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Sadly I can confirm this from personal experience. I was under a lot of stress for the past three years. Before stress started I had almost photographic memor

Sadly I can confirm this from personal experience. I was under a lot of stress for the past three years. Before stress started I had almost photographic memory. I was not very smart software developer. But ability to recall patterns and documentation fast, made me very productive. I worked at CS semi-research position and spoke at conference every other month. Now it takes mental effort to recall what I did 4 hours ago. I can only program if I strictly follow my TDD routine and design notes. Recently I could not even pass job interview for trivial entry level position :( Stress is mostly gone now, but it will take about one year to recover. It is very weird period. People, who do not know me well, think I actually improved over past three years. I fixed my health, lifestyle, social interactions...; I took every advantage I could to compensate for damage caused by stress. Now, I can feel improvements every week, and I am basically starting from scratch. Once I get my old memory back and combine it with new things I learned to cope, I will be unstoppable :)

manmal 10y ago
May I ask what stressed you out like this?
- thro3212 10y ago
  new child
  - goodcanadian 10y ago
    Interesting. This immediately put me in mind of the birth of my own child. While no where near as bad as you describe, my short term memory did kind of go to crap after she was born. I blame it mostly on sleep deprivation, which is a kind of stress, I suppose.
    - sevensor 10y ago
      Similar experience: twins born at 35 weeks, they're 4 and very healthy now, but I don't remember 2013. At all.
    - jyriand 10y ago
      I'm having first child in few months. I'm stressed out as it is, can't even imagine what will happen when he is born. Even worse, I'm working from home.
      - goodcanadian 10y ago
        Always be cautious of advice as every child is different, and any one person's experience may be different from yours. That said, the first three months will almost convince you that you can do it. Babies may only sleep 2 or 3 hours in a row (we were lucky and got four consecutive hours at nighttime), but they sleep a lot in total. If you can handle the sleep disruption, you will actually be left with a lot of time for work. From four months onward, they start to be awake a bit longer and they start to get very interested in what you are doing. It will then begin to get very difficult to work with them around. You might need to find an alternate place to work and/or begin to make alternate child care arrangements.
      - contingencies 10y ago
        You need to get yourself a place to work outside of home.
      - kaffein 10y ago
        I also worked from home when my kids were born. Personally I think you should see it as an opportunity as you can spend time with your child whenever you want to/have a moment during the day. Might even help with the stress. I do think it's important to have an understanding with your partner that you can not be expected to help out when working, and some good headphones can be helpful. And yes, I don't remember what I was going to say 5 minutes ago but I hope that improves when paternity leave ends.
      - roystonvassey 10y ago
        Reading all the replies on this thread on the stress(es) of childbirth, I think a large part of it can be mitigated by having the grandparents around. This is how it usually is in my country (India), though it is changing slowly with younger couples migrating to urban centers. Anecdotally, my sister-in-law has 3 young sons and while both the parents are stressed out more than couples without children, they get a welcome break over the weekends and many weekdays because one of the grandparents is often around to help with taking care of the children. This allows for a lot of freedom and more importantly, the freedom to think that you can get away from it all, even if it is for a few hours. I think (I don't have children myself) that the thought that this young human is completely and totally dependent on you all the time can be extremely discouraging, even if its your own child.
    - crdev 10y ago
      Interesting... I'm having the same issue. In my case my daughter was born 5 months ago and the lack of sleep and sometimes the bad sleep is causing a direct effect on my memory. Before that, I was able to remember a lot of things, but I guess I'm too tired now. Even reading a book is challenging and I have thousand of books. In our case our daughter was born with hip dysplasia and I was under a lot of stress.
      - junto 10y ago
        One thing my wife and I did that was kind of idiotic with our first child was to both try and deal with the baby at night "as a team". Once we realised that being a team was better visualised as taking on different roles, we functioned way better. As she was on parental leave for a year, it made more sense for her to deal with the baby at night, and for me to get a good night's sleep so I could function during the day at work. She could catch up on some sleep in the day when the baby slept. If you have a spare room then use it if you are both happy with that.
        crdev 10y ago
        That's great, thanks for sharing it. Another thing that has pros and cons is the fact that I work from home, so I'm always worried if she breaths, sneezes and if she moves :).But I like the idea of working as a team, thanks for the advice!.
  - myth_drannon 10y ago
    It's called Baby brain.
  - vivekian2 10y ago
