Is it possible to suddenly become dumber?

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I feel like I can solve a math problem with ease, and the next day, I'm becoming slow. I can barely compile my thoughts into words. It's hard to understand what someone says. I make more mistakes. I lose awareness. My attention span is worse

Is this common among autistics? If so, how do I remedy this? How can I cure this? Is there anyway of preventing my slowness, so I can stay mentally active, and smarter?

A great deal of things can affect your ability to think clearly. Lack of sleep, poor diet, insufficient exercise, illness...

I used Brain Age to measure my performance. I'd test with caffeine, without caffeine, keep track of how rested I was, what part of the day seemed to be my peek focus and energy times, etc. While I stayed in the same basic neighborhood, there were circumstances under which I faltered. The biggest dip in score came during a time of intense stress. I thought I was focusing but I really, really wasn't. My mind was elsewhere. According to this testing, 8pm is my hour of awesome.

I love that subject line, though. It made me giggle because I considered it for other contexts.

Sure.

Watch Jack Ass on T.V.

You'll be a complete idiot in no time.


On a more serious note, stress can turn my thinking to mud. I can range from very sharp to feeling like my mind has been hit with a freeze ray.

You can lose access to some of your skills temporarily under stress, or while "making room" to use other skills, or if you are focused on something else...

It's also possible to lose skills permanently, but this is much less common... By the sheer odds, I would say this is probably a temporary skill loss caused by your brain saving resources in some way.

Lack of concentration can also be caused by many medical problems, from physical to mental; the most common is probably depression.

Losing my skills permanently? Is there anyway to prevent that?

If you have any particular skills you want to maintain, practice makes perfect.

It depends on what the skill is. You should reinforce what you have learned everyday by doing exercises. If you are in school, all you need to do is study out of class for a few hours a day until you feel confident. If you are out of school, get a job that allows you to practice your skills, like teaching.

the only ways in which a person could suddenly lose cognitive efficiency, would be in a lab setting where a medico magnetically interferred with the functioning of the frontal lobes, or if an infarction happen in that brain region. stress works pretty quickly, also, but not technically in a sudden manner.

I was going to say stress as well. If I have to work with people all day, around 3 or 4 PM, it's like someone opens up the top of my head and pours molasses into the gears. That's when I hit my limit and overload. It takes me an hour or more to do something that normally takes me a couple minutes. Other types of stress will do the same thing, but that is the most common for me.

On the other hand, such a situation may also make you a superhero. It's a roll of the dice.

a shrink i saw several decades ago, related to me the story of his experience with a suicidal fort lewis soldier who had tried to blow his own brains out with an m1 rifle, only thing was the bullet made a clean and simple entry and exit wound with minimal brain trauma, so he survived with surprisingly little impairment- but when he was tested for cognitive ability several months later, his IQ was higher by 30 points. nobody could explain that.

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There are instances where:

- a person can study for an exam, get up early in the morning, have a good memory and that memory tends to disappear by about 1 pm the same day

- a person has a four day photographic memory where a person will wait to study for an exam close to the exam date since studying too far in advance is a waste of time since the memory fades away

- a person can notice some foods which allow the memory to function vs other foods which noticeably slow down memory

- Some persons with some types of the many epilepsies (petit/absence, etc.) or the four ADHDs are aware their attention spans can fluctuate involuntarily. Also, memory variations can occur with brain injuries, sports concussions.

- When persons get quite older (say 65 plus), Alzheimer's or senility can enter the picture and people can have good days and bad days with their memories.

Yeah, if you catch yourself doing too much to the point where your brain is starting to protest, then back off rather than trying to push through it. That can't always stop it, but it certainly makes it better.

If I may hazard a guess, I've heard that suicide attempts can snap someone out of depression (so long as they fail). If he were tested while depressed, then without depression, he might have overall done better because depression can mask cognitive abilities.

So many good replies here.

And yes, my cognitive abilities can go south overnight as I don't have access to parts of my brain, fluid, long term memory, and spatial. I appear confused at my worst ( that's what I heard) and other times, "you're a very bright person." This isn't age related with myself because I recall this phenomenon at age 20.

And this has affected my driving performance as well, as I can only map things in 2D, and this affects little things such as reaching for something and jamming/breaking my fingernails against the sides of something.

Overall there is a large vacillation in performance here.