I haven't done a huge amount of dnb yet but I do have a similar effect
when I do a lot of computer programming. I get very tightly focused,
kinda tense. If I keep it up I eventually crash.
Something I've found that helps a lot is the CDs from
openfocus.com. I
first read about it in a book about neurofeedback. I've been using
these off and on for a couple years now, and they are very effective
at spreading out that tight focus, so you're more aware of everything
around you. Then when you do need a tight focus, it's a lot easier,
because the brain cells required aren't already fatigued.
It's also very physically relaxing. Muscles will just suddenly release
that I didn't even know were tense.
The CDs are basically guided mediations, paying attention in turn to
various parts of your body and spaces between them.
-dennis
On Jan 22, 10:06 am, "
john21012...@gmail.com" <
john21012...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Thanks for your reply Biped.
>
> I did not have any attentional fatigue or condition, as far as I'm
> aware, that would cause such severe attentional fatigue prior to
> starting dual n-back training. As soon as I do even a few, like 2/3/4
> runs on dual n-back, I can feel myself getting extremely focused and
> also starting to feel more fatigued. It seems like there's a tradeoff
> in that for having higher Gf (getting more focused), I get much more
> tired, and the fatigue if it's great enough which it usually is, then
> actually impairs my thinking.
>
> If anyone out there knows of any task that measures creativity, I
> would love to test myself out using it before and after doing a few
> dual n-back runs to measure objectively if my creativity is less. I
> happen to feel that the attentional fatigue is severe enough that it
> does worsen my ability to think laterally and come up with new
> ideas.
>
> Thanks again guys, all your responses are appreciated, I'm sure that
> the Directed Attention Fatigue (DAF) that this task causes does have
> negative and somewhat counterproductive effects on cognition. See
> again that link I put up in my first post to start this thread to
> learn more about DAF.
>
> On Jan 21, 2:06 pm, biped <
biped.prim...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I have been doing it for a couple of months, off and on, and I haven't
> > noticed any negative effects on creativity. In fact, I would say that
> > my creativity has increased somewhat, but that could be a result of
> > other things I've started doing recently.
>
> > Regarding fatigue though, I will say that maintaining maximal
> > attention for as long as possible while doing BW can be really
> > mentally fatiguing, since I tend to sustain a higher level of
> > concentration for a longer period of time than doing anything else. If
> > I weren't healthy and getting plenty of sleep, I could see how I might
> > not recover very quickly and might feel fatigued for a long time
> > afterwards, especially if I was borderline fatigued already. Getting
> > fatigued is probably normal if you do it for long enough, since it's
> > an EXTREMELY demanding task, so the question is why you're not
> > recovering quickly enough and why you get fatigued more quickly than
> > you should when you don't do it for very long. I tend to still feel
> > refreshed afterward if I felt good when I started and I did a standard
> > block of 20 runs whereas doing more than 20 runs will sometimes leave
> > me more fatigued, depending on how fatigued I was initially and how
> > much more than 20 I did. Even then though, I recover very quickly
> > afterward.
>
> > Did you have any tendencies for this sort of fatigue before starting
> > BW? You mentioned attention fatigue and also creativity deficits. What
> > are the symptoms you've experienced regarding creativity deficits? Do
> > you have any quasi-objective way of testing yourself (like a brain
> > game that requires creative thinking) that you could do both now while
> > doing BW and after taking a break from BW?
>
> > You also might try BW with feedback enabled or disabled, the opposite
> > of what you've been doing, and see if that makes a difference. They
> > seem to me to exercise different aspects of attention.