In the last post I wrote about what you should not do if you have problems with performance . In this part I will talk about an effective method that does not require medicines. Medicines are only support, supplement. But this method requires organization and willpower, and therefore so unloved by most of us.

Material part

First I will tell you a little about some basic principles of the nervous system. I do not pretend to be complete here, rather, I deliberately shortened the presentation, so that it was clear to the majority.

The work of the nervous system is the process of arousal, inhibition, conduction, integration. Neurons receive and process signals, carry them along their processes and interact with each other.
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Conducting a signal along neuronal processes is electrical activity. Along the processes of changing the polarization of the membrane, this process requires energy expended on the work of ion pumps.

Another important process is synaptic transmission. One cell releases mediating molecules, mediators, which act on the receptors of another cell, in the synaptic cleft, stimulating or inhibiting its activity.

Neuron activity requires energy. Lots of energy. Where does it come from? One of the most important biological processes is respiration. At the cell level, breathing means the oxidation of nutrients and the production of energy. I'll tell you very simplified. Oxygen and nutrients enter the tissue with arterial blood. Next, they fall into the cell. There are whole chains of enzymes and coenzymes, whose work ensures the oxidation of nutrients by oxygen. Formed carbon dioxide, water and other products. They must be removed from the cell and from the tissue into the blood.

In addition to breathing, there are many more biochemical processes. For example, the synthesis of cell components (of the same membrane, enzymes, ion pumps, etc.), as well as mediators. All these processes also require energy, nutrients, enzymes and coenzymes. No mediators - no synaptic transmission.

The work of the nervous system should not be considered only at the cellular level. There are supra-cellular structures: groups of neurons, nuclei and centers of the brain, as well as such a mysterious in many respects as the reticular formation, and also the epiphysis, the limbic system. They affect the cerebral cortex.

There are structures in the brain that are characterized by cyclical activity. They stimulate or inhibit the activity of other structures. One of the important cycles is the daily. Cyclic changes in the activity of neurons are extremely important for recovery processes. The reserves of nutrients, high-energy compounds, mediators, components of the cell itself must be restored. New connections between neurons should be formed. Structural changes must occur in the neurons themselves.

By the way, using stimulants, you simply “burn the emergency supply”. As stupid party nomenklatura, in order to increase the production of meat in reports, allowed dairy herds to the slaughterhouse, so you, taking caffeine, "energetics" and similar substances, slowly kill your neurons.

What to do?

Natural and stable day regimen - the most effective means

Natural, sustainable day regimen is the most effective remedy. While non-drug. And this tool - the most underrated and most unloved by most of us. You can eat the pills, but without the daily regimen, you can use them with the same effect in the toilet.

The mode of the day is not just “sleep eight hours”. Someone has enough, and six, someone - nine. The most important thing is to develop and maintain a steady daily rhythm. And not anyhow what, but natural. It is natural for a reasonable person to wake up in the morning, wake during the day, rest in the evening and sleep at night.

Anticipating the invasion of insane red-eyed coders who are pathologically proud to be owls, I will say that after the return of owls to the natural cycle, their productivity increases and their mood improves. In fact, the division into "owls" and "larks" is quite conditional. Among those who work better at night than during the day, there are almost no real “owls”. There are just people with a steady unnatural daily cycle.

Each person has slightly different body temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate. But these parameters, however, have a norm. As the normal temperature in the armpit is 36.6 degrees Celsius, and the normal rhythm is the one I described, let's call it "morning."

I myself experienced periods when night work is better than day time. But let's look at this situation as follows. Take for 100% maximum human performance. And now we’ll make it an owl. During the day he will nod off and work for thirty percent, and by night he will activate, say, up to seventy. But still, he will not reach that maximum and that comfortable state that would have been with the natural biological rhythm of Homo Sapiens.

Millions of years all life on Earth is subject to the daily rhythm. And almost all living things get this rhythm due to the cyclic change in lighting. One of the substances cyclically produced in the brain is melatonin. Approximately 70% of its secretion occurs at night. Epiphysis increases melatonin production when it is dark.

It is very important to go to bed and wake up at about the same time. I recommend going to bed at about 23:30 and waking up at about 7:30. You can go to bed at another time, a little earlier or a little later. It is important to wake up steadily.

