The smarter I get in school, the dumber I get in life
March 23, 2015 9:01 PM Subscribe
I'm finishing a Master's program at a top-10 university in my field. I'm generally pretty confident in my intelligence and am doing fine-to-great in school, but I am starting to make just dumb, inattentive mistakes in life. My questions: should I worry about this? How do I fix this? Have you experienced something like this?
Examples:
-Traveling to another time zone and then assuming I was 8 hours ahead instead of 8 hours behind my home time zone even though I know the opposite is true (and had some conference calls scheduled)
-Talking to a close friend who I've known for years works on bikes in their free time, but briefly forgetting that and assuming/acting on the assumption that they don't like bikes because they made a disparaging comment about a bike we saw
-Not, for the life of me, being able to remember facts told to me by someone I was dating (e.g. they had a friendship with a young kid who is unrelated to them, but I can't remember at all how they first got to know the kid)
These seem to be problems of inattention, primarily, but they are just examples of dumb mistakes I keep making, even though I don't think I'm generally a clueless person. It's like my subconscious brain just goes "eh, good enough" and makes incorrect assumptions instead of thinking things through. But the key thing, I guess, is that I feel like I'm making these mistakes more often and about more basic things than at other points in my life.
Details: female, 29, sleep enough, eat well enough, don't go to the gym but do bike/walk 7-15 miles a day. I tend to be an anxious person and am definitely under stress. I watch more TV than I should, while splitting my attention doing other things, and I'm wondering if this general lack of attention/present-ness is starting to have a negative effect on my brain.
So: should I be worried about this? How do I stop doing this? Have you experienced something like this? I need my practical brain to back me up, not slack off and screw me over.
Examples:
-Traveling to another time zone and then assuming I was 8 hours ahead instead of 8 hours behind my home time zone even though I know the opposite is true (and had some conference calls scheduled)
-Talking to a close friend who I've known for years works on bikes in their free time, but briefly forgetting that and assuming/acting on the assumption that they don't like bikes because they made a disparaging comment about a bike we saw
-Not, for the life of me, being able to remember facts told to me by someone I was dating (e.g. they had a friendship with a young kid who is unrelated to them, but I can't remember at all how they first got to know the kid)
These seem to be problems of inattention, primarily, but they are just examples of dumb mistakes I keep making, even though I don't think I'm generally a clueless person. It's like my subconscious brain just goes "eh, good enough" and makes incorrect assumptions instead of thinking things through. But the key thing, I guess, is that I feel like I'm making these mistakes more often and about more basic things than at other points in my life.
Details: female, 29, sleep enough, eat well enough, don't go to the gym but do bike/walk 7-15 miles a day. I tend to be an anxious person and am definitely under stress. I watch more TV than I should, while splitting my attention doing other things, and I'm wondering if this general lack of attention/present-ness is starting to have a negative effect on my brain.
So: should I be worried about this? How do I stop doing this? Have you experienced something like this? I need my practical brain to back me up, not slack off and screw me over.
Perhaps as you immerse yourself in graduate studies, deepening your academic knowledge and spending considerable time committed to your area of study, you have allowed the social/practical/life-skill aspects of your intelligence to fall by the wayside, even if only slightly.
posted by ageispolis at 9:11 PM on March 23, 2015
posted by ageispolis at 9:11 PM on March 23, 2015
Stress effects your memory.
posted by jbenben at 9:20 PM on March 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by jbenben at 9:20 PM on March 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have had a similar problem. Taking an L-Tyrosine supplement helped noticeably. Here is some information that pulls from (double-blind, placebo controlled) scientific studies.
posted by delezzo at 9:43 PM on March 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by delezzo at 9:43 PM on March 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
I would chalk it up to stress, but also a bit to anxiety induced by stress. I find that when I am anxious I spend a lot more time trying to hide from thinking about things which stress me out, which leaves a lot less brain power to devote to stuff like scheduling.
posted by sciatrix at 9:48 PM on March 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by sciatrix at 9:48 PM on March 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Up your B vitamin intake, whether through supplements or diet.
