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So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

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Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#241

Post by spython »

tartoran wrote: post #205
tluyben2 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure, but I had 'lighter versions' of that sound before getting a migraine after this(never had migraines before the tia): those episodes immediately caused extreme anxiety, as in: it is happening again, while I knew it was not because I had no speech issues or foggy brain, just an aura floating in front of my eyes. This is a long time ago and the way of getting rid of all of this was getting rid of and learning…

How do you not feel stress anymore? I started taking on less and expecting less in order to manage my stress levels and it worked. I also started listening to my own rhythm but that translates sometimes to brain dead days and other times with very productive days. I accepted that and am no longer pushing. But I still take on things but at a slower pace. Id still avoid taking on as much as I was doing in my early 20s,…

I'm not tluyben2 and really interested in his secret, but here's what helped me most:

– not taking what my inner critic says too literal. I imagine someone else saying such critical things to me – it would be ridiculous and I'd tell them to go to hell. So I just accept that something fuels my inner critic and take care of it in a different way.

– enjoying the little things in front of me instead of obsessing about processes which outcomes I can't control. This has a purely hedonistical side too: I can focus on the pure pleasure on squashing this software bug. My food tastes so much better if I actively taste it. When I look outside the window, I see trees moving in the wind or some other tiny movement. It would be laughable to even try to imagine a world where I control the wind in the trees, so why obsess about other complex things outside my control?

– do some imagination/self hypnosis exercise. Write them for myself. Some (lizard) parts of our brains can't distinguish between imagination and reality, so it's exactly these parts that get anxious/stressed. I find it helpful to just dictate some calming exercise (a story how everything goes right) and listen to it in a relaxed state. It works really well since it's my own voice. I wrote an exercise for a friend and just yesterday did a recording of it: https://rybakov.com/blog/being_an_octopus/

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#242

Post by caddemon »

derangedHorse wrote: post #152
dcolkitt wrote: post #147

I’m dubious about the diagnosis. If sustained overthinking could regularly cause seizures, I think it’d be ubiquitous in competitive chess players. Based on the authors description it sounds much more due to lack of sleep and stress.

I also believe it was a multitude of factors. Creative thinking being a catalyst just doesn’t add up. I can’t speak for the physiology of others so it may very well just be that for him, but it’s be nice to get more details on what the doctors diagnosed.

I agree it's probably not creative thinking, but I also kind of doubt the doctors identified specific triggers unless he did an extended in-patient monitoring stay. One of my friends, who in daily life on meds would have 1 or 2 major seizures a month, stayed in an epilepsy unit for 6 weeks with not even a focal seizure detected. He had had epileptic seizures detected in the past but was undergoing monitoring to evaluate for other treatment options/possible surgery. They took him off of meds obviously, and as the stay extended they started sleep depriving him, giving him caffeine, giving him booze, etc. Trying to identify what might actually trigger them. They now think it was mainly work stress, since he was on medical leave from work during the stay.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#243

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

ogwh wrote: post #34
nickalaso wrote: post #19

Low Dopamine and glucose in the brain leading to seizures. I wonder if taking adderall/stimulants as an external dopamine source + sugary drinks/food for the glucose could have helped with this.

No. Adderall forces the brain to release the dopamine it already has and causes increased brain activity, using more glucose. It's more likely to cause this condition or make it substantially worse than it is to treat it. The amphetamine molecule enters the neutron and does several things, two of which are: 1) Force dopamine that is in storage in the neuron to be released prematurely. 2) Reverse the direction of the…

sidebar: I have a lay theory that childhood mistreatment can kneecap the reward system and that ADHD is one manifestation of that.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#244

Post by dr_kiszonka »

Out_of_Characte wrote: post #174
sciurus wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about this too. I have also experienced this at times, although I wouldn't have found these words to describe it. I don't think it's been tied to any particular conditions like heat or stress. Usually it happens when I'm in bed and beginning to fall asleep. Googling turns up https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome which sounds like what I've experienced.

Mentioning the falling asleep part reminds me of a few cases myself. I have trouble sleeping myself and when I fall asleep very slowly I've noticed similar 'illusions'. flashes of light, voices, fractal patterns, a conscious state while dreaming and the very rare loud noise that comes from nowhere. Usually the noise doesn't prevent me from finally falling asleep. I've always wondered how many people experience these…

Hallucinations, particularly the auditory ones, are relatively common when falling asleep. If you haven't already, you could consider seeing a sleep medicine doctor to help with falling asleep and sleeping "deeper", which could also fix the hallucinations.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#245

Post by ta988 »

aero142 wrote: post #170
tluyben2 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure, but I had 'lighter versions' of that sound before getting a migraine after this(never had migraines before the tia): those episodes immediately caused extreme anxiety, as in: it is happening again, while I knew it was not because I had no speech issues or foggy brain, just an aura floating in front of my eyes. This is a long time ago and the way of getting rid of all of this was getting rid of and learning…

I would love to hear how you changed how stressed you feel.

