The Way Things Work, Part III: Losing Sanity

Current Conditions
Temperature: -11F
Wind Chill: -37F

I noticed very early in the winter that most folks were markedly more tired and lethargic than normal, myself included. Shortly after the onset of fatigue came a strange mind-numbing quality to life in the cold dark. It's difficult to describe, but it's kind of like having a constant case of the "dumbs": words are fleeting, memory short, train of thought easily derailed - often catastrophically and for no reason. These have become the norm, so when you're having a bad day, you're really bad. Completely useless, in fact. I've had a couple during which it was an effort just to focus on simple tasks, or hold a cohesive conversation. It happens to everyone here, and the longer we stay, the more we're affected.

We're not actually dumber, though, just slower, really. I can still do things just as well (I think), but I get caught up in the (normally) mindless stuff. For instance, in researching this blog post, I caught myself repeatedly clicking my "McMurdo Station Intranet" bookmark and wondering why it was taking so long for "Wikipedia" to load. Or, I'd copy a term that I wanted to google and find myself many seconds later staring vacantly at a list of bookmarks and wondering what the hell I was just doing. I had a couple more examples, but I've forgotten them.

Mealtime conversations can be very entertaining. Our common lack of focus leads to endless topic shifting, sometimes mid-sentence. Stories are left hanging without conclusions due to the insertion of simple comments that spark new lines of thought or completely sidetrack the tale-teller. Sometimes, fifteen minutes and fifty topics will pass and someone may have the presence of mind to ask, "We're you telling a story earlier?" At the mercy of our own psychoses, we often just zone out and stare vacantly across the room, right through anyone or anything in the way. At a typical table of six, you can only reasonably expect four or five to be fully aware at any given moment. The others will come around shortly, but you may not notice because it's your turn in La La Land.

So what's the deal? There are many things at work here: darkness, cold, long work hours, monotony, isolation. Brody just beat me to the punch on this topic and wrote a great post that touches on all these reasons and more at Not All Who Wander Are Lost. I'm going to stick to the physiological, though, and leave the mental alone; after all, I'm an engineer, not a psychologist.

Darkness. The reasons are not fully understood, but it is well-documented that lack of sunlight causes mood variations, more specifically, it is closely correlated to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and clinical depression. The predominant theory involves serotonin and melatonin production.

Melatonin is a hormone that plays a large role in regulating the circadian rhythm, or biological clock. It is produced in the pineal gland under the influence of the hypothalamus, which gathers light information from the eye. Melatonin levels are high at night and the introduction of sunlight in the morning prompts the body to slow production. Essentially, sunlight "sets" your biological clock. The biological clock will run on its own without light input, though, so light acts as a calibrator, resetting the clock every day. Without sunlight, melatonin levels stay up and the clock runs a little haywire, causing fatigue as well as insomnia.

Serotonin, another hormone produced in the pineal gland, performs many activities in the brain, including an important role in modulating mood. Serotonin is often thought of as "the happy molecule" because low levels of it are believed to be a cause of depression, and drugs that prevent its breakdown (like MAOIs) tend to increase mood. Guess what we have... low levels.

Cold. When we're having a "winter moment", we tend to blame it on "T3". This is the nickname for Triiodothyronine, a hormone created in the Thyroid gland, which produces hormones that "control how quickly the body burns energy, makes proteins, and how sensitive the body should be to other hormones." More importantly, thyroid hormones "increase the basal metabolic rate (the minimal caloric requirement needed to sustain life in a resting individual) and thus increase the body's oxygen and energy consumption."

Part of the body's way of adapting to extreme cold is to increase its metabolism to stay warm. A 42-week study determined that metabolic rates are significantly increased in Antarctic residents who spend extended time here; "Energy intake increased approximately 40% throughout the study without a change in body weight."

In order to make this leap in metabolism, the body uses more T3. After running in this state of high T3 consumption for some time, the body begins to change. "Humans who live in Antarctica for greater than five continuous months demonstrate alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid [HPT] axis." The HPT axis is the biological system that controls the normal balance of thyroid hormones in the body. When the hypothalamus senses low levels of thyroid hormones, it produces TSH, Thyroid Stimulating Hormone, which invokes production of T3 in the Thyroid gland. Another study done on Antarctic residents showed that T3 levels are low, while TSH levels are high. Basically, the Thyroid can't keep up. This is called hypothyroidism.

OK, so we have a mucked-up biological clock, a high metabolism and a thyroid hormone imbalance, but why do we feel so retarded?

In addition to controlling metabolism, T3 is "a neurotransmitter that regulates the action of serotonin, norepinephrine, and gamma aminobutyric acid [an important regulatory neurotransmitter]. If you don’t have enough T3, or if its action is blocked, an entire cascade of neurotransmitter abnormalities may ensue and can lead to mood and energy changes.”

Neurotransmitter abnormalities? That doesn't sound good.

"In extreme cold, T3 gets used so much to keep the body warm that the brain is left with a less than adequate supply of the hormone. This can cause the "Antarctic stare," common particularly among winter residents, forgetfulness and lack of focus, as well as increased anger, irritation and depression."

One of the T3 studies done here showed that Antarctic residents suffer a 13% decline in memory due to low levels of T3. A thyroid hormone supplement brought memory nearly back to normal.

Here are a few excerpts from an article I found on hypothyroidism:

Some of the most profound effects of TH imbalance are in the mental arena. Hypothyroid people sleep uneasily and do not get full refreshment from their sleep. During waking hours, they experience fatigue, apathy, and "brain fog" (short-term memory problems and attention deficits). These problems may affect their daily functioning and cause increased stress and depression.

Paradoxically, some substances labeled depressants such as alcohol or opiates can increase T3 levels by impairing the breakdown of T3 in the brain, thus lifting mood. This may be one reason why these substances are so addictive.

No...

Hypothyroidism also weakens muscles, including the diaphragm. As a result, breathing can become less efficient. Snoring may start or become worse. Fatigue sets in easily; in fact it never quite leaves a person with symptomatic hypothyroidism. Muscles and joints often ache. With respiration impaired and oxygen in short supply, exercise takes a heavy toll on the body, and muscles do not strengthen in response to exercise; nor does stamina improve.

I've started snoring. I know because it wakes me up, which is great for my already fitful rest.

The short of it is, adaptation to the extreme cold involves a severe increase in metabolism, causing the body's need for thyroid hormones to exceed its production capability, which in turn compromises the thyroid hormones' secondary purpose as a neurotransmitter. I found these listed as typical symptoms of hypothyroidism:

• depression

• bipolar spectrum syndrome, including bipolar I or bipolar II disorder, cyclothymia, or premenstrual syndrome

• inattentive ADHD or sluggish cognitive tempo

That's right, I live on an island full of depressed bipolar psychos with constant ADD and PMS. In short, we're fargin' looney-tunes down here.

In four weeks, normal people will return to the station and refer to winter-overs as "toasty". We'll be considered strange and misunderstood, but we'll have fun exaggerating our affliction in order to be avoided by those who have invaded our peacefully bipolar world.