Sprint training is the ultimate cognitive enhancer

[Guest Nilsi]

22 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

 

I really think @Carl-Richard is onto something with greater depth of benefit. And I don't think you can give a fair comparison in this way.

I do appreciate his insights, and I’m not negating anything he’s saying.

[Carl-Richard]

20 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@Nilsi Do you perform this sort of training? I am assuming you do.

I do also (probably have 17 years of fitness behind me) . And I work a job that requires the sort of high stakes negotiations and resultant tangible outcomes. Yes, millions of dollars.

You describe what I would call an adrenalin rush and huge dopamine spike - very different to the long term effects of interval training: ie increased BDNF levels, better baseline attention, stronger stress resilience and adaptive hormesis. I find sprinting experienced as a sharp wave that clears the mind. 

I really think @Carl-Richard is onto something with greater depth of benefit. And I don't think you can give a fair comparison in this way.

Merely having a mentally induced stress response on its own, e.g. if you're thinking about some presentation that you will have but that you're not currently having, probably doesn't confer much benefit. And there is probably a lot of that going on in a business deal, as you're projecting many scenarios that might happen that maybe won't happen ("what if I say the wrong thing?", "what if they decline the deal?", "what if I make a fool out of myself?").

It's when the response is tied to an actually difficult operation, e.g. doing a complex division in your head, or really digging into some difficult problem, that you see the growth benefits. It's when the response is provoked as a necessary resource for that specific operation as it's happening.

Again, the mind has various mechanisms of projecting and preparing itself for work but which is actually not work in itself, anticipatory anxiety. But it's the work itself that is important.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

6 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

I do appreciate his insights, and I’m not negating anything he’s saying.

Ah right - cheers

Quote

Nothing enhances cognitive performance more than hopping on a high-ticket sales call or talking to a hot girl.

This, to me, is intimating adrenaline/stress/dopamine outclasses the physical/motor method for cognitive enhancement.

Thanks for the clarification !

[Guest Nilsi]

1 minute ago, Carl-Richard said:

Merely having a mentally induced stress response on its own, e.g. if you're thinking about some presentation that you will have but that you're not currently having, probably doesn't confer much benefit. And there is probably a lot of that going on in a business deal, as you're projecting many scenarios that might happen that maybe won't happen ("what if I say the wrong thing?", "what if they decline the deal?", "what if I make a fool out of myself?").

It's when the response is tied to an actually difficult operation, e.g. doing a complex division in your head, or really digging into some difficult problem, that you see the growth benefits. It's when the response is provoked as a necessary resource for that specific operation as it's happening.

Again, the mind has various mechanisms of projecting and preparing itself for work but which is actually not work in itself, anticipatory anxiety. But it's the work itself that is important.

What’s the difference? When your heart rate is maxed out and every neuron is firing, does it really matter?

This isn’t a rhetorical question.

[Guest Nilsi]

3 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Merely having a mentally induced stress response on its own, e.g. if you're thinking about some presentation that you will have but that you're not currently having, probably doesn't confer much benefit. And there is probably a lot of that going on in a business deal, as you're projecting many scenarios that might happen that maybe won't happen ("what if I say the wrong thing?", "what if they decline the deal?", "what if I make a fool out of myself?").

It's when the response is tied to an actually difficult operation, e.g. doing a complex division in your head, or really digging into some difficult problem, that you see the growth benefits. It's when the response is provoked as a necessary resource for that specific operation as it's happening.

Again, the mind has various mechanisms of projecting and preparing itself for work but which is actually not work in itself, anticipatory anxiety. But it's the work itself that is important.

Also, I don’t think you fully appreciate how “difficult an operation” a high-stakes negotiation really is. It meets every criterion you’re listing.

[Carl-Richard]

19 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

What’s the difference? When your heart rate is maxed out and every neuron is firing, does it really matter?

This isn’t a rhetorical question.

