So Final exams start on Tuesday. The insomnia is getting better, but not totally resolved yet. I think I may have figured out a cause and have developed a plan of action so that I am well rested for my exams.

When reviewing my Neuroscience notes, I came across the following figure, and it got me thinking:

The caption reads: "Spontaneous activity of a man in a bunker-like deep cellar" (literal translation). The legend reads: "Time of activity," and the dots in the bars are for "Getting up, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and Going to bed," respectively. The figure comes from the research lab where one of our professors worked, hence it being in German. (The notes did include a translation for non-German speakers ) Basically, students were kept in a deep cellar for the month of August (school vacation). The first few days, the windows were open, and natural light was allowed to come in. During this period, the students' activity patterns were fairly regular, i.e. getting up at 8 AM, and going to sleep around midnight every day. In the section, "Ohne Zeitgeber" (literally: without time giver) the windows and door were closed and no natural light was allowed in. During this period, the students' internal circadian clock, located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus, had to take over to tell when when it was appropriate to do various activities. This circadian clock overestimates the day length - the average is 25 hours. Thus, the students started going to bed later, which caused them to get up later, so that they lost an entire day. Once the students had access to the "Zeitgeber" again (bottom of graph), their sleep/activity patterns normalized back to baseline.

It turns out that this "Zeitgeber" is seeing natural sunlight (of at least 500 luz) in the morning hours, so that the internal circadian clock is reset. Unfortunately, I live on the ground floor, with my window facing outward toward the entrance to the dorm. Thus, my shade is frequently drawn so 1) people don't stare in at me all day, and I have some privacy, and 2) so I don't get distracted staring at the people walking in staring at me. Consequently, my room could be described as a "bunker-like deep cellar," so I am exhibiting the same sort of response that the students did in the experiment. My plan is now to leave my shade open during daylight hours to accurately reset my internal circadian clock - hopefully I won't be too distracted, but right now I think the insomnia is worse.

Well see if it works. Kinda cool to apply what you are learning in medical school to one's own life. Or maybe it is just a case of med-student-itis… You decide