And again I foresee objections about the “deadlines”, “blockages at work”. Let me remind the bike about the two woodcutters who staged a competition. One chopped without stopping, and the ax of the other periodically fell silent. And when the second woodcutter stopped chopping, the first one heard it and started chopping even faster. What was his surprise when it turned out that the second woodcutter cut two times more. “How is it, because you stopped every hour and did nothing?” Asked the first. “How is it nothing? I rested and sharpened the ax, ”the second replied.

You are much better able to cope with the "deadlines" and "abrasions" if your ax is sharp. Remember, I talked about the processes of synthesis, the restoration of stocks of neurotransmitters and energy compounds? So, during a healthy sleep, they are restored. And many more unexplored processes occur. Some authors believe that it is in a dream that new connections are formed between neurons, and the information is recorded in a long-term memory.

Wake up easy

By the way, about the right awakening. If you wake up shortly before the alarm goes off, do not go to sleep. We must get up. And if the alarm rang, and I do not want to wake up, you still need to get up. Get up in the literal sense of the word. You can’t even imagine how important it is to take an upright posture. In most cases, drowsiness immediately goes away. You will be surprised that a minute ago it was considered impossible to crawl out from under a warm blanket.

Stable morning “rituals” promote awakening. A contrast shower "washes away" sleepiness. The key word here is stability. The body will get used to the fact that we must not just wake up, but also do something invigorating.

A little higher I talked about circadian rhythms, melatonin and the role of lighting. So, it will be very nice if you wake up in the light. There are alarm clocks that turn on the lights first, and then, if you don’t wake up, they ring. I will talk about the role of lighting during the working day a little later.

Sleep easily and sleep well

If you have no pathology, then a stable daily rhythm with a morning awakening after a while will make it easy to fall asleep.

It is very important that the room is not too light, as well as hot or stuffy. And also - so that the nose was not blocked. It happens that a person who complains about morning "fatigue" is monitored for sleep. It turns out that the poor fellow wakes 10 times a night, but he simply does not remember this. It turns out he has problems with nasal breathing.

Do not use sleeping pills. Their principle of action is based on the depression of the nervous system. This is not what we need, and the side effects are very bad.

To rebuild the body at a normal rhythm, helps drug "Melaxen." These are tablets of melatonin, a substance produced by the epiphysis, when it is time for us to bainki. You can use it for about 5-7 days, no more, one tablet 15 minutes before bedtime (most of this drug will be removed in 45 minutes). Be sure to drink at least half a glass of water (like any other tablet, so that it does not stick to esophagus, it happens). This is not a sleeping pill in the usual sense of the word. This drug helps the brain to adjust to a normal rhythm.

Glycine can also be used at bedtime. It is necessary to apply it correctly: do not swallow, but put under the tongue or cheek.

I also heard about such alarm clocks, sliptrekery that wake a person in a suitable phase of sleep. I did not try it myself, I did not use it on patients, but the thing is interesting.

To fall asleep easily, it would be nice to get moderate aerobic exercise 3-5 hours before bedtime. And here we will touch on the next topic - hypodynamia.

Fighting hypodynamia

I will not dwell on the pathological mechanisms of hypodynamia. Let me just say that we all suffer from it. You can’t even imagine what that truly huge shortage of traffic a city dweller is experiencing. Especially IT-Schnick.

Two good ways - morning jogging or bike. For myself, I chose the bike. With personal or public transport with the current load of St. Petersburg streets I travel about 50-70 minutes. The same - on the bike.

Hour standing in traffic jams or crush in the sweaty subway, I change for the same hour moderate aerobic exercise. I do not spend such an expensive time in addition, as if I went to a fitness center after work and pedaled on a simulator. By the way, it turned out that you sweat more in the subway.

I recommend getting up and leaving early, before rush hour and traffic jams. First, the air will still be fresh. Secondly, safer. Thirdly, you will come to work, and there are few people there, it is easier to concentrate. And, finally, not always immediately after sleep have an appetite. After the bike ride, the appetite will be good, the food will be absorbed better, and there will be vigor.

After returning home by bike, you'll have a few more hours to “calm down.” I recommend taking an evening shower, not contrasting, but warm.

Not everyone and can not always afford to ride a bike. I will share my life hacking. Get out of the transport in one or two stops and walk through them. Or easy jogging.

Holiday at work

Subject overlaps with hypodynamia. How do IT-shniki “rest”? They go, pour coffee, read blogs, play something, smoke (diarrhea to tobacco companies).

