Interrupt failing to wake brain from sleep mode.

[Michael]

I meant keyboard keys......

Nope, why? does this happen to you? or did I make some bad
spelling/grammer mistakes?

 

[Michael]

I write a lot of assembly code for Pic's and the MSP430, generally I
don't have a problem going over old code and making changes. I usually
know exactly what I'm doing, I make very few mistakes and I feel very
alert and in control.
Occasionally though, my brain just goes DUH!, and I stare at the
screen completely lost, sometimes ginko or caffeine or a walk can help
a little bit, but other times (like right now) nothing helps. It's not
just for a few min's either, sometimes it lasts a whole day, sometimes
2 days.

Does this happen to anyone else here? does anyone know of any
remedies?

Thanks for all the good feedback, I'll see a doctor about it, and try
to exercise more in the morning.

BTW I feel great today.


Michael.........

 

[Ken Taylor]

Nope, why? does this happen to you? or did I make some bad
spelling/grammer mistakes?

No, no, not meant in a sarcastic way at all. Just another sign of wandering
brain, which has been better described by others in the thread. Had a friend
who had similar problems to you, plus extras like occasionally not being
able to find keys on the keyboard (that frieked his wife enough that he went
to a specialist).

Hope all's well.

Ken

 

[James Arthur]

If you think really hard, your brain can peak at something like 1KW, and
sustain over 300W over a period of time... thinking can be hard work.

Gee, you must be thinking *really* hard. IIRC ordinary power useage for a
human brain is closer to 25W, active or not. To burn calories, exercise.

As a rough-cut, figure 2,400Kcal chow as input for 24hrs, averaging to a
100Kcal/hour burn. At 4.18J/calorie, 100Kcal = 418KJ/hr, or about 116 watts
average consumption for the whole shootin' match, with the brain taking about
1/5th.

As a second confirmation (and in the spirit of the thermal-pasties thread),
consider the theta(j) of brain-to-air as compared to a good aluminum heat sink
& imagine a how hot a small space heater -- or a 300W fur-covered bowling ball
-- might get.

Of course brains do have forced-liquid cooling systems, complicating things,
but let's let them rest in oversimplified splendor -- mine's overheating.


Fancy-pants scans indicate that learning new stuff burns lots more brain
sugar than merely pondering the familiar -- perhaps closed-mindedness ought
really be celebrated as "energy conservation?"


James Arthur

"et.net" -- delete it. (incoming e-mail subject to brutal filtering)

 

[John Larkin]

Thanks for all the good feedback, I'll see a doctor about it, and try
to exercise more in the morning.

BTW I feel great today.


Michael.........

I tried some meds once to tone down the manic/depressive thing, but
the manic part is far too valuable to chuck, and they just made me
weird to boot. As I get older, it seems to moderate anyhow. But do
check to see if you have a metabolic thing - thyroid, diabetes,
whatever. We need to condition our brains as an athlete conditions his
body.

I did find that getting exercise and losing weight really helped me
think and stay awake all day. Just repeat the mantra, "Hunger is your
friend. Hunger is your friend..."

John

 

[Ben Pope]

Gee, you must be thinking *really* hard. IIRC ordinary power useage
for a human brain is closer to 25W, active or not. To burn calories,
exercise.

I dunno... looking at your calcs, which seem reasonable, makes the figures I
quoted look somewhat large. Maybe the KW figure was all neurons firing at
the same time, but I don't think so. I made a quick scan of my neural notes
and couldn't find the info I was after. Oh well...

Ben

 

[Bill Sloman]

I write a lot of assembly code for Pic's and the MSP430, generally I
don't have a problem going over old code and making changes. I usually
know exactly what I'm doing, I make very few mistakes and I feel very
alert and in control.
Occasionally though, my brain just goes DUH!, and I stare at the
screen completely lost, sometimes ginko or caffeine or a walk can help
a little bit, but other times (like right now) nothing helps. It's not
just for a few min's either, sometimes it lasts a whole day, sometimes
2 days.

Does this happen to anyone else here? does anyone know of any
remedies?

Happens to me regularly when I'm doing my piano practice, more often
when I haven't had enough sleep.

If you want to exercise your hypochondria, you can worry about
build-up of plaque (cholesterol) in your carotid arteries.

http://neurosurgery.mgh.harvard.edu/cea.htm

I think that carotid endarterectomy is just reaming out your carotid
arteries.

Robert Heinlein (the science fiction writer) had it done a few years
before he died, and claimed that it eliminated a problem he'd been
having in trying to concentrate on writing for any extended period of
time.