Try cutting back on TV, and add some meditation to your day. It sounds like you just have so much going on at the moment that you're finding it hard to keep track of everything. I wouldn't be super worried about it.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 10:31 PM on March 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
Try cutting back on TV, and add some meditation to your day. It sounds like you just have so much going on at the moment that you're finding it hard to keep track of everything. I wouldn't be super worried about it.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 10:31 PM on March 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
This is definitely something that happened to me when I was doing my thesis, and again at points when I have been very busy, especially doing abstract level jobs. I think I was very caught up in thinking about that stuff and the rest went by the wayside.
It returned to normal pretty much immediately after.
posted by jojobobo at 12:34 AM on March 24, 2015
It returned to normal pretty much immediately after.
posted by jojobobo at 12:34 AM on March 24, 2015
This happened to me when I finished my masters and thesis, and then again my first year of teaching. My problem in particular was just forgetting words, and as someone with a a large vocabulary the situation terrified me. I was about 24-26 when it happened to me. It also happened to a couple of my friends in grad school. The absentminded professor is a trope for a reason.
It's stress. Even if you think you're getting enough sleep you're probably not, and your brain is so tired from all the schoolwork and anxiety it just can't cope. The good news is it will probably resolve when you finish your masters; the bad news is it might get temporarily worse when you start your first job, depending on how high stress it is.
Whatever you can do to reduce your stress right now is good. Primarily, I'd recommend mindfulness training, which will ultimately help give your brain a break from the anxiety/stress. You can google a bit for techniques, but the best technique I've found is to choose an event that happens semi-regularly throughout the day: anytime you hit a stoplight if you drive a lot, any time you hit a new chapter if you're reading a lot, anytime you finish a page if you're writing a lot... So on. Use that as a reminder to center yourself and just let yourself rest for a few minutes. Do your best not to encourage it to whiz off in 15 different directions or worry about things. At first those thoughts are going to happen anyway and you'll feel like it's not working, but keep at it. The goal is to give your brain short, periodic breaks so it can focus later without cannibalizing itself.
I am also a major TV watcher, but I'm not sure it's your best bet right now. It feels like it helps you relax and turn your brain off for awhile, but that's not really what you need. You need to wind yourself down rather than just hitting the off switch in order to really feel rested and composed. So some sort of cool down activity at the end of the day will help reduce the background stress/anxiety. Paradoxically, for me that activity was reading trashy books during grad school: after reading all day, something light and easy was similar enough to act as a bridge to cool down, rather than throwing myself into a different activity entirely that demanded concentration because it was something different than what I'd done all day. YMMV, of course. You need something you enjoy and is easy/low stress, but isn't so easy/mindless it just numbs you.
Good luck! It's really disorienting for you right now, but take care of yourself and ride it out and you'll be fine. Explain to your friends you have grad school brain and they'll understand.
posted by lilac girl at 4:29 AM on March 24, 2015
It's stress. Even if you think you're getting enough sleep you're probably not, and your brain is so tired from all the schoolwork and anxiety it just can't cope. The good news is it will probably resolve when you finish your masters; the bad news is it might get temporarily worse when you start your first job, depending on how high stress it is.
Whatever you can do to reduce your stress right now is good. Primarily, I'd recommend mindfulness training, which will ultimately help give your brain a break from the anxiety/stress. You can google a bit for techniques, but the best technique I've found is to choose an event that happens semi-regularly throughout the day: anytime you hit a stoplight if you drive a lot, any time you hit a new chapter if you're reading a lot, anytime you finish a page if you're writing a lot... So on. Use that as a reminder to center yourself and just let yourself rest for a few minutes. Do your best not to encourage it to whiz off in 15 different directions or worry about things. At first those thoughts are going to happen anyway and you'll feel like it's not working, but keep at it. The goal is to give your brain short, periodic breaks so it can focus later without cannibalizing itself.
I am also a major TV watcher, but I'm not sure it's your best bet right now. It feels like it helps you relax and turn your brain off for awhile, but that's not really what you need. You need to wind yourself down rather than just hitting the off switch in order to really feel rested and composed. So some sort of cool down activity at the end of the day will help reduce the background stress/anxiety. Paradoxically, for me that activity was reading trashy books during grad school: after reading all day, something light and easy was similar enough to act as a bridge to cool down, rather than throwing myself into a different activity entirely that demanded concentration because it was something different than what I'd done all day. YMMV, of course. You need something you enjoy and is easy/low stress, but isn't so easy/mindless it just numbs you.
