sleepy

It happens at the office. On some days, I can get super sleepy in the office, at any time of the day.

Initially I thought it was because I did not have enough sleep. But I was quite frustrated when it happened again, even after I made an effort to sleep early the night before.

I observed that it's usually triggered by a drop in my brain activities during those time when I really don't have much work, or the task at hand does not need much brain power. During those times, I'd feel unbelievably sleepy - if you put a pillow in front of me, I'd be in dreamland by the next few seconds, in fact I may be in dreamland before I even put my head down.

I begin to wonder if it's even normal, when I noticed that it is happening a bit too frequently, and even when I HAVE had enough sleep the night before.

It happened in the bus this morning, and the ground was spinning a bit when I was walking out of the train station.

I have to get to the root of this. So I looked it up on the internet, 'sleep disorder, sleepiness' - and I found it.

Narcolepsy - it is the medical term for excessive daytime sleepiness. Considering other severe cases of falling asleep even while driving - I think mine is not that serious. I have two of the symptoms mentioned :

- Hypnagogic hallucinations -- pre-sleep dreams. This sometimes happen during those super sleepy periods.
- Automatic behaviors -- such as, for example, doing something "automatically" and not remembering afterwards how you did it. Yes, I've had this. I would have walked almost the whole house, to have kept some thing - and the next minute I'm trying to recall if I actually did. Or sent out an sms, then next minute checking the outbox to confirm if I actually did.

It's not a fatal condition, unless you get killed when falling asleep, while driving. Na'udzubillah. But it's becoming quite a hassle to me, affecting my productivity and causing embarassment, to look so damn sleepy in the office, at times, even in the morning!

The suggested medications are pills that improves alertness and possibly anti-depressants. But, seriously sir, I'm very sure, I am not depressed.

And, I do not want to have to rely on medications, just to keep myself awake.

Since I noticed that it's mostly triggered by a drop in brain activity - I will try to experiment if that theory is true. Everytime I am about to feel sleepy - I'll do something that is interesting to me - like writing - like now. Thinking and writing my thoughts, wakes me up, most times. But I do remember once, I was sleepy, I tried to write - but I was still sleepy. Maybe what I was writing about was not interesting to my brains. My brains need to be excited or it needs to work.

I'll see how today goes.