A friend of ours had the same operation a few years ago (shortly
before he won his - Belgian -Solvay Prize) and didn't report any such
effect, and my aunt had a similar operation (her carotids had
sub-divided going onto the neck and recombined coming out due to some
sort of congenital development oddity) again without reporting any
improvement in her capacity to concentrate for estended periods, so
Heinlein may actually be describing a placebo cure for writers block.

 

[Michael]

I tried some meds once to tone down the manic/depressive thing, but
the manic part is far too valuable to chuck, and they just made me
weird to boot. As I get older, it seems to moderate anyhow. But do
check to see if you have a metabolic thing - thyroid, diabetes,
whatever. We need to condition our brains as an athlete conditions his
body.

I did find that getting exercise and losing weight really helped me
think and stay awake all day. Just repeat the mantra, "Hunger is your
friend. Hunger is your friend..."

John

huh? Manic is valuable?

I wont fast, because I love food too much (baked potatos!), I would
rather exercise and burn it off than to diet. I am overweight though,
because I used to smoke and I couldn't breath well enough to exercise.
I am just now starting to exercise because I quit smoking, and I'm
getting my lung capacity back.
I'll behave myself over the Xmas break and see how well I feel next
year.

 

[Ban]

Bill Sloman wrote:
|| [email protected] (Michael) wrote in message
|| ||| I write a lot of assembly code for Pic's and the MSP430, generally I
||| don't have a problem going over old code and making changes. I
||| usually know exactly what I'm doing, I make very few mistakes and I
||| feel very alert and in control.
||| Occasionally though, my brain just goes DUH!, and I stare at the
||| screen completely lost, sometimes ginko or caffeine or a walk can
||| help a little bit, but other times (like right now) nothing helps.
||| It's not just for a few min's either, sometimes it lasts a whole
||| day, sometimes 2 days.
|||
||| Does this happen to anyone else here? does anyone know of any
||| remedies?

It might be a desease, I once met a young guy who would fall into kind of a
coma mainly when answering a telephone call. He would wake up after an hour
or so still with the telephone in his hand. It is most embarrassing but has
no further implications.
Maybe you can research into this, I don't know the name, but I'm sure any
neuroloic specialist is aware about this phenomenon. Go to your doc.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Bill Sloman wrote:
|| [email protected] (Michael) wrote in message
|| ||| I write a lot of assembly code for Pic's and the MSP430, generally I
||| don't have a problem going over old code and making changes. I
||| usually know exactly what I'm doing, I make very few mistakes and I
||| feel very alert and in control.
||| Occasionally though, my brain just goes DUH!, and I stare at the
||| screen completely lost, sometimes ginko or caffeine or a walk can
||| help a little bit, but other times (like right now) nothing helps.
||| It's not just for a few min's either, sometimes it lasts a whole
||| day, sometimes 2 days.
|||
||| Does this happen to anyone else here? does anyone know of any
||| remedies?

It might be a desease, I once met a young guy who would fall into kind of a
coma mainly when answering a telephone call. He would wake up after an hour
or so still with the telephone in his hand. It is most embarrassing but has
no further implications.
Maybe you can research into this, I don't know the name, but I'm sure any
neuroloic specialist is aware about this phenomenon. Go to your doc.

Narcolepsy?

http://www-med.stanford.edu/school/Psychiatry/narcolepsy/

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[John Larkin]

Narcolepsy?

Or petit mal epilepsy. One of my guys had this. He said that he'd once
in a while go into sort of a trance, accompanied by a huge feeling of
deja vu for nothing specific.

John

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Michael <[email protected]>

I write a lot of assembly code for Pic's and the MSP430, generally I
don't have a problem going over old code and making changes. I usually
know exactly what I'm doing, I make very few mistakes and I feel very
alert and in control.
Occasionally though, my brain just goes DUH!, and I stare at the
screen completely lost, sometimes ginko or caffeine or a walk can help
a little bit, but other times (like right now) nothing helps. It's not
just for a few min's either, sometimes it lasts a whole day, sometimes
2 days.

Does this happen to anyone else here? does anyone know of any
remedies?

There have been a lot of suggestions of quite serious medical conditions
being responsible. But your description of your brain going 'DUH!',
while not exactly normal neurological terminology, is just about right.
It's a not uncommon experience and is no cause for alarm, unless you
experience amnesia as well. In that case, you need to talk to a doctor.
Recently, it has been found that taking statins to control cholesterol
can (rarely) cause similar effects, also with amnesia.

The condition is, IMHO, a simple protection mechanism, triggered by too-
intense concentration. I suspect that some people don't have this
protection, and can become seriously disturbed as a result.

What to do about it is to have breaks from your intense concentration of
a few minutes every two hours or so. That means **going away from the
computer screen** to drink your coffee or whatever.