What the Fatigue?
What should have been obvious to me is that I would find myself fatigued from my neurohacking activities. While maintaining a full-time job in the medical field, I have been taking violin lessons, attempting to juggle (left hand still not cooperative), blogging, and playing brain training games on a daily basis. Recently, I had a minor crash and burn. It started with fatigue, then the return of my migraines (comparatively mild though), and then I came down with a full-blown cold. The cold was brief, and mostly I biohacked my way though it to reduce the duration.
However, this phase of the neurohacking project is just the warm-up. I’m only implementing preliminary hacking objectives to get my weary brain primed for more advanced hacking. So, my first lesson-to-self is to slow things down a bit. I still need to live my life fully while hacking away at my brain (it’s more pleasant than it sounds).
So the plan for the next 2-4 weeks:
Continue weekly violin lessons and maintain the level of practice recommended by my teacher (mostly limited by his concern for repetitive strain injuries)
I’m going to only practice my left hand juggling toss briefly every other day (this actually requires a lot of concentration for me)
Play Luminosity and a Posit Science game alternately (Posit costs more so I’m only doing one game for now, plus a few Luminosity games) for a maximum 15-20 minutes per day. I've dropped the Dual N-Back game for now (this one is harder and a bit frustrating – I’ll add it back in later). I've also dropped the speed-reading game and I'm taking a 2-4 week break from a math game I was playing.
Cut back a wee bit on reading and researching neurohacking – I really don’t have to read/study everything all at once (besides, the body of knowledge on this subject is ever-changing).
Increase my daily meditation (my brain has been doing new things – things it has never or rarely done before). I need the restorative pleasure of meditation now more than ever.
Increase physical activity. My brain needs more blood flow/oxygenation to assist it's cognitive development. Although I’m a strong believer in the benefits of exercise on the brain and cognitive function (and of course it’s scientifically proven), I probably managed to increase my desk time and decrease my physical activities due to my new neurohacking activities. Now the plan is to increase my yoga and cardio in order to enhance my cognitive and mental wellness.
That should be enough for now - after all it's a journey – not a race.
