tired, not thinking hard can also makes us tired.
| keyle wrote:
| It's true. I have two young ones and I'm a shadow of my old
| self when it comes to my ability to dive into deep work.
| fartcannon wrote:
| It really is the vigilance. It's hard to explain to people who
| haven't experienced it. I certainly tried to understand my
| colleagues who had kids, but it turns out it's quite a bit
| harder than the hardest I imagined. Nowadays I'm a part time
| developer, and the rest of the time, I'm the primary care for a
| toddler.
|
| Programming at work is my time off.
|
| You have to be react so quickly to certain things that it keeps
| you totally wound up. You see them pick something up off the
| ground and wonder, 'what is that, are they going to eat it' and
| instinctively you sprint half way across the room to grab what
| turned out to be a cheerio from their mouth. It's almost always
| a cheerio. But your brain won't let you rest if there's even an
| impossibly small chance it's a battery or I dunno, glass or
| whatever, it doesn't matter how many times you check, you can
| always imagine something. It's exhausting.
|
| I'm rambling because I'm tired. :)
| kortilla wrote:
| Protip: store your cheerios in the box they come in rather
| than on the floor to disambiguate this scenario.
| a_c wrote:
| I feel you completely. The children brought me joy that no
| way I can express how grateful I am. They made me realized
| experience can only be, well, experienced. No amount of
| describing can imprint the experience onto anyone. Now I
| empathize much more with co-workers when they seem oblivious
| to some solutions. Right now the children are asleep. I tried
| to catch up some articles or to prototype some something. But
| hey, no more focus juice left at all :)
| [deleted]
| joe_the_user wrote:
| "...a challenging task: for example, watching letters appear on a
| computer screen every 1.6 seconds and documenting when one
| matched a letter that had appeared three letters ago."
|
| It seems like they're conflating "stressful" and "thinking hard".
| IE, Is this "thinking hard" or is it "maintaining constant
| alertness"? I think things like staring at screen tax more than
| the brain as such.
|
| I spend most mornings working on math, programming and
| philosophy. This doesn't make me feel tired. Neither does playing
| the game of Go without a time limit. I assume all those tax the
| brain itself. But Zoom call will absolutely make me feel tired
| regardless of the subject.
|
| And "stress" could cause a build-up of glutamate or whatever in
| the brain also.
| glial wrote:
| They used the N-back task, a standard task used for inducing
| mental effort (e.g. [1]). So in this case they has N=1 for the
| easy group and N=3 for the hard group. Then they compared
| glutamate concentration across groups.
|
| I'm don't disagree that "thinking hard" is poorly defined. But
| they did control for staring at a screen.
|
| [1]
| https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
| IceMetalPunk wrote:
| I'm now wondering what, if any, connection there is between
| glutamate regulation and depression, since listlessness and
| fatigue are common and characteristic symptoms. _To scientists:_
| More research, please!
| Phileosopher wrote:
| I'm not scientific about it (n=1, after all), but I've realized
| from my own diagnosis and coming out of it that depression is a
| complex abstraction:
|
| 1. Reactionary primary emotion (e.g., shock, surprise,
| confusion)
|
| 2. Add the perception of injustice to create the secondary
| emotion of anger
|
| 3. Have anger directed toward meeting an unmet need
|
| 4. Give hopelessness about attaining that unmet need
|
| 5. END IF nothing gives that hope to meet that need that the
| anger was directed toward
|
| edit: fayled at phormatting
| IceMetalPunk wrote:
| In my own struggles with depression, I can't really pinpoint
| any anger/injustice most of the time. It's more just "anxiety
| leads to inaction leads to ruined or missed opportunities
| leads to insecurity and low self esteem leads to hopelessness
| leads to 'why bother-ism'." Then again, my depression is
| comorbid with an anxiety disorder, so perhaps it's different
| from someone who has only the depression _shrug_
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Beautifully put. I think this is very interesting to
| contrast with the also-well-put GP commenter. Different
| flavors of sadness.
| swayvil wrote:
| Thinking is a bottomless pit for attention.
|
| Put X attention into digging a hole and you get that much hole
| dug.
|
| Put X attention into sandwich-making and you get that many
| sandwiches made.
|
| But with thinking there's no real connection like that. You can
| put a whole decade of attention into a bunch of thinking and
| achieve zip.
|
| It's an amazing attention sink. Whole mountains of attention can
| disappear. Easily. Casually.
|
| And then when you consider that many of us basically _think all
| the time_. Habitually. Chewing over... memories and dreams and
| plans and stuff. Woah!
|
| And that attention is our energy budget. Flushed down the
| thinkhole.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Can you go without thinking for an extended period of time? I
| have split seconds here and there when I get the feeling I
| haven't thought about anything for a while, only to interrupt
| the streak with the very act of noticing.
| swayvil wrote:
| Yes I can. That's sorta what we do in this one meditation
| technique called _vipassana_. I 've been doing it for a few
| years.
|
| When you get out of the habit of doing stuff with your
| attention all the time (thinking etc) then your attention
| moves in a new way. It sorta grows. It's pretty great.
| georgeburdell wrote:
| I didn't know this was a phenomenon. I have been thinking of hard
| problems to fall asleep at night for years
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Thanks for sharing that idea! I look forward to trying it out
| tonight.
| wizofaus wrote:
| Sadly the more likely consequence is that you might fall
| asleep quickly then wake up a few hours later and find
| yourself still thinking about it, and that second time your
| brain refuses to shut down until it solves it. Or maybe
| that's just me.
| keyle wrote:
| I guess it works because you're not personally attached or
| motivated at solving them.
|
| So it comes down to counting sheep type of distraction.
|
| Like others echoed, if you pick an open ended unsolved mystery
| that is literally on your shoulders during the day, you'll be
| unable to switch off.
| odysseus wrote:
| I have the opposite problem - if I'm thinking too hard near
| bedtime about financial math or boolean algebra for example, I
| won't be able to sleep. My brain is too active going through
| all the calculations in my head.
|
| If I want to fall asleep within 5 minutes, what works for me is
| varied physical and mental exercise throughout the day, and an
| easygoing book or movie near bedtime.
|
| If there's something stressful going on the next day, a tech-
| nerd podcast like ATP helps me forget about it and get to
| sleep. But I try not to let late night podcasts become a habit
| - sometimes they get too interesting and I stay up for over an
| hour to keep listening.
| georgeburdell wrote:
| For me, it has to be really hard, not like some leftover work
| you didn't do that day. The more open ended the better. For
| example, how to make a transistor out of readily available
| household components. How would you do lithography, doping,
| etc.
| plutonorm wrote:
| Jesus, that line of thinking is a recipe to keep me up for
| days. How you could even begin to fall asleep with a line
| of thought so interesting is beyond me.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I'm the same way, I may become exhausted, I can feel myself
| being exhausted by my mind won't let me sleep.
| ravi-delia wrote:
| See this is why I get annoyed at a body evolved for caloric
| scarcity. We shouldn't get tired, we should get hungry! Oh,
| pollutants build up in the brain? Burn more energy to get rid of
| them! I should be able to strap an icepack to my head, fill a
| bottle with olive oil, and overclock my brain to 10x speed.
| tdaltonc wrote:
| I don't think energy is the limiting factor here. A better
| analogy would be with the limits of computability. Garbage
| collection tasks are postposed to when we're asleep, but they
| can only be put off for so long and there's a capacity for
| "stuff to consolidate later" that fills up.
|
| Something that you probably could get is a nob to control the
| adaptability/efficiency setting on your brain. At the cast of
| learning/remembering nothing, you could "execute" for longer.
| We know that real brains make this trade off, but the
| transition from one mode to the other is slow because it's
| reactive.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Dolphins are better adapted to this as they can turn off half
| their brain (and vice versa) while still functioning and
| alert for up to 15 days straight.
|
| Would be interesting if one day we could induce or evolve to
| have similar capabilities.
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dolphins-sleep-
| wit...
| chundicus wrote:
| > _Garbage collection tasks are postposed to when we 're
| asleep, but they can only be put off for so long and there's
| a capacity for "stuff to consolidate later" that fills up_
|
| Do we have a strong reason to believe that? I know brain and
| sleep mechanisms are tricky topics with lots of unknowns, but
| I thought I had read research that showed sleeping brains
| likely perform a chemical analogue to "garbage collection".
| satyrnein wrote:
| Only semi related, but i wanted to install a USB jack in my
| belly button so i could charge my phone off my visceral fat,
| which seemed like a win-win. Probably best I didn't, though,
| because this predated usb-c...
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| Hahaha that would be nice. But it likely demands a stock of
| varied nutrients, not just "energy". Also the cells changing
| need to take a break to consolidate what they have adapted to
| (brain plasticity).
| ravi-delia wrote:
| > Also the cells changing need to take a break to consolidate
| what they have adapted to (brain plasticity).
|
| I feel like this has got to be a problem solvable by throwing
| money at it. Not as is, most likely, but if we had evolved
| without caloric restriction there would be some kind of more
| complicated support structure which handles all that.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| This feels like it may fall into the realm of "I think if
| we just throw money at it we could solve it" problems that
| you can't actually solve by throwing money at.
| ravi-delia wrote:
| Metaphorical money thrown at evolution several million
| years ago, namely calories. You were built on a budget,
| just because it's still better than anything we could
| make doesn't mean it's the best evolution can do under
| lesser constraints
| mywacaday wrote:
| If we had no calorie restriction why would we have evolved.
| rNULLED wrote:
| underrated perspective
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| You basically can do that. One of the limiting factors is your
| ability to metabolise energy sources into energy your body can
| use. Improve that by increasing your fitness and your cognitive
| ability will be improved as well.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > See this is why I get annoyed at a body evolved for caloric
| scarcity. We shouldn't get tired, we should get hungry! Oh,
| pollutants build up in the brain? Burn more energy to get rid
| of them! I should be able to strap an icepack to my head
|
| Well, you did identify the major problem with the unlimited
| overclocking plan. Burning more energy generates more heat. An
| icepack on the side of your head doesn't solve the problem; at
| some point your brain (and the rest of the inside of your head)
| will cook, which is fatal.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-08-11 23:00 UTC)