    Was the stress primarily because of sleep deprivation/multitasking with a new baby? I am just trying to understand.
    - WalterSear 10y ago
      There's a lot of people on here discussing the stress of a new child. I don't think they are differentiating between stress, that this study discusses, from lack of sleep, which also affects memory.
      - sevensor 10y ago
        In practice the two will be impossible to tease apart at any rate. Stress and lack of sleep make a feedback loop. The more you feel like you're drowning, the harder it gets to find sleep. Adding nighttime feedings just throws gas on the fire.
        WalterSear 10y ago
        From a fine grained point of view, yes, stress causes sleep problems. However, stress is a result of, and not the cause of the sleep deprivation that comes with nursing and changing a child throughout the night.
      - khedoros1 10y ago
        I find getting too little sleep very stressful. I'm required to keep doing the same things, but less able to handle those demands. When I don't get enough sleep, I've got worse health, constant headaches, and neck aches. It's its own stressor, as well as having separate negative effects.
        WalterSear 10y ago
        Yes, but that's a specific physical stressor, resulting in mental stress. It's not what is being examined in the article and modeled in the experiment.
stevanl 10y ago
Would you mind elaborating a bit on the "took every advantage I could to compensate for the damage caused by stress." In a similar position and would be good to learn what worked for you.
- kingmanaz 10y ago
  Suggestions: Epictetus' Enchiridion. A cheap, used Dover Editions copy off Ebay is all one needs. Also, if a Christian, morning and evening prayers by candlelight using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.
  - peller 10y ago
    Enchiridion is free online: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45109 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45109
  - treehau5 10y ago
    hesychasm -- the most underrated aspect of christian spirituality, sadly expelled by most reformation and counter-reformation traditions. A good exercise is to just sit quietly in a dark room, and completely empty your mind. Think no thoughts -- whether you believe them to be good or bad. This simple thing turns out to be so incredibly difficult, that many monks on the Holy Mountain have mastered. I myself can barely go a minute before a stress or a worry about my day or job or family comes into my head, but cool thing is you do eventually get better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm
    - thedaemon 10y ago
      That's called meditation these days, but it's not about thinking no thoughts. It's about sorting your thoughts until there are no more worries. Everyone should be doing this.
      - treehau5 10y ago
        Not quite, it's so much different from meditation. What you are referring to is more of the western concept of "quietism" which is pretty synonymous with meditation. But in either case, I agree, everyone should be practicing this.
kingmanaz 10y ago
Same here. Photographic memory; could draw lifelike depictions of people I'd met a single time hours or even days later, could recall what position on a page a paragraph was on months or years after reading something, etc. However, after a coworker killed himself and dumped a RPG/AS400 job on my lap several months before a major calc/billing, I couldn't even recall the beginnings of sentences by the time I'd completed them.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
user837387 10y ago
You have to at least tell us the cause.
- dutchbrit 10y ago
  He already did, new child
throwaway_374 10y ago
YMMV but if you're willing to experiment I'd recommend looking into nootropics, specifically Noopept and Pramiracetam helped me.
- willholloway 10y ago
  Not sure why this was downvoted, but I would say the most promising candidate is Dihexa [1] [1] https://nootropix.com/dihexa-story-science-experience/ https://nootropix.com/dihexa-story-science-experience/
- summarite 10y ago
  Before you try these probably best to first try and try natural methods, eg meditation. Just to be clear, I'm not making any assumptions about you, but for most that should be the first step. Don't try to change your brain if you haven't even tried to get to know it.
donmatito 10y ago
May I ask you kindly, to the extend you want to share, why having a new child caused such high level of stress? I mean, having two daughters, I can totally relate to sleep deprivation and everyday chores. But unless there is a medical emergency or financial distress, I am under the impression that most parents find enough joy to compensate for the stress? It's like we're onto drugs :-) Again, that's true only if the baby is in good health, which I wish you from the bottom of my heart
- summarite 10y ago
  Not OP, but my experience is that it's immensely fun but also immensely exhausting. Apart from sleep loss and new duties to fit into busy days there were also stressors, eg like many couples we moved houses when the second one was born. Timing was suboptimal as things got delayed and suddenly much too much had to happen at the same time. Otherwise for me stressful was in particular to lose/reduce large parts of my social life (eg Toastmasters or going out to talks and discussions, theater, for beer with friends, ... Before children i was out 4-5 evenings a week, now maybe 2/month). Your life structure changes, which may or may not be easy for everyone to adapt to depending on the before & after. I have no regrets, but i do miss what used to be couple- or me-time and relaxing and simulating activities.