You have to think about it non-reductionistically. Maxing your BPM is one symptom of straining your system during the work that is a sprint. Your entire body, your muscles, your lungs, your intracellular machinery, is exploding with activity in way that you don't get by sitting still (unless you use some magical machine). Anticipatory anxiety is a way you prepare for such an undertaking. I feel a kind of anticipatory anxiety (which is more conditioned rather than mental-discursive) before a sprint where my heart rate increases and my mind sharpens and I feel amped up, but it's nothing compared to the sprint itself.

Edited July 12 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

7 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Also, I don’t think you fully appreciate how “difficult an operation” a high-stakes negotiation really is. It meets every criterion you’re listing.

I didn't say it wasn't difficult. I just said there is probably a big anticipatory/"non-work" component driving the sympathetic response you're highlighting.

Edited July 12 by Carl-Richard

[Guest Nilsi]

15 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You have to think about it non-reductionistically. Maxing your BPM is one symptom of straining your system during the work that is a sprint. Your entire body, your muscles, your lungs, your intracellular machinery, is exploding with activity. Anticipatory anxiety is a way you prepare for such an undertaking. I feel a kind of anticipatory anxiety (which is more conditioned rather than mental) before a sprint where my heart rate increases and my mind sharpens and I feel amped up, but it's nothing compared to the sprint itself.

I think you’re the reductionist here (and this isn’t a polemic - just genuinely how I would define the term).

Ultimately, the experience is the ground, not the mechanism, no? Why is it that an actor can fully get into character and play out a scene as if it’s real, even though it’s empirically “fake”? What produces the response is the experience itself, not the reductionist, post-hoc mechanism.

There is no mechanism to reality. Reality - experience - is the ground. The mechanism is always a secondary production that arises from an operational split (like the scientific method). Again, this is exactly Foucault’s point that we’ve argued about recently.

So it should be possible to generate the response - the cognitive benefits - in the same way the actor gets into character: without an empirical mechanism. This is also Peter Ralston’s big idea in his work on mastery and consciousness - that there doesn’t have to be a mechanism or a path, that you can simply make it happen, willy-nilly.

Edited July 12 by Nilsi

[Guest Nilsi]

4 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

I think you’re the reductionist here (and this isn’t a polemic - just genuinely how I would define the term).

Ultimately, the experience is the ground, not the mechanism, no? Why is it that an actor can fully get into character and play out a scene as if it’s real, even though it’s empirically “fake”? What produces the response is the experience itself, not the reductionist, post-hoc mechanism.

There is no mechanism to reality. Reality - experience - is the ground. The mechanism is always a secondary production that arises from an operational split (like the scientific method). Again, this is exactly Foucault’s point that we’ve argued about recently.

So it should be possible to generate the response - the cognitive benefits - in the same way the actor gets into character: without an empirical mechanism. This is also Peter Ralston’s big idea in his work on mastery and consciousness - that there doesn’t have to be a mechanism or a path, that you can simply make it happen, willy-nilly.

Look at Wim Hof. He lets himself be injected with bacterial endotoxin and, through sheer focus and a direct, lived commitment to a different state of being, radically suppresses his immune response. There is no real causal account for this - and certainly none he was consciously applying in some formulaic way.

Scientists can only scramble after the fact to piece together a narrative of adrenaline spikes and cytokine suppression to make themselves comfortable. But what’s missed is that the experience itself unfolded without any mechanism guiding it. The so-called “mechanism” is just the same reductionist move - an attempt to represent, categorize, and contain something that, in its immediacy, was irreducible.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

I think you’re the reductionist here (and this isn’t a polemic - just genuinely how I would define the term).

Ultimately, the experience is the ground, not the mechanism, no? Why is it that an actor can fully get into character and play out a scene as if it’s real, even though it’s empirically “fake”? What produces the response is the experience itself, not the reductionist, post-hoc mechanism.

There is no mechanism to reality. Reality - experience - is the ground. The mechanism is always a secondary production that arises from an operational split (like the scientific method). Again, this is exactly Foucault’s point that we’ve argued about recently.

So it should be possible to generate the response - the cognitive benefits - in the same way the actor gets into character: without an empirical mechanism. This is also Peter Ralston’s big idea in his work on mastery and consciousness - that there doesn’t have to be a mechanism or a path, that you can simply make it happen, willy-nilly.

I knew you would do this mysticism response lol.

