PERSONAL

12

870

Measuring My Cognitive Impairment

2 years ago661 words

Look at these worryingly unimpressive results I got on a test of my cognitive performance!!

It's Tuesday. What did I do work-wise yesterday? Literally can't remember. I tried to do something on that side project this morning, but I couldn't focus at all. Couldn't concentrate. I tried! But my brain just wouldn't cooperate, physically.

I got wondering about how measurable this frustrating bout of congnitive impairment might be, and googled for a quiz... which brought me to ∞ humanbenchmark.com ∞, where you can do a battery of short, simple tests for things like reaction time or memory.

At the end, you're given results that show where you fall compared to others. Here are mine:



Being in the 95th percentile for verbal memory means I did better at that than 95% of people. That's impressive. The others, where I'm embarrassingly far below the average, not so much.

I'd be curious to hear your results, but presumably - and hopefully - they'll be much better than these. Unless you've been experiencing cognitive impairment too for whatever reason.



So why's my brain being so... bluh... words. Sentence, form. Yes. Think. Can't. Ugh.

I'm guessing the primary cause is sleep deprivation. I've probably mentioned in recent blog posts that I've been struggling to get a good night's sleep due to the summer heat (which is way lower here in the UK than other parts of the world, though the houses are all designed to endure colder temperatures; there's no air conditioning, for example). I feel like I'm half awake all night and start my days groggy and yawning.

∞ Here's an article about the cognitive effects of sleep deprivation ∞. I hope you read every word of it. I didn't even so much as skim it, personally, but who, when they link to a study to support their claims, actually even does?

Not sure what I can even do about it other than hope it gets cooler. I bought a tower fan last year and I've been using that, though clearly it's not helping to a magical degree.

Isolation and loneliness contribute to cognitive impairment too. ∞ Look, another study ∞, though I actually did at least read the abstract of that one. The participants were aged 50+, so not perfectly relevant, but no doubt being so detached from other people is actually a factor too.

I also thought about nutrition, and all the vitamins I'm likely lacking from my far-less-than-ideal lifestyle. I made a list of dietary changes I could potentially make. Who knows whether I'll stick to any though. I've been through all this before.



This brain fog's been getting in the way for a long while now, and I've wondered whether to go to my GP about it... but I just assume they'd ask me about my lifestyle, and literally laugh in my face at the answer because it's so obvious that living like this would make anyone feel terrible.

The worst thing though is that feeling terrible makes it so hard to change anything. What's the term for that, Catch 22?

There are a bunch of game-dev- and life-improvement-related things I need to do - WANT to do! - but I just don't seem to be able to. Beating myself up about it would only make things worse, so I'll just try to find some peace and try to recover... though I feel I've been doing that for ages now and not really getting anywhere.

At the very least, I'll just try to sleep early tonight, see if that makes any difference at all. Doubt I'll be able to achieve any goals today though. Maybe I'll just try to finally finish Tears of the Kingdom, get that out of the way...

And I'm curious to know your results on those tests and how you feel about what you got!