Word: brained
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...years ago during a season of heavy deadlines, convinced me that simple wakefulness is no replacement for genuine restedness. After two or three 18-hour days of writing, the quality of my work collapsed even as my fingers kept on typing. Though some switch deep inside my brain was stuck on "on," my soul and spirit had gone numb, incapable of emotion or creativity. I felt as if I were encased in a full-body cast that allowed me to neither lie down all the way nor sit up truly straight: a mummy...
The silence, I'm told, is way worse than the snoring. In the middle of the night, you go quiet for a while. Your chest heaves. Nada. Your body tries again. Still nothing. Then, if you're lucky, your brain kicks in and sends out the alarm: without oxygen, it will starve. So your reflexes get your body to rouse; there's a snuffling, wheezing and then a big intake of breath. And then back to normal breathing--or more snoring--until the cycle starts again. And all the while, you're fast asleep, blissfully unaware that anything is going...
...tougher question concerns caffeine's fabled ability to lift mood. Studies since the 1980s have looked into its effect on opiate centers of the brain, hoping for a treatment for depression or alcoholism. But is the high also hype? Certainly, among people new to caffeine, the buzz is real. A caffeine novice can get a kick from as little as 20 mg of caffeine--the equivalent of 1.5 oz. of strong drip coffee. But the average coffee drinker may consume upwards of 300 mg a day, often with no discernible effect on mood. Reason: the body quickly habituates...
...Habituation to some of the [stimulating] effects may happen even more rapidly." What passes for a lift, Griffiths warns, may be nothing more than relief from the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal--such as lethargy and headache--which begin after overnight abstinence. The discomfort is probably caused by adenosine-starved brain receptors overreacting when the caffeine is removed and the brain chemical starts flowing again...
...move to fiction, though drastic, seemed natural to Nye. “It’s always fun to tell a story, and it also allowed me to use the other side of the brain,” he says. “Sometimes I would work on an academic book during the day and turn to fiction in the evening for relaxation...