I can't tell that my eyes are shutting.

October 7, 2010 10:52 AM

I can't tell that my eyes are shutting. It is a huge problem that is affecting my job. During meetings, people are saying that my eyes appears to be shut (i.e., I look like I am asleep). I can not tell this and in fact can remember every word that has been uttered. How can I stop this?

This has happened to me in past jobs and was a huge issue ten to. I have mentioned it to my direct boss at the new firm I work with, but it's not something that I have disseminated to every person I work with.

I definitely have bad sleep habits, that I have tried to improve as best I can. I drink plenty of coffee and that doesn't help. There are times when I can feel my eyes getting heavy and shutting in which case I will stand up, get a glass of water, pinch myself in the thigh, jam a pen a down my throat, do anything to prevent myself from nodding.

But apparently there is some sort of mental disconnect where I can not feel my eyes shutting and they are. I don't know how to stop it because I CAN'T TELL IT'S HAPPENING. Sorry. This is just so frustrating because people are telling me not to do it, but I don't know when it is happening. On top of that it frequently happens when I am sitting their listening to people talk on and on. Since no one is asking me a question or anything there is no way to prove that I have been paying attention and since I appear to be nodding off people assume that I am not.

I know part of the solution most likely is sleep better, but I feel like there is something more than this. HELP!

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (23 answers total)

You should ask your doctor to schedule you for sleep testing, where they'll use a variety of methods and means to figure out why your sleep is so poor and is carrying over to your waking hours. If nothing is found there, you may be sent to a neurologist. Either way, this is something to take to your doc.
posted by batmonkey at 10:55 AM on October 7, 2010

Have you talked to a doctor about this?
posted by dfriedman at 10:56 AM on October 7, 2010

Oh, I used to do this, although I realized it pretty quickly and before I got to the workplace(I was called on it by a couple professors). It's hard.

Sleeping habits aside, and mine are excellent, the primary solution for me is to take notes. Take lots and lots of notes. Your eyes have to be open to do that.

Given, now my boss has commented that I shouldn't doodle so much during meetings, but - eh, can't win them all.
posted by sawdustbear at 10:57 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Have you tried taking notes? If nothing else your eyes won't be so visible so it won't look so much like you're sleeping if you are obviously writing stuff down.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 10:57 AM on October 7, 2010

Nthing a doctor and/or sleep study. Also, you should be concerned about this for reasons other than just looking bad at the office. For example if you drive a car to and from work everyday, you may be experiencing microsleep episodes behind the wheel while being completely unaware of it.
posted by burnmp3s at 11:00 AM on October 7, 2010 [3 favorites]

You say you are sure you are not falling asleep and can remember everything being said. Do an experiment. Start taking notes. If somebody calls you out, you have very good notes. I suspect though, your handwriting will start to become incomprehensible gibberish (recollections of 7:00AM college class *shudder*). In that case, you are indeed falling asleep, and you cannot tell they are shutting because your asleep!

When I had sleep issues, I gave up coffee cold turkey.
Withdrawal was unpleasant...pounding headaches, irritability, fatigue no matter how much I slept (I think was waking up a lot during the night) for about 1 week. Once that was over, I feel extremely well rested after 8 hours of sleep. Days that I get between 6-7 hours, are fine as long as I make up for it the next evening. More than 2 days of less than 7 hours rest, I get VERY tempted to fall off the coffee free wagon.
posted by MrMulan at 11:06 AM on October 7, 2010 [3 favorites]

This is definitely something worth talking to a doctor about. You might have some kind of sleep disorder that they can help you out with.
posted by elpea at 11:08 AM on October 7, 2010

Second MrMulan. Coffee will not only help but is probably the cause of this and your bad sleep habits. Try no caffeine...it will hurt, but it will get better.
posted by Busmick at 11:20 AM on October 7, 2010

I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but how can you not know if you fell asleep or not? You say "nything there is no way to prove that I have been paying attention and since I appear to be nodding off people assume that I am not." You're paying attention with your eyes closed but you dont realize you're not looking at anything?

Unless I am misunderstanding it sounds to me like you're actually oot paying attention and falling asleep in these meetings. Ways to fix that are: eat a small, protein heavy/carb light midday meal. Take notes, ask questions. If it's really a lecture where you can't ask questions and interact, write down some notes beforehand of things you think might be brought up during the talk, and then see if you were right or not.
posted by sweetkid at 11:27 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

*actually NOT paying attention and falling asleep in these meetings...damn typo.
posted by sweetkid at 11:29 AM on October 7, 2010

Yes, this sounds like micro sleep. The only way to stop this long term is to sleep more and better at night.
posted by slow graffiti at 11:34 AM on October 7, 2010

I can't tell that my eyes are shutting.

The only times that my eyes are shut for more than a tenth of a second and I don't know it are when I'm asleep.

There are times when I can feel my eyes getting heavy and shutting in which case I will stand up . . .

This is called "nodding off" and is a type of going-to-sleep. You are catching yourself in these cases.

But apparently there is some sort of mental disconnect where I can not feel my eyes shutting and they are.

This is "nodding off" without catching yourself.

