Hi Everyone,

I came to these forums wondering how many others were familiar with the problem that I'm about to explain and what others have done to remedy the situation, if possible.

More and more it seems over the last couple of years my cognitive abilities have not been as sharp as they used to be. This isn't a substantial effect, it's rather minor yet incredibly frustrating and bothersome. Essentially, I feel like I have a sort of vague "brain fog" a lot of the time, I make stupid mistakes very easily and constantly, I miscalculate things far too often to be acceptable and my memory isn't quite as sharp as it was a couple of years back. Despite all of this I'm only 24 and, as many of you may know, adults are supposed to reach their cognitive peak at approx 25 (perhaps just after), which indicates my mind should only be getting better and better. Regardless, I feel like my brain was much more clear when I was 17 or so.

As I love to draw analogies I'll use one to clarify the situation. If my mind were a car, it's kind of like trying to speed along a highway while having your foot slightly depressing the brakes. While you probably wont stop entirely, the car's performance will become laboured and clearly not indicative of its full potential. It could also be analogised to revving a car that is stuck in 3rd gear, you're just not going to get what you want.

I sometimes wonder whether my brain has always been this way and I was merely too ignorant to notice so earlier. Nevertheless, it does seem like my mental performance has declined and it's becoming exceedingly frustrating to suffer from mental blocks and make mistakes so often, I would rather have the "full potential" of my brain (so to speak) than to only be able to utilise it to a limited extent.

Furthering this, I can often read a sentence, re-read it and read it again, but it feels like my eyes move faster than my brain i.e. I see the words, but I just can't comprehend them (not difficult material, my brain just won't start moving). I would attach this kind of behaviour to ADHD due to my poor attention span, but I am able to concentrate when I want to, yet I can't force my brain to focus directly and preclude its somewhat "erratic" and muddled behaviour.

As I am moving into a PhD in comp sci I would really prefer to have my full intellectual abilities available to me, as I can't afford to have these problems. I need my mind to be able to focus like a concentrated beam, absorb everything I view and then work. Instead I'm dealing with something tantamount to a mental child in my head, frivolous, erratic, unfocused and vague.

Sorry for the long post, not sure how familiar anyone is with this type of thing, but I'm sure it will sound familiar to some, just wondering what people think. Thanks.