
Unexpected ways to wake up your brain - anishkothari
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29817519
======
IgorPartola
Here's a trick I've been using: if you are driving and start feeling tired,
hold your breath. Your brain will go into a bit of a panic mode: "Where's all
the O2?!", and you will feel more awake for a short period of time. Do note,
that this is a great trick to get you to the rest area 3 miles down the road,
_not_ a good way to drive all night long.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Yawning is designed to wake you up. Yawn's apparently provide a boost of O2.
We yawn when we're tired because we're trying to stay awake/alert and yawning
enables that; if someone yawns when you're talking then they're actually
trying to concentrate - that's a good thing.

I'm pretty good at fighting the panic response when holding my breath - lots
of underwater swimming bravado as a child - at what point do you breath?!?
Leave it too long and you'll just pass out at the wheel. I'd imagine for me
this would be too distracting and make me _more_ likely to crash.

A research contender though.

~~~
eru
No evidence for the O2 boost for yawning. Actually, we don't really know what
yawning is good for.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
When I mentioned it I knew I really should have looked for a citation first,
it's something I heard on BBC Radio 4 (!), which is usually a good source for
science/mathematics based information ... but you got me. The article I heard
was primarily on empathetic aspects of yawning.

Initially I was going to write "an O2 boost to the brain" but thinking about
it I couldn't readily create a mechanism for that to happen - I'm terrible at
human biology mind you - and so I reduced the claim in case I'd miss heard.
Presumably to boost oxygen to the brain you'd need to increase blood flow
(vasodilation or heart-rate) or increase oxygenation of the blood.

Taking a very quick look at scholar.google.com there are citations supporting
humans yawning when they have low blood oxygen; there's also papers saying
that hypoxic patients increase blood oxygen levels through deep breathing. A
yawn is like a single deep breath ... so perhaps?? But I'm not in a position
to look further.

~~~
eru
People also yawn when they see other people (or even animals or pictures)
yawn. It's complicated.

------
bevan
If you want to see some of the papers about sage's effect on cognition, I've
added them here:

[http://paleoclaims.com/claims/sage-enhances-cognitive-
perfor...](http://paleoclaims.com/claims/sage-enhances-cognitive-performance)

~~~
tremendo
Or, IMO more clearly organized and presented information:
[http://examine.com/supplements/Salvia+sclarea/](http://examine.com/supplements/Salvia+sclarea/)

------
sebnukem2
There's one thing that fully wakes me up every morning better than a dozen
cups of coffee ever would: biking to work.

~~~
cbd1984
Where do you live? Because the climate would put a kibosh on that in a lot of
places pretty quick. (Even if you're personally fine with being outside in
-20°F (244 K) weather, there are rather serious mechanical issues with biking
through deep snow and on glazed ice with a thin layer of loose snow on top.)

~~~
colechristensen
Not really, living in Minneapolis I've had several (perhaps crazy) friends who
biked to work every day year round excepting maybe one or two of the worst
days.

~~~
mitchty
Yep, I live in St Paul. Know many possibly crazy bikers that bike to
Minneapolis even in heavy snow.

They have the crazy huge tires as well to go over snow/ice. Each one said its
not a huge deal to bike in -20ish weather with snow/ice. Just means you travel
slower was their statement.

------
hyperion2010
I've been off caffeine for 2+ years now, I always feel like I've been poisoned
when I use it, jittery and completely unable to concentrate. Also interesting
that they didn't mention any of the longer acting transporter blockers like
methylphenidate or other "performance enhancing" drugs that have been widely
reported to improve attention (the button pressing test is actually diagnostic
for the action of these drugs).

~~~
bbcbasic
Yes anyone else reading this who consumes any caffeine. Seriously ... give it
up. Completely. It is a drug.

I did it and I now sleep better, need less sleep, feel more awake in the
morning, and save money.

This is one of the best 'life hacks'

~~~
dllthomas
I've picked up and dropped a moderately sized caffeine habit at various points
in my life. The biggest effect _on me_ of being off caffeine is a reduction of
my tolerance for caffeine when I have some next (smaller amount has bigger
effect) and clearing out the addiction (can go days without caffeine without
headache). I don't see appreciable changes in my quality of sleep (exercise
does that!) or my ability to focus.

I have _every_ expectation this differs dramatically person to person, and I
encourage anyone with any sort of habit to examine it, but what you say does
not necessarily apply to everyone.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I have chronic and severe sleep issues - they're probably psychological but
I've subscribed to a theory of being "non-24" for some time.

I've sworn off caffeine twice in an effort to regulate my sleep better and
neither time has it helped me in getting to sleep. What it does do is in the
"morning" [ie when I wake] make me more alert, I'm not in caffeine withdrawal,
I feel better.

If you're going to try it then my advice is to ensure you still drink enough:
substitute caffeine drinks with water for example.

For me going cold-turkey it takes about 1 week for the severely painful
headaches to stop and for me to be able to think clearly again.

So far as I can determine caffeine has potential long term positive effects,
doesn't have lasting negative effects. I slip back in to it because it's in
the house and at times I have to use something to wake me up when I'm sleep
deprived. It's pathological.

