Low battery capacity (aka I get tired too quickly)

Neuroscience, Psychology, and Health
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This might be more fit for off-topic, but is also related to health, so I’ll have to leave the decision to move this thread to the moderators.

To give you some examples, I spend an hour drawing and I’m done; I spend and an hour actively memorizing things and I’m done; I spend an hour studying something that requires me to actively think and I’m done; my battery is literally depleted, I can no longer concentrate on anything cognitively demanding and resort to “low brow” activities such as endlessly scrolling the Internet.

This happened just this week. I had a day off, woke maybe at 7, ate at 9, actually left my bed somewhere around 12:30. Took me that long to get over that unbound exhaustion. Spent maybe 100 minutes drawing, then read a book for a while, then went back to bed.

This is especially what happens after work. I return home, eat and then my brain hibernates; I sleep until late night, then get up, spend a few hours on the Internet doing I don’t remember what with a head stuffed with clouds, then I go to sleep again.

The best I’ve come up with is to break down my activities on 30m long intervals with 10m of rest between them. Still, extending the amount of 30m intervals beyond 2 hours is too exhausting thence unsustainable. I have not been able to address any other issues.

This used to be better. Anyone has had similar experience? I’d like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Related:

I do not like the sugar advice though. Sugar may come in handy against stress, but it’s most definitely counterproductive for thinking. Especially things like chocolate etc. Also remember, that your liver doesn’t like it either.

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i have one silly-sounding question: what do you want to do differently, and is that remotely realistic? it sounds like you’re frustrated that you can’t work more than two hours straight on what you deem “important”–drawing, memorizing, “actively thinking” (what’s this?)–and you’re annoyed that you can Scroll for infinite time but can’t work for infinite time.

this is accurate! humans are built/designed/evolved to do this. you wouldn’t say “i spend 8 hours a day sleeping, why can’t i work with 100% effort and focus for 8 hours too?” because they’re different! the lowbrow stuff is what gets your brain back into the mode to do the highbrow stuff.

waking up and not getting out of bed for 5.5 hours is a very different issue than everything else you’re asking about. could be burnout, could be depression, could be literal actual clinical exhaustion.

personally, i’m dealing with a lot of burnout right now. my job is always super annoying in the last quarter of the year, i’m going through some personal stuff, i’m overextended on a lot of commitments, and you know, ::gestures broadly::

i haven’t really been able to find the time or energy to work on any of my personal projects, including competitive memory! and the frustration builds, and i think “if i were just a little better/smarter/more organized i would be able to…. whatever. everyone’s improving around me and i’ll never catch up.” and i just have to push back against this a little bit, because these thought patterns don’t help fix anything and really aren’t even true.

maybe you need to get organized more, maybe you need to reprioritize, maybe you just need to cut yourself some slack and remember that nobody can keep the pedal to the floor 24/7. you can do two hours of focused work a day? that will get you literally anywhere if you keep at it. focus on the wins and not what you perceive as the losses, and be realistic. i’m not saying “give in to the bedrot and scroll 10,000 reels a day” but you gotta allow yourself to recover when you need to recover.

and you can figure out tricks. you mentioned a pomodoro-style system worked for you in short bursts, tweak it. optimize how you work and learn best, and then put that into place. give yourself grace, but also encourage yourself to achieve what you know you can.

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Somewhat related: I sometimes rediscover the power of complaining! Once I tell somebody about being always tired, my brain sort of launches a “denial sequence” and busts my arse to overdo the “hobby plan” at least twice. Too bad this can’t be a long term solution :smiley: !

Apologies for being overly vague. That’s mostly about technical textbooks, both work related (boring) and of my personal interest (exciting). Worth noting, non technical literature sinks in a lot more smoothly, probably because I don’t need to reason anything out – just imagine the story as it’s told.

Your post in general makes a lot of sense, but for example I am constantly frustrated by my work sucking all of my energy, so that I’m lethargic even on weekends.

Actually, since this is, as far as I know, a common issue among people, my question is more about others’ experience than about specific advice. Thanks for sharing yours!

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@Xadawn

I have been on your shoes but less productive than you. You utilize solid 3 hours everyday. I did not. I am suspecting this problem of yours is more of a behavioural one. The psychological phenomenon called ‘cognitive dissonance’ has caught up on you causing frustration and psychologically perceived pain.

Search for active feedback loop. When memorizing something be aware of how you did today and how much creative you got. While in painting compare your strokes from yesterday, See if you are getting better at it or not.

Change the frame of mind from reward based thinking ‘I will study for 1 hour because it will make me more competent’ to system based thinking ’ I will use mnemonics to remember this information and see how much effective I have got in utilizing mnemonics’. All sorts of psychological phenomena falls under just by changing this frame of mind. It leads to active engagement with material, increases value for the task in hand, gives a sense of competence and autonomy.

People generally give advice to adopt active learning or experiential learning and say it will be hard and be prepared for it which I find ‘offputting’. Active learning is too hard to enact consciously but very natural to realize.

A footballer runs 2 miles daily without any hassle but a person who hit the gym finds it very stressful. For a person forced to hitting gym it is just cardio(no utmost value of it, no co-relation with any system, no sense of growth or progress). Same thing for a footballer is totally meaningful(part of his system, has active feedback loop{he constantly monitors his playing performance with his running capability}, he values it, sense of autonomy{no one have told him to do so, he himself has figured out the benefits of it}, purpose based{I have 30 minutes of game running mile is enough, I will be whole 90 minutes I will push running 5 miles this week}.

You scrolling videos is inherently neither good nor bad. The frustration stems from the realization that you clearly see you need to work on your paintings but you could not do so. You have changed psychologically but not behaviourally. Why? because behaviour has nothing to do with you knowing but with you doing. Action is the anecdote to behavioural problem. You have habit of scrolling yt videos. Replace that with other maybe walking. Even a little action(you stopping scrolling, walking 1 step and than stopping and continuing scrolling) will stop the renforcement of your scrolling habit. The motivation comes from the actions and not from the realization.

This has worked fine for me. Please notice that these example I give for you to relate and may be questioned if taken too literally.

Only takeway is replace your current habit with a newer one even if only for a second.

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Hi. Maybe you are not sleeping well. You can do some things. Ask a doctor. Check if you need glasses or better glases. That get tired you a lot. Etc

And you can sleep a little between Activities. 10 to 30 mins. It helps me a lot.

Other thing is to divide Activities in shorter times. Seems ineficient but is not. And sometimes is better.