You can reach max BPM while doing a jog and then slowly ramping up your speed. But it's not the same as a sprint. You have to look at the system as a whole. And it's simply the case that contracting your muscles produces a different response than thinking about it (although I've heard thinking about lifting actually can increase gains, but for most people, you probably won't become Mr. Olympia that way alone, put mildly). Anticipatory anxiety is not the same as contracting your muscles. Physical exercise is simply a different beast than sitting on your ass and thinking about scary shit.

Edited July 12 by Carl-Richard

[Guest Nilsi]

25 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I knew you would do this mysticism response lol.

You can reach max BPM while doing a jog and then slowly ramping up your speed. But it's not the same as a sprint. You have to look at the system as a whole. It's simply the case that contracting your muscles produces a different response than thinking about it (although I've heard thinking about lifting actually can increase gains, but for most people, you probably won't become Mr. Olympia that way alone). Anticipatory anxiety is not the same as contracting your muscles. Physical exercise is simply a different beast than sitting on your ass and thinking about scary shit.

And I knew you’d retreat into this scientific rebuttal lol.

Ultimately, your mechanistic explanation rests on the assumption that reality is mechanism all the way down, and you know as well as I do that this is a fantasy. At some point in your argument, you’ll have to invent some imaginary foundation for all these elegant mechanisms you keep describing - and it will be purely arbitrary. Eventually, in building your philosophy or your life, you’ll collide with this gap. Don’t think you can sprint away from it forever.

You’re operating in cartoon logic, like when a character runs straight off a cliff and keeps moving forward because they haven’t yet realized there’s nothing beneath them. It’s only when you finally look down that you plummet. All the while, the audience is already smirking, because they see exactly how this ends before you do.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Merely having a mentally induced stress response on its own, e.g. if you're thinking about some presentation that you will have but that you're not currently having, probably doesn't confer much benefit. And there is probably a lot of that going on in a business deal, as you're projecting many scenarios that might happen that maybe won't happen ("what if I say the wrong thing?", "what if they decline the deal?", "what if I make a fool out of myself?").

It's when the response is tied to an actually difficult operation, e.g. doing a complex division in your head, or really digging into some difficult problem, that you see the growth benefits. It's when the response is provoked as a necessary resource for that specific operation as it's happening.

Again, the mind has various mechanisms of projecting and preparing itself for work but which is actually not work in itself, anticipatory anxiety. But it's the work itself that is important.

Appreciate the breakdown!

So, this mentally induced stress response from a thinking standpoint - I do experience the enhanced focus, adrenalin and dopamine from the event IE I have several contractors to coordinate, I am waiting on a callback from one that relies on a delivery I have booked. One is waiting on information from the architect before I can schedule. Here, I am experiencing many unknown variables (architect response, delivery confirmation, scheduling with the hope contractors aren't booked) and slight stress at having no action steps but to wait. Then immediate action and accurate planning is needed as soon as I have more information.

In the above example - after the event I am drained. There is a perceived focus backlash regardless of the outcome being good / dopamine was released.

Counter this to the response being linked to a difficult operation (requiring creative problem solving) - this time planning out the recladding of a window that requires fabrication in 2 parts. How I choose to perform this operation will win a $4mill tender on a job. I have to minimize time, cost and ensure standards are met. I could fabricate the steel netting and frame offsite and crane it in - requiring expensive crane hire and coordination. I could have the frame and netting tray trucked in and welded onsite - this might blow out costs as there would be additional labour in lieu of the crane. Additionally I would require a scissor lift here. This also relies on timing of contractors. If the whole piece is made offsite - the eyelets for the netting can be welded, stopping water ingress. If we install onsite - they will need to be bolted in which will mean we will need flashing due to water ingress. Many ways to skin a cat etc But here, there is a solution somewhere that will minimise time & cost.

In the example above there are creative solutions I have to walk through considering all the constraints. This is combined with the stress of a hard deadline for quote submission. In this last scenario - the right solution - the AH-HA - is such a kick! The best times I have are when I come up with a strategy to do something in a way never done before that optimizes all of the above. I don't feel as much cognitive stress and focus backlash after. 