manmal 10y ago

May I ask what stressed you out like this?

thro3212 10y ago
new child
- goodcanadian 10y ago
  Interesting. This immediately put me in mind of the birth of my own child. While no where near as bad as you describe, my short term memory did kind of go to crap after she was born. I blame it mostly on sleep deprivation, which is a kind of stress, I suppose.
  - sevensor 10y ago
    Similar experience: twins born at 35 weeks, they're 4 and very healthy now, but I don't remember 2013. At all.
  - jyriand 10y ago
    I'm having first child in few months. I'm stressed out as it is, can't even imagine what will happen when he is born. Even worse, I'm working from home.
    - goodcanadian 10y ago
      Always be cautious of advice as every child is different, and any one person's experience may be different from yours. That said, the first three months will almost convince you that you can do it. Babies may only sleep 2 or 3 hours in a row (we were lucky and got four consecutive hours at nighttime), but they sleep a lot in total. If you can handle the sleep disruption, you will actually be left with a lot of time for work. From four months onward, they start to be awake a bit longer and they start to get very interested in what you are doing. It will then begin to get very difficult to work with them around. You might need to find an alternate place to work and/or begin to make alternate child care arrangements.
    - contingencies 10y ago
      You need to get yourself a place to work outside of home.
    - kaffein 10y ago
      I also worked from home when my kids were born. Personally I think you should see it as an opportunity as you can spend time with your child whenever you want to/have a moment during the day. Might even help with the stress. I do think it's important to have an understanding with your partner that you can not be expected to help out when working, and some good headphones can be helpful. And yes, I don't remember what I was going to say 5 minutes ago but I hope that improves when paternity leave ends.
    - roystonvassey 10y ago
      Reading all the replies on this thread on the stress(es) of childbirth, I think a large part of it can be mitigated by having the grandparents around. This is how it usually is in my country (India), though it is changing slowly with younger couples migrating to urban centers. Anecdotally, my sister-in-law has 3 young sons and while both the parents are stressed out more than couples without children, they get a welcome break over the weekends and many weekdays because one of the grandparents is often around to help with taking care of the children. This allows for a lot of freedom and more importantly, the freedom to think that you can get away from it all, even if it is for a few hours. I think (I don't have children myself) that the thought that this young human is completely and totally dependent on you all the time can be extremely discouraging, even if its your own child.
  - crdev 10y ago
    Interesting... I'm having the same issue. In my case my daughter was born 5 months ago and the lack of sleep and sometimes the bad sleep is causing a direct effect on my memory. Before that, I was able to remember a lot of things, but I guess I'm too tired now. Even reading a book is challenging and I have thousand of books. In our case our daughter was born with hip dysplasia and I was under a lot of stress.
    - junto 10y ago
      One thing my wife and I did that was kind of idiotic with our first child was to both try and deal with the baby at night "as a team". Once we realised that being a team was better visualised as taking on different roles, we functioned way better. As she was on parental leave for a year, it made more sense for her to deal with the baby at night, and for me to get a good night's sleep so I could function during the day at work. She could catch up on some sleep in the day when the baby slept. If you have a spare room then use it if you are both happy with that.
      - crdev 10y ago
        That's great, thanks for sharing it. Another thing that has pros and cons is the fact that I work from home, so I'm always worried if she breaths, sneezes and if she moves :).But I like the idea of working as a team, thanks for the advice!.
- myth_drannon 10y ago
  It's called Baby brain.
- vivekian2 10y ago
  Was the stress primarily because of sleep deprivation/multitasking with a new baby? I am just trying to understand.
  - WalterSear 10y ago
    There's a lot of people on here discussing the stress of a new child. I don't think they are differentiating between stress, that this study discusses, from lack of sleep, which also affects memory.
    - sevensor 10y ago
      In practice the two will be impossible to tease apart at any rate. Stress and lack of sleep make a feedback loop. The more you feel like you're drowning, the harder it gets to find sleep. Adding nighttime feedings just throws gas on the fire.
      - WalterSear 10y ago
        From a fine grained point of view, yes, stress causes sleep problems. However, stress is a result of, and not the cause of the sleep deprivation that comes with nursing and changing a child throughout the night.
    - khedoros1 10y ago
      I find getting too little sleep very stressful. I'm required to keep doing the same things, but less able to handle those demands. When I don't get enough sleep, I've got worse health, constant headaches, and neck aches. It's its own stressor, as well as having separate negative effects.
      - WalterSear 10y ago
        Yes, but that's a specific physical stressor, resulting in mental stress. It's not what is being examined in the article and modeled in the experiment.

