Ask HN: At what age did your cognition start to decline?

Most of what is prescribed for my conditions have detrimental effects on cognition, such as brain fog, akathisia, homicidal ideations, extreme drowsiness and fatigue.

In fact, today I just quit two HBP meds due to their adverse side effects as listed above (they also cause depression, etc.)

These drugs are indeed designed to hamper cognition and keep you in bed all day. They are literally chemical restraints; they substitute for shackles and leg irons. They do not heal or cure any disease; in fact they can often cause the very symptoms they're supposed to suppress.

My rule of thumb is that if any drug hampers my ability to think or stay awake through a work day, then my right to work outweighs any imaginary benefits of those chemical restraints. I won't be sleeping my life away.

Oh, my conditions, you ask? They don't bother me, don't get in the way of a normal everyday life. When I do have an episode, there's not a drug invented that could prevent it.

I'm an intellectual worker: I earn money with my mind, and doing good work sharpens my mind, like quality singing strengthens my voice. I find dignity and self-worth in employment, and nobody will take that away from me.

I've had good results with choline for tackling brain fog.

I've tried choline bitartrate, which is ok short term in not high doses maybe a couple of grams per day at best, but now it just causes bone aches.

AlphaGPC, also ok, but the high phosphate content does you bones no good, kept me very wired and if you want to reduce the time to a heart attack take loads of this.

Lecithin, which is a food ingredient, found in chocolate, seeds like sunflower, and egg yolk.

Its a nice form of the supplement, but again cant take too much of it for too long as a supplement.

Currently looking at Choline Chloride. The chlorides (negatively charged chlorine) seem to be quite useful in the body, so I'm probably going to give that a go at some point.

Obviously egg yolks are good for choline, so plenty of eggs.

Avoid stress in all forms at all costs. If its not right and cant be fixed soon, just walk away from it.

Stress is a massive killer.

I dont have a problem keeping myself occupied, avid reader.

I also had some Testogel during mid 30's, used to slappo a couple doses on the shoulder for recreational purposes when going out on friday nights, not a fan of Bolivian marching powder, and I found testogel to be much better for making me feel good, than anything Columbia can export!

It does wonders for your mental health, but come to think of it, it does help a bit with mental acuity, so that might be something to look at. Here in the UK, the NHS is all messed up, so you'll only get it on private prescription.

I'd recommend Testogel to any bloke over Columbian exports, and it doesnt make you angry either, I think the roid rage is lack of manganese and short intense diabetes which is probably waiting to be discovered by the so called medical experts.

For me? Maybe 55? But it wasn't a sharp thing, so it's hard to put a firm age on it.

If you’re worried you’re experiencing cognitive decline, perhaps you should discuss it with someone who can do appropriate investigations into possible causes for your current experience.

I lost some ability to code regularly a few years ago and found after a long while of looking that I had a dissociative disorder. Nowadays I can code better than I did before. Drugs were not the path that worked for me, but I consider them valuable for stabilization if needed so that work can be done.

My morning ritual consists of getting up early, walking, lifting heavy weights, some coffee and some personal projects to get my brain working. Then I can usually sustain high levels of intense focus until about noon. All my most important work gets done by then. After noon is basically just rest and low-cognitive work like emails and communications.

Getting older means holding less things in my head when debugging but thats about it.