Basically the same service I offer on tumblr: Ask me stuff about biology that nobody ever bothered to explain before to you before, that don't make sense to you, or that you're just curious about and I will attempt to explain in layman terms (with sources when appropriate) I have a B.Sc in Biology and have spent the last 3 years and change working in a hospital and like six years on tumblr so I've seen Some Shit and rest assured that it's highly unlikely you'd be able ask me anything that even hits my 'wtf' radar anymore.
Thanks for the thread! why does high blood sugar make you (me, lol) dehydrate and have weird possibly-lactic-acid Muscle Weirdness (i have not been able to adequately describe this experience to a doctor so they all just ask me "you mean cramps?" no, its not painful its just oof my extremities feel Tight in an bad way)
Because your body is trying to maintain osmotic balance and get rid of the sugar! Osmotic balance means that if you have a membrane that will permit water, but not other molecules, the water will try to 'even out' the osmotic potential, meanjng it will travel from one side of the membrane to the other. This can increase or decrease the pressure inside your cells. Your body is basically sucking water from point and sticking it into your blood stream, where the sugar is. Adfitionally, your kidneys try to kick the excess water out via urine, which of course also needs water, so you end up dehydrated as your body tries to rebalance things. As for the muscle thing, i'm not entirely sure what you mean, but it could be a metabolic weirdness (if it's lactic acid) or a case of your circulation being fucky (which is common in diabetes for example), or your body retaining water in between cells, though i cannot tell you which is accurate
Lactic acid is a byproduct of anaerobic glycolysis, when your cells break down sugars to produce energy when there is not enough oxygen available for it to go through the normal route (inside The Mitochondria) and that is why you get cramps and soreness when you exercise above your conditioning level. So the metabolic weirdness would be related to this - like your muscles activating this when they shouldn't.
why do i feel nauseous and shaky and generally like hot garbage when i don't get enough sleep? all i've ever heard is "sleep is very important to your body's functioning," with no actual details or explanation beyond that. it's so bad that, when i was in college, i always thought i was just really prone to hangovers even when i didn't drink very much... before realizing that the reason i feel so awful after a night of partying is the fact that i stayed up late, not the 3 beers.
The thing is...we're not one hundred percent sure why animals (humans imcluded) sleep, but it is essential for your health, since sleep depriviation can actually kill people. Like, even insects and gastropodes sleep. As to why lack of sleep makes us feel like hot garbage: there are only hypotheses so far, but one of them is that during the reduced activity time, your brain kicks out the 'garbage' like metabolic products it doesn't want. Your brain is goinggoingoing all day, consumjng a frankly mindblowing amount of energy considering its size, and the left overs have to be removed somehow. Perchance the awake brain never has time for that (doesn't explain REM sleep, but does explain why any sort of Rest improves things) Another thing is that your brain 'stocks up' while you rest. Again, brains need tons of energy and ATP, and while it's being less active, it can 'hoard' ATP for later use. Your brain also does strcutural maintenance during sleep, building new connections, solidifying memories (apparently, different types of memories in different phases of sleep), pruning old stuff. Also of these probably factor into why you sleep,and impact why waking people up at certain points makes them feel worse than on others and also why lack of sleep causes significant neurological symptoms. Your brain had no time to recover, and since your brain is running most everything else, you feel like shit all over. (The rest of your body also needs rest to function properly for likely very similar mainenance reasons) This hits particularly hard when you deny your brain its usual rhythm by having a messy sleep schedule, or going against your own circadian rhythm.
interesting! i've certainly always believed that sleep is important for your health since i feel so shitty when i get even 2 hours less than normal, lol. it's just interesting how physical the effects are-- i don't just get sleepy and cranky, i get bodily ill in a bunch of ways. brains, man.
Yeah my leg/feet circulation feels worse when i get like 4 or fewer hours of sleep Thank for the writeups!
I don’t know if this is still under “we really don’t know”, but a doctor once said to me that the reason for dark(er) circles under your eyes when you don’t sleep well is that the skin is especially thin there, which seems to imply that whatever is happening, it’s happening in other places too but it’s easiest to see where the skin is thin. But what am I seeing? What am I supposed to be inferring is happening? What even is that that makes dark circles? Blood, presumably, given the color, possibly doing something a little different than what it would be doing given more rest, but wtf biology. So I’ve been casually wondering about that for years and neglected to actually ask.
Thanks for making this thread! I really like your explanations. :D Question: Why does looking at a screen seem to cause worse motion sickness than, say, looking at a paper book? Because at least in my experience, both of them can make me nauseous if I'm not feeling good, but reading a book is almost always fine unless I'm already really sick. (Not counting while in vehicles, I mean.)
ok so basically, what happens most often is that the skin itself gets paler. Due to a variety of reasons potentially, but mostly because your circulation becomes kinda fucked in the tiny capillaries that make the skin look rosy. that allows the deeper blood vessels to 'show through' the particularly thin skin under the eyes. It would also happen in any other thin skin area of your body, but since your eyes are right in your face, it's the most noticeable one.
alright I don't actually know that one but I have an idea. Depending on if it's the same with any size of screen, I could see eye movements at fault. Screens are generally larger than book pages, since when you read a line of text, your eyes physically move, I can see that giving you motion sickness, but for a laptop screen the eyes have to move far more than for a single book page. if it's unrelated to that i'd be tempted to consider the LED screen itself (that is, the way it's lit) an issue, because those screens have a relatively high amount of blue light, which can be something they brain can get upset over.
Why is it that most antihistamines, save for the explicitly non-drowsy ones, make you sleepy? (Great thread btw!! I’m really enjoying learning about all this. :D)
ok so this is mostly an issue of what's known as 'first generation H1-receptor blockers'. Histamin basically has four different receptors (named H1 through H4). The 1st Gen H1 meds hve the issue that they can pass the blood-brain barrier fairly well, and thus can act directly on your brain (2nd and 3rd gen often don't do that anymore). Once in the brain, they hit up the H1 receptors, some of which are used for the circuits in your brain that make you wake up, or feel awake. If you regulate down those areas by blocking the H1-receptor people get sleepy!
This is all a very interesting read!! Thank you!! Would you happen to know why my dumbass body gets an awful headache every time I take a nap? (like... every time. theres no exceptions to this rule...)
Well, yes, depending on situation. The sleep/wake cycle is run by your brain, and depending on how the brain functions, so having the 'awakening' centers of your brain not being as functional as they should be would lead you sleeping more, potentially A LOT more. There's a lot of reasons why the wake-sleep cycle might be fucked somehow. Hypersomnia can be primary (meaning that it's an issue in itself) and then often is genetic or caused by organic issues, like brain tumors or traumatic brain injury. Hypersomian can also be secondary, meaning caused as a side effect by something. Depression can do the trick, but so can multiple sklerosis, or certain medications, as can general sickness. I'm sure most everyone's familiar with sleeping a lot while ill, because being ill is in fact quite exhausting and a lot of work for the body, and it tries to cope by making you sleep more. Ad of course, excessive sleep after sleep depriviation is also a thing, and mostly a case of 'rebalancing' as the body tries to make up the difference.
I was, iirc, depressed and dehydrated and severely sleep deprived at the time (woke up feeling alert but with a roaring headache). I’ve also taken medications that cause excessive sleep, but I’m pretty sure this one wasn’t that.
yeah that might do it, though if that keeps happening I strongly suggest seeing a medical professional about it.