Rest is a change of activity. Many people know this, but they do not use a fig. The change of “Photoshop” to “Bashorg” is not a rest, although it is better than “blunt” over the layout when the head is no longer cooking.

It’s right to rest like this: get up from the computer, open a window, leave the room and do at least some kind of physical activity, without thinking about work and deadlines. We have table hockey, darts and badminton in warm weather for this. You can at least sit down and squeeze a few times. And it is better to take food not in the workplace, but at least go somewhere in a cafe.

During prolonged sitting, some muscle groups and nerve cells get a static load, while others are relaxed. Physical activity allows you to restore the tone of relaxed muscles and blood vessels, restore normal blood flow, and speed up the excretion of the products of cell activity.

For a good rest during the working day, a change of activity, physical activity, a distraction from the problem and a change of scenery are important (get out of the cubic, finally!)

Rest outside work

Here we can distinguish two large parts: "after work" and "on vacation." About vacation, I will not talk for a long time. Let me just say that the sense of the vacation will be when the situation changes. This is its main psychotherapeutic effect. We must leave, forget about work, problems, turn on the phone and computer only when necessary.

A little more detail on the regular rest "after work". I recommend several types of such recreation: outdoor games (football, badminton, tennis), jogging, cycling, roller skates, and a pool. The pool is generally very cool, at least once a week. But all sorts of gyms will not give such an effect as aerobic motor loads.

Another thing that few people know about. Cleaning on weekends is not just “clean up and tidy.” This is a psychotherapeutic agent. I will not paint the mechanisms here, just trust the doctor ;-) Get out of the apartment, at the workplace, or even clean the computer. Refresh your space.

My colleagues involved in the treatment of neurosis use such a thing as “psychological microclimate” and “microenvironment”. Use the weekend in order to arrange a change of this environment. Ideally, of course, go somewhere outside the city, but it turns out far from always.

The advice of one of my colleagues is not devoid of common sense: rest sometimes from those with whom you work, even if they are very good and interesting people.

Try to diversify your life as much as possible. If you are going to work by one route, try others. Buy everything in one store - try the next one. Eat all the time pasta - try boiled socks (you have read this far, ho-ho) Do not focus only on special literature. Get yourself a non-computer hobby, go sometimes to the cinema, theaters, museums. It sounds trite, but in three months you really will have a significant effect.

Medicines

About glycine, nootropics and vitamins, much has already been said. I will say a few words.

Multivitamins, especially drugs like “Vitrum Superstress” should be taken only in the indicated dosage. This is usually one tablet per day. Take in the morning for breakfast. Do not exceed the dose! Duration of a course of vitamins - 30 days, then take a break for 1-2 months.

Nootropil. Relatively safe drug, has antihypoxic effect, improves the processes of cellular respiration. Do not abuse. It would be better if a doctor prescribes it to you, who will indicate the dosage and observe you, but I will not write here the “du it eshelf” schemes. The effect is not instantaneous, it does not occur immediately.

Glycine. Also a relatively safe drug. At bedtime, one pill under the tongue makes it easy for people to fall asleep. About "Melaxen" I wrote a little higher.

Everything else: caffeine, dietary supplements, stimulants, hypnotics, amphetamines, antidepressants - forget it. Just forget about them, if they are not prescribed by the doctor who leads you. If the doctor prescribed dietary supplements, then forget this doctor. If a psychiatrist prescribed psychotropic drugs is the same.
If you suspect that you have depression - contact your psychiatrist. If sleep problems - to the center of sleep or to a psychiatrist, again.

What else prevents to work normally?

Smoking

Whatever mental homosexuals would say (I have no other decent words for these citizens) that protect smoking, smokers and the tobacco industry, but the hypoxia and narrowing of the cerebral vessels under the influence of nicotine have never contributed to the good functioning of brain cells. Hypoxia is the main cause of neuronal inhibition.

Smoking contributes to the development of hypoxia on several levels at once. First, under the influence of nicotine, the vessels that bring arterial blood are narrowed. The supply of oxygen to the tissues with blood decreases. Secondly, the transport capacity of hemoglobin decreases. The blood itself carries less oxygen and more difficult it gives the tissues. One of the reasons is the formation of carboxyhemoglobin, the reaction product of hemoglobin with carbon monoxide (carbon monoxide). Thirdly, in addition to nicotine in tobacco smoke, there are still a lot of substances that penetrate into the cells and block the processes of cellular respiration. That is, even the reduced amount of oxygen that enters the tissue cannot be assimilated by the neurons themselves, since the enzymes and cytochromes of the respiratory chains are suppressed.

