Caffeine, How I Knew Thee Well
February 8th, 2007Today brings my total days without caffeine to 5. Today my legs have been real achy feeling, but whether this is because of the caffeine halt I’m not sure. Overall I think my energy level has gone up, or at least become more consistent. Instead of being super energized during the school day and beat at night, I feel like my energy level is about the same all day. This has cut down on how often I feel tired.
It’s a little after 10pm and I’m quite tired and ready for bed. It all feels just a little more natural, not to mention I’ve cut an easy 500 calories out of my daily diet. I’ve only written two chapters on the no-caffeine routine, but I think the words flowed better. My axons must have been firing better. Or my myelin sheath is more sheathy than normal (props to Paddy).
I’ve got an idea for a recurring series of blog stories that are more sitcom like and less serial. I want to write something of a decent size length like the Mike story, but shorter than a novel. Eventually I’m sure you just have to jump in, regardless of how ready you are, and just create that huge story that fills hundreds of pages. Right now that end of the pool still seems awfully deep.
Have a great Friday!
WOOT! Axons!
so your recurring series is going to be “Mike Length?”
If you can tread water in 5 ft, you can tread water in 1000. Just don’t do it until at least an hour after eating.
Axons can become too “sheathy” in a disease called neurofibromatosis (NF), in which small bubbles of myelin sheath grow too large (ie become tumors), resulting in tumors on nerves, sometimes creating painful, visible bumps under the surface of the skin. However, the disease is genetic and therefore impossible to contract by writing too many short stories.
I thought you would be interested to know that caffeine causes decreased reaction times (ie that “up” feeling or awake response) due to its inhibiting effects on adenosine receptors in neurons (which means dendrites). Adenosine is a neural inhibitor, so inhibit your inhibitor, and you get increased (disinhibited) neural activity. Contrary to popular belief, increased activity does not mean your neurons fire faster–which is impossible–but that more neurons are firing. In other words, maybe 4 neurons instead of 1 are now sending signals to a neuron’s dendrites, creating a higher level of excitatory neurotransmitter to enter into the synaptic cleft, thus causing the dendrites receptors to more rapidly receive the necessary amount of stimulation to acheive an action potential, causing the electric signal/wave to carry through the soma/axon. But, it’s easy to overdose on caffeine, and an overdose means jitters and poorer performance. So laying off all that super-caffeinated soda means better functioning, and fewer love handles. Stick to coffee is my motto. One cup, half caffeinated, and a smidge of half and half = excitatory effects without getting fat.
Wow. I hope you all died of boredom somewhere in there. Today, you and paddy have reminded me of my love for neuroanatomy. How I have missed you, my old friend.
The recurring series will be of no particular length. The second sentence of that paragraph was unrelated to the first, sorry. The recurring series is probably about a character that runs into random situations during his job. This way I don’t need a specific structure, but more like a sitcom where the episodes are unrelated and just a continuing development of the character(s). But I need to finish this one first.
Thank you Denise for all the neuro-knowledge. I don’t remember how strungout on caffeine I was during the chapter that was hard to write, but I figure a little less caffeine can’t hurt.
[...] is day 3 without caffeine. Back in ‘07 I got to at least five days, but I can’t remember what happened after that. Obviously I didn’t stay off of it. [...]