Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
The Ultimate Couch Potato
ESPN had a contest this year for the Ultimate Couch Potato. Now, it's not as easy as it sounds. You have to sit in your seat and watch nothing but sports, with one bathroom break every 8 hours, a 5 minute stretching break every hour, and absolutely no sleeping. Guess who won? A woman. So I guess we have a newly crowned Queen of the Couch Potatoes, after sitting in a recliner for 70 hours and 22 seconds...watching nothing but sports...that is my definition of hell.
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Monday, October 13, 2008
Sooo...tired...
Going off of Mirapex has been hell. Seriously...I've tried everything under the sun, and nothing works. The rebound effect of going off of Mirapex AND Clonazepam is torture. RLS isn't life threatening, but the lack of sleep may be. The only way I've gotten any sleep is by taking some left over pain medication I have for gall bladder attacks. I've just put in a call to my doctor asking if he could prescribe something like Ultram so that I can get some sleep on a regular basis, until the worst is over. . Ugh.
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Thursday, October 09, 2008
Multitasking: You're Not Getting As Much Done As You Think
This morning on NPR, I heard a story about multitasking, and it seems that it's not all it's cracked up to be. According to the story,
I know I'm totally guilty of multitasking. Right now, I have my work e-mail open, am writing this blog entry, and am trying to look at some sample pages. Part of me knows that I'm not devoting 100% to any of these tasks. But, I've always been like this...I can't just do one thing at a time (no, I don't drive and talk on my cell...that's where I draw the line). And now I know why. Apparently, the brain gets addicted to multitasking! Great. That totally scares me, especially after reading,
But, taken in small doses, multitasking isn't something we should totally discard. Like, listening to music, and doing work at the same time isn't a distraction. However, that's because it's not interrupting our consciousness, like seeing an e-mail notification might. We just have to learn to prioritize, not let those sorts of interruptions take over, and learn to say, "no, I'm not going to answer that right now."
Okay...I'll try that. Maybe my brain will thank me for it. :)
"doing several things at once can feel so productive. But scientists say switching rapidly between tasks can actually slow us down."
I know I'm totally guilty of multitasking. Right now, I have my work e-mail open, am writing this blog entry, and am trying to look at some sample pages. Part of me knows that I'm not devoting 100% to any of these tasks. But, I've always been like this...I can't just do one thing at a time (no, I don't drive and talk on my cell...that's where I draw the line). And now I know why. Apparently, the brain gets addicted to multitasking! Great. That totally scares me, especially after reading,
"Multitasking causes a kind of brownout in the brain. [...] the lights go dim because there just isn't enough power to go around. ... So, the brain starts shutting things down — things like neural connections to important information."There's a process called "spreading activation" that goes on when we're learning about a particular topic. So, when we multitask, the connections we were creating for, say, understanding what's being said in a complicated e-mail, get interrupted when we try to do something else in the midst of understanding that e-mail (say, read another e-mail, take a call, etc.). Thus, we have to recreate those connections in our brain when we try to go back to what we were originally doing. Efficiency goes down as a result. In short, that's making us work slower.
But, taken in small doses, multitasking isn't something we should totally discard. Like, listening to music, and doing work at the same time isn't a distraction. However, that's because it's not interrupting our consciousness, like seeing an e-mail notification might. We just have to learn to prioritize, not let those sorts of interruptions take over, and learn to say, "no, I'm not going to answer that right now."
Okay...I'll try that. Maybe my brain will thank me for it. :)
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Wednesday, October 08, 2008
The Second Presidential Debate
All I have to say is...glad I didn't hear the word "maverick" come out of McCain's mouth last night. Then again, I couldn't have a drinking game like I wanted to do with the veep debate...between "maverick" and "nukyular" that night, I could have had some fun...if I'd had any alcohol present in the house, heh. But, I did hear, "change" come out of Obama's mouth a lot...but it's something I don't mind hearing. :)
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RLS Update
It's been two weeks since I've tapered off of Mirapex for Restless Legs Syndrome, and I have to say it's been sheer hell. Why did I go off of it? Well, my doctor and I have reason to believe it caused me to sleepwalk during REM sleep, which is very dangerous not only for me but for my boyfriend. I was taking 2 mg of Clonazepam to keep the sleepwalking under control, but it was making me feel terrible the next day. So, I'm tapering off of that as well. I've turned to vitamin and mineral supplements. Apparently, a lack of folic acid, magnesium, and iron can cause RLS. While you can take magnesium and folic acid without any adverse effects, iron is a different story. Taking too much can cause major health problems...yikes! With that said, I've gone and had my iron tested. The results haven't come in yet, but I'm hoping it shows that I have low iron. If it does, my doctor tells me iron supplementation can help a great deal. Keep your fingers crossed!
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