Thanks for this post, I can truly relate. Some thoughts from a 50+ year old genx guy (EE/CS) who’s worked to stay current and keep a sharp mind in the face of these challenges plus the inevitable age-related decline:

- regular exercise has incredible benefits for the body+ mind (and the attitude that directs it). Biggest impact of everything on this list.

- Side projects that involve actual doing and not just study. e.g. I spent some money on gear for embedded development and am doing things that involve physical things and using my hands and making gadgets … phone is out of the picture while in the lab.

- Ironically, using LLMs for reviewing and refreshing knowledge you once had but now has gaps is amazing. I spend a bunch of my phone time now having in-depth chats where I know what I’m talking about to a large degree, but the LLM is helping me fill in gaps and then quizzing me on concepts and I know that the things it’s telling me are solid due to my background, then I go check, etc. A really good way to do super focused study to reload a field back into your brain. Might as well take advantage of the fact that they stole all of the world books.

- Write things down! After reviewing, do some problems with pencil and pad. After studying, doing a problem on pencil and paper is actually daunting, but then grooving through a few problems actually makes you realize you know the stuff again! And using an expensive Ampad notebook and nice mech pencil is a great sensory experience.