stevanl 10y ago

Would you mind elaborating a bit on the "took every advantage I could to compensate for the damage caused by stress." In a similar position and would be good to learn what worked for you.

kingmanaz 10y ago
Suggestions: Epictetus' Enchiridion. A cheap, used Dover Editions copy off Ebay is all one needs. Also, if a Christian, morning and evening prayers by candlelight using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.
- peller 10y ago
  Enchiridion is free online: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45109 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45109
- treehau5 10y ago
  hesychasm -- the most underrated aspect of christian spirituality, sadly expelled by most reformation and counter-reformation traditions. A good exercise is to just sit quietly in a dark room, and completely empty your mind. Think no thoughts -- whether you believe them to be good or bad. This simple thing turns out to be so incredibly difficult, that many monks on the Holy Mountain have mastered. I myself can barely go a minute before a stress or a worry about my day or job or family comes into my head, but cool thing is you do eventually get better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm
  - thedaemon 10y ago
    That's called meditation these days, but it's not about thinking no thoughts. It's about sorting your thoughts until there are no more worries. Everyone should be doing this.
    - treehau5 10y ago
      Not quite, it's so much different from meditation. What you are referring to is more of the western concept of "quietism" which is pretty synonymous with meditation. But in either case, I agree, everyone should be practicing this.

kingmanaz 10y ago

Same here. Photographic memory; could draw lifelike depictions of people I'd met a single time hours or even days later, could recall what position on a page a paragraph was on months or years after reading something, etc. However, after a coworker killed himself and dumped a RPG/AS400 job on my lap several months before a major calc/billing, I couldn't even recall the beginnings of sentences by the time I'd completed them.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

user837387 10y ago

You have to at least tell us the cause.

dutchbrit 10y ago
He already did, new child

throwaway_374 10y ago

YMMV but if you're willing to experiment I'd recommend looking into nootropics, specifically Noopept and Pramiracetam helped me.

willholloway 10y ago
Not sure why this was downvoted, but I would say the most promising candidate is Dihexa [1] [1] https://nootropix.com/dihexa-story-science-experience/ https://nootropix.com/dihexa-story-science-experience/
summarite 10y ago
Before you try these probably best to first try and try natural methods, eg meditation. Just to be clear, I'm not making any assumptions about you, but for most that should be the first step. Don't try to change your brain if you haven't even tried to get to know it.

donmatito 10y ago

May I ask you kindly, to the extend you want to share, why having a new child caused such high level of stress? I mean, having two daughters, I can totally relate to sleep deprivation and everyday chores. But unless there is a medical emergency or financial distress, I am under the impression that most parents find enough joy to compensate for the stress? It's like we're onto drugs :-) Again, that's true only if the baby is in good health, which I wish you from the bottom of my heart

summarite 10y ago
Not OP, but my experience is that it's immensely fun but also immensely exhausting. Apart from sleep loss and new duties to fit into busy days there were also stressors, eg like many couples we moved houses when the second one was born. Timing was suboptimal as things got delayed and suddenly much too much had to happen at the same time. Otherwise for me stressful was in particular to lose/reduce large parts of my social life (eg Toastmasters or going out to talks and discussions, theater, for beer with friends, ... Before children i was out 4-5 evenings a week, now maybe 2/month). Your life structure changes, which may or may not be easy for everyone to adapt to depending on the before & after. I have no regrets, but i do miss what used to be couple- or me-time and relaxing and simulating activities.