For me: accepting I have "down" days. And trying to never push during those days. Put breaks, read a book (not related to work, not reading it to be better at anything because thats work as well), go out, exercise. Learning to say no. Not overengineering things (because thats a time sink and I have to throw away 2/3 of the prototypes I'm making anyway). Freeing weekends (or free days). Taking time to talk to people about things not work related. Reduced the "arguing because someone is wrong" (on the internet or not) helped as well, it takes a LOT of emotional energy.

edit: typo

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#246

Post by [deleted] »

1_player wrote: post #85
ackbar03 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The brain actually burns a lot of energy so I think its not unreasonable to expect it to burn the fuel it has access to. There was this study on chess players or something in a competition, I don't remember what the study was called exactly, but they found the chess players despite sitting down the whole time burnt an extraordinary amount of calories. In China there is even sort of a common saying for this. Generally…

There are tons of psychological and physiological mechanisms that would activate before reaching literally 0g of glucose if your brain, most that would send you straight into the ER or into complete loss of consciousness. Dangerously low blood sugar doesn't cause losing the ability to speak or to function that you can ignore and just keep working.

[deleted]

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#247

Post by ta988 »

p_l wrote: post #167
Jakobeha wrote: post #45

I don't necessarily doubt the author, but how do you chronically deprive your brain of glucose? Afaik you would get glucose back whenever you ate anything. Unless you were doing keto, but then your body and brain run on ketones. And if you did somehow deprive your brain of fuel, you would get symptoms in a much shorter span. Maybe undereating, but he doesn't list weight loss, and if you're rapidly losing weight and s…

The trick is that your burn rate of glucose might exceed supply rate. Especially if stress conditions or dietary situation results in misbehaving supply, too. Not to mention getting warning signs and pushing through, which I'll be honest I'm guilty of doing as well (though I never got that far, and mostly it was sleep deprivation)

But the glucose amount in your brain is more like f(t,x,y,z) + constant . So what happens in those situations is that the variable part gets reduced, but the constant part needed for keeping tissues alive doesn't change.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#248

Post by ta988 »

ta988 wrote: post #245
aero142 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to hear how you changed how stressed you feel.

For me: accepting I have "down" days. And trying to never push during those days. Put breaks, read a book (not related to work, not reading it to be better at anything because thats work as well), go out, exercise. Learning to say no. Not overengineering things (because thats a time sink and I have to throw away 2/3 of the prototypes I'm making anyway). Freeing weekends (or free days). Taking time to talk to people a…

I forgot! Reducing caffeine from coffee and using tea instead when I feel stress is increasing or when I didnt sleep well (thats the worst time to drink coffee for me as it starts a tiredness and anxiety circle that may last a few days). This reduced my anxiety a lot. And I also noticed that coffee increase my procrastination. Not sure why but I would likely put that on increased anxiety.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#249

Post by Trasmatta »

refurb wrote: post #84
Jakobeha wrote: post #45

I don't necessarily doubt the author, but how do you chronically deprive your brain of glucose? Afaik you would get glucose back whenever you ate anything. Unless you were doing keto, but then your body and brain run on ketones. And if you did somehow deprive your brain of fuel, you would get symptoms in a much shorter span. Maybe undereating, but he doesn't list weight loss, and if you're rapidly losing weight and s…

Anyone who has been around a type I diabetic knows how quickly the brains shuts down when glucose levels drop. It doesn’t even have to get that low before cognition takes a massive hit.

Exactly this. I'm a type 1 diabetic, and the explanation that this was happening due to "burning out all the glucose in my brain" is bogus. It's not how it works at all, and it's not even close to how it feels.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#250

Post by cma »

havernator wrote: post #16
aetherspawn wrote: post #9

I have had something similar to this (heavy fog and inability to continue creative work) and I use coffee, bulk vitamins and regular walks with music to work through it. I also started eating more fresh food and less frozen food, even if it meant eating-out fresh, because it was much worse when I was reheating a lot of tasteless frozen food. But no matter how hard I try, I have focused my career into an area that req…

Middle aged here. Almost, but not quite, no autobiographical memory. Been that way since I was really young. So that’s fun. Often I remember that something happened. Order gets wonky, even a week back. Sometimes I can kinda remember an image or a snippet, but not reliably. I gather most people hold on to a lot more than that. Fine with facts and such. Never a problem in school. I do have trouble remembering the names…

> Often I remember that something happened. Order gets wonky, even a week back. Sometimes I can kinda remember an image or a snippet, but not reliably. I gather most people hold on to a lot more than that.

Isn't this memory about your memory itself a pretty detailed autobiographical memory? Or is it that you can remember sort of templates and categories of things that happened but not a specific instance?

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