Whether you are a developer, architect, database admin or a related role, you know firsthand that an IT job makes a smart person even smarter. The demands of logic and problem solving, requiring both analytical and creative thought, work to keep your brain sharp.



But perhaps it doesn’t always feel that way. When you emerge from the cave of your cubicle, blinking into the sunshine, it’s likely your brain feels fuzzy and tired. While there are overall benefits for your brain’s health, on a daily basis your IT job gives it a serious beatdown.

This has only worsened in recent years. For example, if you are a programmer, you are typically tightly focused on one subject for long periods. Perhaps you are debugging a difficult problem or writing some complex functionality. This is hard, even if you have strong concentration skills. But, unlike earlier generations of coders, programmers today are surrounded by technology that that aims to distract, meaning you burn up even more cycles just trying to maintain focus on the work at hand.

And of course, your brain doesn’t shut down for the day when you close your laptop. Redditor tjeerdnet summed it up this way: