SARA on 11 Jun 2012 at 7:28 pm

@conspicouscarl. There are studies that show that we have lower ability to make decisions (particularly ones that go against an automatic desire or habit) when we are fatigued.

Sure, but it’s the non-particular category I wonder about. All of the studies I have seen like to point at how our high-level executive whatchamacallits are affected, but there is no mention (that I recall) of exactly what the effects are on those primitive intuitive judgments. It might be out there. I only just now realized that I had not thought or heard of it.

@Kawarthjon. I struggled with the idea that there is no choice myself a couple of weeks ago. I decided that we a brain that evolved from a totally automated processing center to one that allows limited choice making. We have executive function, but I think we mostly don’t use it. We train ourselves into lots of automatic habits because our brain only allows us limited amounts of willful choices. I base my thoughts on the studies I refer to above. Anyway this idea helps me sleep at night.

But I’ll never know as it is behind a pay wall….

This is such a complicated issue, but hormones do matter very much.

And, in my personal experience, sleep apnea is severely underdiagnosed. Many friends are snorers (like me) and nap in the afternoons or evenings as we watch a movie or tv, like I used to. Some have CPAP machines and don’t use them (find them uncomfortable and cumbersome), and some refuse to see a problem. And, many, of course, can’t afford the sleep studies and machines without good health insurance (I was lucky as insurance paid for all of my expenses).

If you have a friend or family member who snores and/or sleeps in the day, please make sure they see a doctor.

Novella said:
winding down time before getting into bed.

I find that this applies mainly to mental winding down. I can do some hefty exercising and then drop like a rock, but watching TV or playing video games will keep me up.

and,
The frontal lobes are involved in executive function, making complex strategic behavioral choices,

It would be interesting to see how much, if any, our impulsive/heuristic functions also decrease with fatigue. As bad as they are normally, they are still (in theory) better than randomly guessing and have room to get worse.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi said
-There are a lot of appearently useless rules. E.g. for a time she couldn’t eat citrus fruits. She still may not eat mint.
-She is losing weight, but with the miniscule amounts of food she may eat, that’s really no wonder
(-She keeps telling me how great the diet is)

I have heard that fad diets can temporarily get people to eat less due to the novelty factor of avoiding certain things, but then people soon get bored with eating bunless hamburgers. I wonder if the structured dynamic nonsense in this particular plan keeps the nonsense interesting for longer. That way, instead of getting tired of a wacky diet and “failing”, you can think “success, now I move on to stage 3!”

I find the second point especially interesting. The many rules remind me of religion. I wonder if people have a “faith mode” they switch into when they are motivated to believe something that goes against their common sense. Maybe that causes them to adhere even more closely to all the rules.

Sorry for going a bit off topic here. You thoughts?

I think learning how to manage this is going to be important. I know many people, including myself, who simply do not have sufficient winding down time that also allows for a large amount of sleep. I don’t get any time to myself until after 11pm, but I have to be up by 7am most days. I find myself staying up later than I should because it’s the only time I have to do certain things that I enjoy and to relax on my own. I’m not sure how to address that without the current ability to adjust my work schedule and home responsibilities.

It is during sleep that much of the “maintenance” that physiology does happens. That is when memories are consolidated in the brain, when mitochondria biogenesis in muscle and other tissues mostly happens.

My hypothesis is that the high NO of sleep is a global signal for repair and maintenance to be turned up. If sleep occurs during a low NO state, then I would predict that the sleep would be less “refreshing”, in that there is less repair and recovery.

Essentially all degenerative disorders are also associated with poor sleep and even insomnia. Chronic fatigue is characterized by non-refreshing sleep. The only reason that sleep is “refreshing”, is that physiology occurs during sleep that causes it to be refreshing.

Sleep apnea is a low NO state, and drugs that affect NO physiology affect sleep apnea. For example viagra makes sleep apnea worse. The way that viagra works is by inhibiting a phosphodiesterase that cleaves cGMP, the product of sGC when activated by NO. Disruption of this control system, likely causes feedback inhibition of NO generation, and would decrease pathways mediated by NO which are not mediated through the sGC-cGMP pathway. Triggering of breathing is mediated by NO, but not through the sGC-cGMP pathway.