------
unclesaamm
My dad's trick for beating jet lag is going swimming at the hotel where he
lands. I have a hunch there's something about being in standing height or
deeper water that triggers your body to stay awake (since you would otherwise
drown)

~~~
hoggle
Interesting, I like to go swimming midday or evening and it helps me "reboot"
as well. After about 30 minutes of medium to high intensity breaststroke I
often feel better than when I got out of bed that morning.

------
gadders
Strange - doesn't mention Nicotine. I believe in patch or lozenge this has as
much affect as caffeine [1]. Note that I'm not advocating smoking, just the
nicotine itself.

[1] [http://discovermagazine.com/2014/march/13-nicotine-
fix](http://discovermagazine.com/2014/march/13-nicotine-fix)

~~~
anotherevan
Recently listened to a Freakonomics podcast[1] about how to make people quit
smoking. There were two related points that stuck with me.

1\. Nicotine can have a lot of positive benefits. As one of their experts
stated, “Good drug, bad delivery system.”

2\. One of those benefits is a possible anti-depressant effect. So smoking may
inadvertently be treating a person’s undiagnosed mental health issue[2], an
additional difficulty when trying to quit smoking.

This second point has made me a little more compassionate towards smokers, and
to the difficulty of quitting. (As least in theory, still get annoyed when I
can smell cigarette smoke on myself after a trip down to the shops because of
some smoker on the sidewalk.)

[1] [http://freakonomics.com/2014/04/03/how-to-make-people-
quit-s...](http://freakonomics.com/2014/04/03/how-to-make-people-quit-smoking-
a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/)

[2] NOT advocating this as an excuse to continue smoking. There are better
treatments.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
If it's just about nicotine though one can use gum, patches, vaporisers - in
fact I can't really see why anyone would smoke now, you can get the drug in a
cleaner way more cheaply by vaping.

It seems like choosing to chug anti-freeze when you've got high-class liquor
available.

~~~
anotherevan
I don't think smoking, and trying to quit smoking, it just about the nicotine.
That's just one aspect of the issue.

------
staunch
> _In a test which involved pressing a button when I saw a light go on, my
> reaction times improved from an average of 650 milliseconds before the
> machine was turned on, to 550 milliseconds with it on. These findings are in
> line with results from other subjects._

The average reaction time is 256 milliseconds on this web site:

[http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime](http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime)

~~~
Phlarp
I have no idea how the quoted test was formatted, but a twitch reaction when a
subject is prepared for it within a short time-frame (10s like this website)
will be much faster than a test where the subject rests or is made to focus on
another task for longer periods between sampling.

Also, It sounds like that particular sample was from a cohort of stroke
victims, perhaps the stroke also affected their reaction times, or stroke
victims represent a generally older demographic and have slower reaction times
outright than the younger cohort a website might be measuring.

------
Magi604
Here's a trick I learned in college.

Get something COLD (ice pack, a can of pop from the fridge, bag of ice. Even a
swath of paper towels that have been run under a cold-running faucet for a
while can do the trick

Place it on your forehead, centered, just above your eyes.

That always jolted me awake for a good 15-30 mins, though your mileage may
vary.

I am not sure of the science behind it, though I do remember reading it on
some sort of lifehacker-type blog, so I didn't invent this.

~~~
derefr
Probably the
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex)

------
drzaiusapelord
Anyone else enjoy a very, very short nap? If I'm feeling sleepy I just find a
spot to close my eyes for less than five minutes. Once a bit of hypnogogic
imagery appears behind my eyelids, I quit, get up and go back to work. I get a
few hours of wakefulness from doing just this.

~~~
bevan
There is indeed some evidence that very short naps improve memory
consolidation, cognitive performance, and mood:
[http://paleoclaims.com/claims/short-naps-improve-
cognitive-p...](http://paleoclaims.com/claims/short-naps-improve-cognitive-
performance)

------
sjcsjc
I used to drive a lot and and would regularly become extremely, and indeed
dangerously, sleepy. I recall reading at the time that sleeping for around 12
minutes would relieve sleepiness, but that any more than that would actually
make you more tired. After doing no research whatsoever, I put this into
practice, and it worked, remarkably well. And it still does, 15 years later,
though I drive a lot less now. I recommend it to anyone with the same problem.

[edit] when I say it worked well, I mean that after that short sleep (using an
alarm of course, without which I would have slept for hours), I could continue
driving for several hours without feeling sleepy again.

------
glxc
Where do you find 10 people who don't drink coffee?

~~~
dllthomas
BYU?

------
Energy1
How about a Tabasco shot and/or a little sniff of Nose Tork?

------
ilyaeck
TL;DR

"Overall, regular caffeine consumers who'd been without caffeine overnight,
were slower on the reaction time task, were sleepier and were less mentally
alert than non-users,"

~~~
orand
Apparently it was too long; you didn't read the most interesting bits: sage
and electric shock have a measurable impact on improved brain functioning.

------
johnlbevan2
Sage advice.

