Brain Drain

[Inventor]

Right now I have "Brain Drain". I couldn't make music or program in ChucK if I tried. I slept all day long. I imagine I got it because I just got done composing and creating an album with nine songs in the past two weeks (five of which had lyrics), and it wore me out! So I'm just gonna rest for a while and listen to music. Do you get "Brain Drain"? How long does it last?

[blue hell]

For music, well it lasts until I get a brain drain from programming, how long that one lasts, well until I get one from doing pictures ... things come and go, and mostly they come back after time, but it can be days, weeks, years even sometimes.

[xjscott]

Yes, I get this. Sometimes you're making something new and you stay up all hours with the excitement of what you are doing and go for days and at the end you just collapse because you can't go any farther. Afterwards, your creative source can be just burned out until you can start it again.

How to get it restarted?

Sleep a full night in a quiet place - until you wake up on your own, not because of an alarm clock. The best insights, creativity and focus I find come only after really adequate sleep. There are studies that show that soldiers who are sleep deprived can shoot just as well, the muscle memory is there, only they start shooting the wrong people because they have lost the ability to discriminate. So you can still play, you just won't be able to react right. Other studies show that people sleep deprived can solve rote math problems, but they never are able to see the insight that the whole problem reduces down to 1 and you never even had to do any calculations to begin with.

Make sure you are eating food with vitamin and micronutrient content, or taking supplements if not.

Take a fast from caffeine for one week. When you drink that next coffee after 7 days without before a session, the caffeine will really work that time.

[Uncle Krunkus]

I have Dysthymia, so I sometimes find it difficult to do anything creative for days or weeks at a time.
One thing I've found lately which helps is to tidy up.
I'm not joking, it really works. My counsellor said I should try some type of meditation to quiet my mind and reduce my anxiety/stress levels. Now I find it difficult to do any type of exercise for it's own sake, even mental exercise, (which relaxation techniques are). So I started cleaning up the "Lab". You know, collecting all the components which have been used on breadboards and then thrown in a box, putting them all in the right drawers etc. so I can find them again. Going through piles of CDs, putting them in the "right" places etc. Sorting through bits and pieces of hardware which were overflowing from my "unsorted hardware" bowl. Seeing if I could get everything off the floor to vacuum it! (This one is really challenging. ) Generally doing stuff which doesn't require any creative energy. Guess what? It really does make me feel very relaxed. (It could be because of an OCD component, but I'm not complaining! )

And,..... I often find things which re-inspire some interest in a creative project which I'd forgotten about.

[Acoustic Interloper]

I find that programming music has this effect (as does programming generally), but that sitting on the back porch playing banjo (unless I am seriously trying to work on a new composition), or going for a walk/run/bike ride/orienteering, and just forgetting the whole thing for a while, or definitely some solid sleep, does the job. Gotta get into those alpha waves and damp down the beta waves for a while.

[x_x]

[Inventor]

[Wayne Higgins]

Try Whiskey.

[elektro80]

yes.. as in in single malts!

[elektro80]

BTW, I bought some blank note sheets at the local whateveritsnameis and then this one at the supermercat. We´ll see what this looks like at 6AM.

[elektro80]

okdokey, the session has started..

[Inventor]

I am pleased to announce that my brain drain has ended. I am gleefully posting away about my guitar motion sensor project on three forums plus blogging like a techno-nerd gone mad on the web pages that I created for it. Now there appears to be commercial interest and the giant corporate machine might even throw me a bone for my efforts! So things are looking up for a change from the doom and gloom of my recent music creation! WooHoo!

[Rykhaard]