For this reason I love doing the project planning and tendering. The project management? Not so much

Maybe this is similar to reacting vs responding.

I can imagine Nilsi is finding creative solutions with negotiating contracts (this is also part of my job - negotiating with state and federal governments for our construction head contracts) that work to the mutual benefit of both parties. The only difference is, I have done it so much now I don't have much of a response adrenaline wise.

But I still find both of the above processes totally different to the cognitive benefits of physical limit training !

[Guest Nilsi]

Just now, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I can imagine Nilsi is finding creative solutions with negotiating contracts (this is also part of my job - negotiating with state and federal governments for our construction head contracts) that work to the mutual benefit of both parties. The only difference is, I have done it so much now I don't have much of a response adrenaline wise.

You’d have an adrenaline response if a significant chunk of the money were going into your own pocket.

When five or six figures in commission are on the table for you personally, you will certainly feel the pressure - no matter how many times you’ve done it, believe me.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

13 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

You’d have an adrenaline response if a significant chunk of the money were going into your own pocket.

When five or six figures in commission are on the table for you personally, you will certainly feel the pressure - no matter how many times you’ve done it, believe me.

I am not the sort to be impacted by that personally - I have enough wealth now

I do get adrenaline spikes from my work - and huge rushes.

But only when significant meaning is involved.

Because I only work in commercial medical and science fields, my adrenaline response is massive when we approach handover and my own fuckup is stopping patients getting back into an area for critical care. Or anyones fuckup, really. But I only get the stress response from the PM side of the business. The ONLY reason I work in this field is to give back to society by providing skill to expand our medical infrastructure. I will say the quality of construction work in this field is required to be top notch.

Also, I am a part owner, which complicates things further. More responsibility. But means I do see huge bonuses. It feels nice but I don't ultimately care like I do for my work and how it gives back to the world.

Edited July 12 by Natasha Tori Maru

[Guest Nilsi]

2 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I am not the sort to be impacted by that personally - I have enough wealth now

I do get adrenaline spikes from my work - and huge rushes.

But only when significant meaning is involved.

Because I only work in commercial medical and science fields, my adrenaline response is massive when we approach handover and my own fuckup is stopping patients getting back into an area for critical care. Or anyones fuckup, really. But I only get the stress response from the PM side of the business. The ONLY reason I work in this field is to give back to society by providing skill to expand our medical infrastructure. I will say the quality of construction work in this field is required to be top notch.

Also, I am a part owner, which complicates things further. More responsibility. But means I do see huge bonuses. It feels nice but I don't ultimately care like I do for my work and how it gives back to the world.

Sounds like you’ve built a solid career. Good for you.

[Carl-Richard]

43 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

And I knew you’d retreat into this scientific rebuttal lol.

Ultimately, your mechanistic explanation rests on the assumption that reality is mechanism all the way down, and you know as well as I do that this is a fantasy. At some point in your argument, you’ll have to invent some imaginary foundation for all these elegant mechanisms you keep describing - and it will be purely arbitrary. Eventually, in building your philosophy or your life, you’ll collide with this gap. Don’t think you can sprint away from it forever.

You’re operating in cartoon logic, like when a character runs straight off a cliff and keeps moving forward because they haven’t yet realized there’s nothing beneath them. It’s only when you finally look down that you plummet. All the while, the audience is already smirking, because they see exactly how this ends before you do.

So this is happening which I will divide into two parts:

1. Like in the previous discussion we had, you want to jump up a level and critique the frame.

Here is the frame so we're not confused: physical activity in general is deeply beneficial for cognitive functioning (because the brain after all is a organ in the physical body and the brain correlates strongly with cognitive functioning). Thus higher intensity physical activity could be beneficial for higher intensity cognitive tasks.

2. I said you were being reductionistic within this frame, focusing on a measure like heart rate, but then you jump up a level and call the frame reductionstic.

If you have a problem with the frame, that's fine, critique the frame, but don't conflate that with the question I posed to you about you being reductionistic.

[Guest Nilsi]

15 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I am not the sort to be impacted by that personally - I have enough wealth now

I do get adrenaline spikes from my work - and huge rushes.

