Me so sleepy
Lately I've been feeling very...dizzy. The other day I was thinking of what my typical week is like. On Mondays and Fridays I take neuroscience classes. Tuesday thru Thursday I develop software for a microprocessor developement company using advanced data analysis techniques from machine learning. And on Saturday and Sunday, I manage and develop an open source RPG. No wonder I'm so dizzy. All this context switching is screwing with my brain. I'm getting all these concepts from across all these different fields mangled together. Yeesh.
Anyway, so on Friday last week I saw a neurologist about some problems I've been having. I officially cited: difficulty with high-level cognition, problems with concentration and memory, "time distorion" (things that happened yesterday feel like they happened a week ago, and so on), and constant sleepiness and over sleeping. The initial guess was that I have narcolepsy, a sleep disorder. They did a quick test of my somatic nervous system (the part of our nervous systems that controls vital functions like heart rate, breathing, etc.). The test was pretty lame actually. It was just a bunch of different breathing exercises that lasted for 15 minutes. But the interpretation by the computer suggested that my parasympathetic nervous system is overpowering my sympathetic nervous system (both are part of the somatic nervous system). To put it in layman's term, parasympathetic is the breaks on a car while sympathetic is the gas, and my body is putting on the breaks too hard.
I am also going in for a sleep study tomorrow, where they monitor my sleep waves with electrodes attached to my head. That will be cool. :) I also got a call this morning from the neurologist and the medical doctor in charge has suggested a third test (I forget what they called it) that will examine the extent of the brain damage I have or something. When I was 14, I had a near-fatal accident that left me with severe cranial trauma and messed me up royally for a few weeks. The neurlogist speculates that being under the constant period of high-stress tha I was under for so long last year might have combined with my previous damage and caused me all these complications. They gave me two kinds of drugs: one to keep me awake and one to put me to sleep. I haven't tried them yet though because I have to wait until my sleep study is over. I can't wait to give it a shot though, because half of yesterday I missed out on because I took 4 naps in a row. This is starting to really suck, because I'm losing productivity (on many things) since I'm tired all the time. :(
I'm on spring break now anyway. I took the week off of work as well, so I'm just trying to relax during this period, get caught up on a few things, and try to prevent myself from getting stressed like I was last year. So far so good. Yesterday I spent almost the entire day (that I was awake) watching random videos on the internet. I'm starting to get addicted to Google video. I watched a bunch of magician tricks, a bunch of Japanese stuff, and I also found a goldmine of World War II propaganda videos from the national archives loaded up there. They were really interesting to watch.
Anyway, so on Friday last week I saw a neurologist about some problems I've been having. I officially cited: difficulty with high-level cognition, problems with concentration and memory, "time distorion" (things that happened yesterday feel like they happened a week ago, and so on), and constant sleepiness and over sleeping. The initial guess was that I have narcolepsy, a sleep disorder. They did a quick test of my somatic nervous system (the part of our nervous systems that controls vital functions like heart rate, breathing, etc.). The test was pretty lame actually. It was just a bunch of different breathing exercises that lasted for 15 minutes. But the interpretation by the computer suggested that my parasympathetic nervous system is overpowering my sympathetic nervous system (both are part of the somatic nervous system). To put it in layman's term, parasympathetic is the breaks on a car while sympathetic is the gas, and my body is putting on the breaks too hard.
I am also going in for a sleep study tomorrow, where they monitor my sleep waves with electrodes attached to my head. That will be cool. :) I also got a call this morning from the neurologist and the medical doctor in charge has suggested a third test (I forget what they called it) that will examine the extent of the brain damage I have or something. When I was 14, I had a near-fatal accident that left me with severe cranial trauma and messed me up royally for a few weeks. The neurlogist speculates that being under the constant period of high-stress tha I was under for so long last year might have combined with my previous damage and caused me all these complications. They gave me two kinds of drugs: one to keep me awake and one to put me to sleep. I haven't tried them yet though because I have to wait until my sleep study is over. I can't wait to give it a shot though, because half of yesterday I missed out on because I took 4 naps in a row. This is starting to really suck, because I'm losing productivity (on many things) since I'm tired all the time. :(
I'm on spring break now anyway. I took the week off of work as well, so I'm just trying to relax during this period, get caught up on a few things, and try to prevent myself from getting stressed like I was last year. So far so good. Yesterday I spent almost the entire day (that I was awake) watching random videos on the internet. I'm starting to get addicted to Google video. I watched a bunch of magician tricks, a bunch of Japanese stuff, and I also found a goldmine of World War II propaganda videos from the national archives loaded up there. They were really interesting to watch.
posted by Tyler Olsen at 9:34 AM
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