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Can't argue that. (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Currently 29. Noticed mental decline after concussions in my youth and a few years of heavy drinking. I don't fall on my head as much and I don't really drink anymore, but I'm not sure how much of what I've lost I'm going to get back.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I have no scientific basis for this, but my suspicion is that what you do with your brain is more important to cognition than whatever raw intelligence you start with. the more languages you study, the more music you play, the more subjects you study and skills you develop and hobbies you tinker with and deep conversations you have... you learn to learn, you learn to think, it all gets wired up and cross-connected and you become more than the sum of your parts.

    how much decline is truly biological vs. being stuck in a rut?

    also there's nootropics that could be helpful for concussion recovery/etc. but they haven't been too well-studied, there's many different ones with different sketchiness and sources aren't always trustworthy... but piracetam (iirc) is actually prescribed in the EU for recovery from brain injury, and it's fairly safe and well-studied. I'm not recommending it either way though.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    My friend is going through concussion rehabilitation right now and is working with one of the best doctors in the field. She has not been prescribed any medication at all. It's been 9 months maybe? Right now she's onto the stage where she need to get her heart rate up with exercise. Though it took a long time for doctors to actually start taking her symptoms seriously and she bounced around between a lot of them before she got where she is now.

    We've had lots of talks about the recovery process, how you can train your brain to get better at certain things. And I've been doing lots of stuff to train my brain. But still friends will bring up symptoms they have and I'll be like, oh shit I didn't know that was concussion related!

    But I think some of my symptoms are just going to be there for life. Language processing, memory (some memory has improved with training but sometimes I just get stuck and can't think of a word or name or whatever), visual artifacts, sound sensitivity, and I don't know if it's related but I definitely get depressed.

    I think with training you can improve your life experience, but I'm not sure you'll ever get back to what it would be like without a concussion. Also I'm sure the 4-7 years of binge drinking didn't help either.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I've been there and all I can say is that the brain is a miraculous organ and can heal really well from a lot of trauma. You just have to stop damaging it, learn how to work with your brain rather than having your brain work for you, and exercise it. Challenge yourself to learn an easy skill, then another, then another.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    What do you mean stop damaging it? What makes it sound like I'm not working with my brain? What makes it sound like I'm not exercising my brain?

    No I'm not going to stop doing sports. I'm doing a lot to work with my brain, and I'm always learning something new.

    I'm learning sumi-e painting to go with my calligraphy, I'm taking the time to get back into programming. This is my second year mountain biking and I've gotten pretty good at it over the summer. I journal every day and reflect, I've been making a lot of progress being less critical of myself. In doing all those things I've felt my social skills slip, so now I'm putting in the effort to be around people more and be vulnerable around them.

    And yet I can feel places where my brain isn't as strong as it used to be. I'm accepting of that and trying to love myself in spite of my shortcomings. I don't need to optimize for everything, I can just focus on what's important to me.

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