But only when significant meaning is involved.

Because I only work in commercial medical and science fields, my adrenaline response is massive when we approach handover and my own fuckup is stopping patients getting back into an area for critical care. Or anyones fuckup, really. But I only get the stress response from the PM side of the business. The ONLY reason I work in this field is to give back to society by providing skill to expand our medical infrastructure. I will say the quality of construction work in this field is required to be top notch.

Also, I am a part owner, which complicates things further. More responsibility. But means I do see huge bonuses. It feels nice but I don't ultimately care like I do for my work and how it gives back to the world.

I think it also comes down to a kind of masochistic enjoyment I’m deliberately chasing through the stimulation and intensity of upping the stakes and the audacity of deals.

I don’t really have much of a “purpose” in this business the way you do. For me, it’s mostly a dopaminergic thirst for intensity and a philosophical interest in precisely this kind of sublime experience - and in desire, language, deception, all of it.

But honestly, I’m too cynical to believe you do this ONLY for selfless reasons

[Guest Nilsi]

4 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

So this is happening which I will divide into two parts:

1. Like in the previous discussion we had, you want to jump up a level and critique the frame.

Here is the frame so we're not confused: physical activity in general is deeply beneficial for cognitive functioning (because the brain after all is a organ in the physical body and the brain correlates strongly with cognitive functioning). Thus higher intensity physical activity could be beneficial for higher intensity cognitive tasks.

2. I said you were being reductionistic within this frame, focusing on a measure like heart rate, but then you jump up a level and call the frame reductionstic.

If you have a problem with the frame, that's fine, critique the frame, but don't conflate that with the question I posed to you about you being reductionistic.

Sure, but I don’t accept the frame that we have to stay within some fixed frame to have a productive or interesting discussion.

Obviously, I have nothing to add within your frame, because you know far more about this than I do. So how could we ever have a real discussion if you insist on keeping it there?

Edited July 12 by Nilsi

[Carl-Richard]

34 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Sure, but I don’t accept the frame that we have to stay within some fixed frame to have a productive or interesting discussion.

Obviously, I have nothing to add within your frame, because you know far more about this than I do. So how could we ever have a real discussion if you insist on keeping it there?

But you were initially adding things within the frame, but then you jumped out of the frame instead of addressing the issue I posed within the frame. That's not fun. It's like we're discussing what to eat and then I press you on a food and then you're like "hold on hold on, you don't mean we have to eat, right?". Or it's like we're discussing Star Wars and then you get up and say "Star Wars is shit!"

If you want to jump out of the frame, address what was said within the frame first and then signal that you will jump out of the frame. I like to do this by saying like "but if you want to drop x assumptions, you could say y instead". Or in your case, "I see your point, but let's say fuck science for a bit and [...]".

[Natasha Tori Maru]

8 hours ago, Nilsi said:

I think it also comes down to a kind of masochistic enjoyment I’m deliberately chasing through the stimulation and intensity of upping the stakes and the audacity of deals.

I don’t really have much of a “purpose” in this business the way you do. For me, it’s mostly a dopaminergic thirst for intensity and a philosophical interest in precisely this kind of sublime experience - and in desire, language, deception, all of it.

But honestly, I’m too cynical to believe you do this ONLY for selfless reasons

I never meant to imply my motivations were totally selfless. 

More so that, there is alternate meaning in my work, so my stressors are different. At the end of the day, if the business isn't doing well, I sacrifice my pay so others can remain employed (which has happened when times were trying). 

For some perspective, I have worked jobs with very high pay. I have had the experience you describe regarding intermittent reward. 

I attend to my duties to attempt to influence a positive result, without any feelings towards the action itself. This makes it -feel- rather selfless. I don't dislike any task. But in the end, it is simply survival. Perhaps my lack of focus on wealth is simply Maslow's hierarchy of needs; already satisfied that one! 

Every single situation in life, for myself, is as you describe. A study of deception. Passion. Mystery. Dynamics. 

Most of the time my role is to manipulate others to perform a task to mutual benefit. I leverage emotion.

I am a master manipulator, so never trust me. Sly