How tired are you after a serious game of go?

[Boidhre]

Research indicates that "mental tiredness" is all or nearly all physical.

Do you (or someone) have references of research papers supporting this?

I remember reading about chess players, people taking exams etc, alongside the increased calorie burn from the sustained intense concentration also had elevated levels of cortisol (the "stress hormone") when they were playing/taking the exam. The increased heart rate etc from this would increase the metabolic calorie burn on top of the extra calories being demanded by the brain itself. I think part of the issue here is people looking at say playing go as a purely mental experience and not thinking about the rest of the body being involved. Burning the candle at both ends and all that. I think there is some research that suggests mental state may cause fatigue to kick in faster or slower when they looked at people doing some kind of physical activity.

I don't know, it's interesting. I've a strong personal interest in this in general due to health issues directly affecting this stuff. It's more complicated than the brain just burning more calories because you're focused on something but there are a lot of physical processes going on contributing to mental fatigue when doing something like playing a serious game of go or chess or sitting an exam or studying or whatnot.

[Bill Spight]

Research indicates that "mental tiredness" is all or nearly all physical.

Do you (or someone) have references of research papers supporting this?

I read about that research around 40 years ago, when I was playing tournament bridge. So no, I do not have a reference handy. However, to quote myself, I went a little more into the details of the research.

Research indicates that "mental tiredness" is all or nearly all physical. If you remain rested you can maintain your mental acuity and concentration all day, no problem. I am not sure what you mean by a relatively fast game of go. For me that would be one that took 30 minutes or so. Maybe for you it is one hour or so. If you find that tiring, it is probably because of tension. Relaxation exercises away from the board can help. The corpse posture in yoga comes to mind. As does autogenics. There are also yogic mental concentration exercises while remaining physically relaxed. Often we are not aware of our tension. One exercise for aspiring violinists is to hold a wine cork between their teeth while playing. At first they usually bite through the cork in a minute or two.

(Emphasis added.)

As I recall, the research had the subjects do difficult arithmetic problems for something like 8 to 10 hours, while they were reclining. I suppose they had a lunch break. At the end of the day their speed and accuracy was unimpaired. They were not engaged in competition, and so presumably did not experience tension related to that.

IMX, I did find tournament bridge tiring, but I was also experiencing a good bit of tension. I pretty well got that under control by autogenics and other techniques. In general, physical relaxation aids concentration, which is quite important in mind sports.

[jlt]

Not being in a competition means that the subjects used maybe 80% of their brain power. It doesn't mean they would be able to use 100% brain power for 8-10 hours. The equivalent of a go competition would be, in a limited time, to give a $1 reward for each correctly solved arithmetic problem and a $10 penalty for each mistake.

That said, I agree that physical tension is a major cause of tiredness, and is difficult to overcome in a competition.

[Bill Spight]

Not being in a competition means that the subjects used maybe 80% of their brain power. It doesn't mean they would be able to use 100% brain power for 8-10 hours.

Speaking as a former low level bridge pro, I would not recommend trying to use 100% brain power for 8-10 hours per day. Sure, Shusai once took 8 hours on one play, but that was Shusai. Go is a long game, a marathon more than a sprint. 80% is a sustainable level of effort.

I think this advice is in line with Rin Kaiho's advice to reserve about ⅓ of your time to read out one crucial play, although he did not express himself in terms of percentage of brain power. Stay relaxed and cruise along at a sustainable pace most of the time, and pick the times to go all out. Remember that it is possible to overthink your plays, especially at amateur levels of play. Straining after gnats is a waste of time and energy.

Where I do think that it is important to go all out is during training. As I have said, I think most people attempt problems that are too easy for them. When I had a training regimen of 15 hours a week, 3 hours a day, I used to spend one hour per day on four problems, 15 minutes per problem. This was in preparation for spending that much time on a difficult position in a game. So I went all out, but I also relaxed by doing the problems in a warm bath.

Edit: That was my training regimen when I was a 4 dan. For a 5 kyu maybe 30 min. per day to do 10 problems would be good. Everybody is different.

[Cytotoxic]

If Go is too exhausting, you could always play some chess.

That's what I do

edit: inebriants are apparently not everyone's cup of tea, but there is that, too

NOOOOOOOOOOOO! NOT CHESSSSSS!!!
I used to play it, but I now only play go.