Good luck! It's really disorienting for you right now, but take care of yourself and ride it out and you'll be fine. Explain to your friends you have grad school brain and they'll understand.
posted by lilac girl at 4:29 AM on March 24, 2015
This is absolutely a finishing-school-stress thing that happens to some people. The day after I defended my Ph. D. thesis in engineering, I could not figure out how to put two eggs and one piece of toast on one plate, and one egg and two pieces of toast on another plate. I kept picking up one piece of toast from each plate, swapping them, and being surprised and confused that I still had the numbers wrong.
I got better. :) I bet you will too.
posted by tchemgrrl at 5:22 AM on March 24, 2015 [14 favorites]
I got better. :) I bet you will too.
posted by tchemgrrl at 5:22 AM on March 24, 2015 [14 favorites]
During law school
I gauged how stressed I was by whether I remembered the combination for my locker, which is had for three years, when I was really a stressed or doing a lot of brain work I'd forget. So I think you'll find it gets better when the academic load goes down.
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 5:34 AM on March 24, 2015
I gauged how stressed I was by whether I remembered the combination for my locker, which is had for three years, when I was really a stressed or doing a lot of brain work I'd forget. So I think you'll find it gets better when the academic load goes down.
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 5:34 AM on March 24, 2015
I get the sense of time zone changes (8 hours ahead vs 8 hours behind) wrong more often when I'm tired. I would almost certainly be tired around the time of a trip with a major time zone change like that. Beforehand, I would be spending a lot of mental energy on preparing for (and worrying about, I'm definitely an anxious person) the trip, during and after the jet lag would get me for a while.
posted by Anne Neville at 5:36 AM on March 24, 2015
posted by Anne Neville at 5:36 AM on March 24, 2015
This happens to me when I do too much multitasking of tasks that are really too 'deep' or 'heavy' to actually be multi-tasked very effectively, for too long a period of time. I alternately call it my "CANNOT BRAIN" or "10 lbs of shit in a 5 lb bag" state. It happened to me in grad school, happens periodically at work now, too, if I've got too many projects going. And yeah, like you, it feels as if my brain goes, "Eh, good enough, got more important things to do, whatever" and just throws up its hands, makes its best guess, and moves on. It's weird and can be freaky, but don't despair, it will pass!
posted by skye.dancer at 8:05 AM on March 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by skye.dancer at 8:05 AM on March 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Just chiming in to add more to the "its normal and stress induced" chorus. I'm finishing up a masters program right now and have noticed in the past few weeks (while under incredible stress and deadlines) that I've forgotten coworkers of 5+ years names and just common everyday words for things. My brain is just overloaded.
posted by JennyJupiter at 9:22 AM on March 24, 2015
posted by JennyJupiter at 9:22 AM on March 24, 2015
I think this is pretty normal, and it's definitely something that happened to me in a super stressful grad program. One thing that helped in my case was keeping one of those "line a day" diaries (where basically you record a short description of the day's events each day -- you can find them on Amazon under this name, although obviously you could write this down in pretty much any notebook). I found that consciously sifting through my day for the most important 2-4 things that happened (even if they're small like "Ran into Amanda at Coffee Spot" or "Stared at the screen and had writers' block all morning") helped my general memory a LOT. I attribute it to just training my brain to think back on what happened each day in a general way, which then spilled over into being better at remembering specific things (though I am by no means perfect). Anyway, might be something to try.
posted by rainbowbrite at 11:34 AM on March 24, 2015
posted by rainbowbrite at 11:34 AM on March 24, 2015
This is the sort of thing that a daily practice of meditation could help with a lot. It just helps a lot with focus and attention issues. Many people get frustrated with meditation because they feel like they can't focus enough for it, but that's putting the cart before the horse. You learn to focus by practicing meditation, and learn meditation by practicing focus. They feed into each other, and as you practice each day for a short period of time, you find yourself getting better and better at it. It doesn't happen over night, but eventually you get to the point where you're just generally more clear-headed and focused all day long.
posted by sam_harms at 4:54 PM on March 24, 2015
posted by sam_harms at 4:54 PM on March 24, 2015
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I went to a very demanding college and when I was finishing up my thesis and my final quarter of classes I forgot my own phone number, set my kitchen on fire, and was literally seeing spots in my vision. Stress is very real.
posted by phunniemee at 9:10 PM on March 23, 2015 [20 favorites]