And these effects are not manifested in long-term smokers, unlike, say, pulmonary emphysema or erectile dysfunction.

Now citizens will come here who will say that “they don’t work without a cigarette”, that “a cigarette helps mobilize”. Garbage full. The simplest analogy is that breaking into a drugless dose is also very bad. Systematic use of tobacco leads to the formation of a stable pathological state, and without a regular dose, performance actually decreases, dysphoria sets in. But what a thing: if you did not smoke, then your performance during the day would be much higher than you now have a short time after the “mobilizing cigarette”.

For office workers: smoke only one at a time and outside the office. And the time is not permanent, choose! Strictly observing this rule, you will significantly increase your chances of quitting smoking. Destroy the pathological tradition, social affinity and this ugly ritual. A person who will offer to "discuss in the smoking room" drive away, do not hesitate in expressions and measures of influence. This is your enemy.

Malnutrition

If you regularly eat homeless packages, soluble noodles and mashed potatoes, chips, then along with all this good you consume glutamic acid or its salts, glutamates. Glutamate is a flavor enhancer. And glutamate is also an exciting mediator in the central nervous system. It has a short-term nootropic effect, but the systematic consumption of increased doses of glutamate leads to a change in the biochemical processes in the nervous tissue. For a snack you can read about the syndrome of Chinese restaurants.

But even if it were not for glutamate, such nutrition is bad for its inferiority. For example, lack of vitamins. Remember, I talked about tissue respiration, synthesis and coenzymes? So, many vitamins act as coenzymes. There are not enough coenzymes - the cell can not work normally.

By itself, the homeless package is not so bad. To get harm, as from one cigarette, you need to devour ten such instant noodles. But chronic nutrition with inadequate and monotonous food leads to an increasing lack of vitamins. And many other substances.

In your diet must be fresh vegetables, fish and vegetable fats. Vegetables are not just vitamins, by the way. And not just vitamins, but also a variety of their derivatives and precursors (provitamins). And not just powder-pills, but “packed” in the cell membrane.

Fish and vegetable fats are polyunsaturated fatty acids, as well as fat-soluble vitamins. For example, vitamins A and E are involved in a huge number of synthesis reactions, as well as antioxidants (blocking the chain reactions of free radical oxidation of cell components, some of these reactions are triggered by hypoxia).

But veganism is not worth doing, it is unnatural. Homo Sapiens natural diet is mixed. Meat contains essential amino acids, as well as iron and other elements in the form in which absorption occurs incomparably more efficiently than from plant foods.

Do not listen to those idiots who promote microscopic breakfasts. "Girls Cosmo" let them go to the forest with their tips. Breakfast is a human need. You work all day, the body must receive energy from food. It is necessary to heat the furnace with firewood, but not with logs from your own house.

Wrong environment

Most often there is a wrong lighting in the workplace. Well, like IT-Schnick sit in the dark or twilight. It is not right. First of all, darkness is a natural signal for the moghs that it is time to bainki. Secondly, the contrast between the dark room and the luminous monitor is very harmful to the eyes. And still - the visual analyzer gets tired.

Dull offices - I think everything is clear here. But there are also unnecessarily “creative offices” in which there are bright walls, a lot of glare, and multi-colored light sources. This is great for posting on a blog for customers or prospective employees. But planting people to work in such offices is a crime.

Music in the speakers or headphones is the extraneous noise and voltage of the auditory analyzer. Now brave guys, who code at nights under “tynts-tynts” or “Sepultura”, will come running here, will prove that they work better this way. Physiology claims the opposite, but I will not argue with the "red-eyed", it is a senseless exercise.

Wrong workplace. This is generally a very big topic, just give one example. It is worth, say, a monitor too high. The man sits, the neck muscles in constant tension, the head is fixed. The venous outflow is disturbed (sometimes the blood flow too), the blood supply to the brain is gradually deteriorating, but not critical (no fainting). But constantly. Water wears away a stone. The efficiency decreases, a person gets tired faster, headaches more often occur.

Wans aegean

So, the most important and most effective (cooler nootropes and glycine) is a stable natural morning mode. Start today!

And finally

Of course, of course, lieutenants. This is also very important. I remember one verse here:

Don't drink alcohol
Don't smoke cigarettes
Don't take any drugs
Just Fu $ k ;-)