It's 4 am and I am still in my office. I realize at this point that sleep is silly. I have to be back by 8:30 am to meet with a new student. I think I am going to go home and sit in the bathtub until then.
Still, I made it to swimming lessons tonight and I got a run in. Also, I knocked out some science that is so hot it is going to rock people's universes...you know, when they wake up and come in to work. That should get me some kind of reward...
Video 1: This will do.
Tomorrow, back to serious blog business. Promise.
Comments
I have to say, Isis, that the schedule you keep would NOT have encouraged me to stay on an academic track. I would be a basket case by now if I tried to do what you do. How long can you keep this up without burning out?
Posted by: Jill | January 7, 2009 10:35 AM
I can usually keep up a few weeks at this pace and then I need some Isis time. Things are very cyclical though in terms of meeting demands. For example, I back early this morning and now I am going to put away my work and sleep for an hour on top of my desk.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | January 7, 2009 11:07 AM
The problem in "burnout" comes from chronic insufficient repair of the minor damage that occurs during episodes of stress. That repair only occurs during rest, most of it during sleep. During sleep is when mitochondria are replaced. Mitochondria in different tissue compartments have different lifetimes. Those lifetimes have not been measured in humans, but they have been in rats.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5553400
In rats mitochondria biogenesis occurs during their inactive time which is during the day. In humans that would be at night. NO levels peak at night, and it is NO that triggers mitochondrial biogenesis.
Chronic stress causes the same effects as chronic abuse of stimulants. I see them as "the same", that is the final common pathway in both is the same and is insufficient repair of damage. This is (my hypothesis) due to the normal allocation of ATP away from repair into immediate consumption that occurs during stress. ATP cannot be stored, it must be produced as it is needed. When ATP production might be needed at a high rate, what physiology does is turn the ATP production up as high as it will go (increase mitochondrial potential to maximize oxidative phosphorylation), and dissipate that energy as heat. This is (my hypothesis) what happens in the hyperpyrexia of PCP abuse. What regulates mitochondria is the ATP level. At high levels they are off, at low levels they are turned up to 10. By turning off normal basal ATP consumption (i.e. cellular housekeeping), the ATP available to be consumed can go to 11.
That turning off of basal housekeeping pathways is what ischemic preconditioning does, and it prolongs the survival of cells during ischemic events. That cannot be a �good� state for cells to be in long term (otherwise they would have evolved to do so); it can only be beneficial as a transient state where it only needs to be better than the alternative (promptly dying of ischemia).
NO is what regulates the ATP level through their combined action on sGC. No doubt there are other controls too, but organ systems need to be controlled "in sync", so there needs to be a diffusible signal that communicates the ATP status between them. Low NO is necessary for mitochondria to maximize their O2 reduction, it would make sense that low NO regulated a lot of other things too that have to occur "in sync" with maximum ATP production.
When you have chronic stress, and chronic low NO, you end up with not enough mitochondria which causes their potential to be pushed higher to produce the same ATP. They do that at a higher potential, which makes more superoxide, which lowers the NO level still more. Getting into a chronic low NO state due to insufficient mitochondria is what causes chronic fatigue syndrome (my hypothesis).
Mental burnout is complicated because your physiology is doing multiple things to try and protect you. Abandoning a life path that will lead to your eventual destruction is an excellent decision, one that your physiology may force on you by causing you to burnout.
Making the other person burnout and abandon their career is a way that the Kyriarchy maintains itself.
Posted by: daedalus2u | January 7, 2009 1:00 PM
Oh Isis, you are worrying me with the sacrifices you make. I know I would burn out way to quickly if I kept up your pace. Please take care of yourself.
Posted by: ScientistMother | January 7, 2009 1:02 PM
Don't fret, sweet ScientistMother. This busy spell is just a blip that will hopefully resolve itself by tomorrow. Then I can return to a reasonable degree of wackaloonery.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | January 7, 2009 1:21 PM
You'd better be telling the truth!
Posted by: Juniper Shoemaker | January 7, 2009 3:02 PM
Good for you getting in some run and swim, personally I've found that it goes a long way in recharging my batteries.
Posted by: Jim | January 7, 2009 3:10 PM
I have to agree with these others, advertising your masochism and/or apparent capacity for insomnia is not encouraging to those of us still thinking academia is not a completely insane career.
It really is insane, isn't it.
Posted by: msphd | January 8, 2009 6:33 PM
Would you prefer I lie to you and tell you that I sleep 10 hours a night and take 4-6 weeks vacation every year?
Yeah, sometimes Dr. Isis goes through periods where she works her ass off and tries to hold it down at home. That, my sweet MsPhD, is the reality. It doesn= mean it's not doable and that I don't love it. But, I'm not going to delude you and tell you I work a 40 hour work week.
Yes, it's insane. But isn't this the only place we get to answer the questions that interest us instead of doing what "the man" tells us to do?
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | January 8, 2009 6:38 PM