You should think about talking to a doctor. Are you familiar with narcolepsy?
posted by General Tonic at 11:50 AM on October 7, 2010 [5 favorites]

IANASS. IANYSS. You give no specifics about your sleep habits. Do you go to bed around the same time? How many hours do you average per night? Do you need to take sleep aids (melatonin, etc) to get to sleep? Do you wake easily? Do you go to sleep easily?

How much caffeine are you drinking per day on average? How about alcohol?

Nthing all the others who say you need to see a sleep specialist, but first examine your sleep hygiene.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 11:56 AM on October 7, 2010

2 ideas:
1. When taking notes, take them with your non-dominant hand. I find that helps engage different parts of my brain than regular notes, so it helps me stay alert. Switch back to good hand if there is something you truly need to keep from that meeting and can't read your handwriting, but otherwise just concentrate really hard on making a few words look legible with the wrong hand.

2. Is there some way you can put your theory about "closed eyes but still paying attention" to a test? I agree with a lot of the other folks here who think you may be microsleeping or otherwise missing parts of the meeting without your being aware of it.

If your boss is on board, maybe a video camera can be set up before a meeting to watch your face while you take good notes during a meeting, then review the tape afterward to see what exactly was going on during the part of the meeting when your eyes closed - do you remember that part of the discussion? do you have notes? If boss is not on board, maybe set up a demo with friends or is this something a sleep study could simulate?
posted by CathyG at 11:56 AM on October 7, 2010

When I was a little kid, my dad and grandma were in the choir and left me alone in the front pew so the minister could see if I took off. No one had a close-up view of my face, and I was already split between two religions and a snotty know-it-all, and thus never paid attention to the lecture/sermon. I pretty much trained myself to do what you are doing. My sisters tell me I'm truly gifted at surreptitious pew sleeping - I never move; if you aren't looking right at me you think I'm paying rapt attention. I even got it to where it seemed I was looking right at the lectern.

Boy howdy, that trick does not work around a conference table.

Anyway, I would like you to scribble meaningfully at your next meeting. Not actual notes, which will probably keep you awake and mess up the experiment. Do perfect "L" loops or circles or zig-zag lines. When you get to the end of the meeting, ypu will probably see five or six spots where you took a lengthy break - if not, it'll be because the doodling helped you be more aware of your nodding off. At that point, start taking real notes, book a sleep specialist appointment, and start cutting way back on caffeine.

As an interim measure, consider chewing gum during periods when you need to be awake. I find it helps.
posted by SMPA at 12:10 PM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

I know a woman who has benign essential blepharospasm -- her eyelids appear mostly closed, and before she sought treatment, she could hardly open them at all. People who don't know her well often think that she is sleeping through meetings.

However, she DOES know that her eyes are shutting, so that may not be your situation. I suggest visiting a doctor to rule out anything unusual, and taking notes so you can in fact prove that you are paying attention. If you really aren't falling asleep, taking notes should not be a hardship but will help prove your case and get people off your back.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 12:25 PM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

jam a pen a down my throat

Well, that would lively up a meeting.

You should see a doctor, preemptively warn people, take notes, and force yourself to ask a question every now and then.

Also your coffee drinking might backfire and keep you from sleeping. Get more exercise and maybe no coffee after 11 AM or something.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 12:53 PM on October 7, 2010

IANAD, but it sounds like cataplexy or narcolepsy.

You might also just be drowsy, and need to sleep better. I don't know. If I were you, I'd talk to your doctor about it.
posted by edguardo at 1:22 PM on October 7, 2010

You need to get past the denial and deal with this issue head-on.

If someone tells you that you were asleep, then you were asleep, end of story. The fact that you don't remember or notice is because our perceptions are very subjective.

The problem isn't that you "appear" to be falling asleep in meetings. The problem isn't even that you ARE falling asleep in meetings. Those are just the symptoms of the real problem, which is that you're extremely sleepy during the day.

Your situation is not normal. It is due to either not getting enough sleep at night, or because you suffer from a medical condition like narcolepsy.

If you're getting 6 or more hours of sleep per night and this is happening, then you definitely need to see a doctor. If you're getting less than that, then you probably need to either see a doctor for insomnia, or back off on the Warcraft.

I don't usually get this "tough love" with anonymous medical questions on AskMe. But it sounds like this problem has already cost you one or more jobs. And it could literally kill you and others, if it happened while you were driving.

For the sake of yourself and for everyone else on the road, please address the underlying problem ASAP.
posted by ErikaB at 1:36 PM on October 7, 2010 [3 favorites]

Has anyone ever told you that you stopped breathing or that your breathing was irregular during one of these meetings? I have sleep apnea and a surefire way to tell I'm snoozing through a meeting/movie is when my breathing changes.
posted by desjardins at 2:58 PM on October 7, 2010

I agree that you need to see a doctor.

In the short term, I find the only sure-fire way to stop myself from falling asleep during meetings/lectures is to sip cold water continuously throughout. Taking notes also helps somewhat, but not entirely. Moving my tongue around my mouth also (surprisingly) wakes me up a bit when my eyelids start to feel heavy. So chewing gum might help too, but I think that looks unprofessional.

Finally, try really hard to avoid daydreaming during meetings: the minute I start to daydream, I start to get sleepy. Focus intently on what is being said, even if it is boring. And the only way to really actively listen is to engage with what is being said: challenge yourself to come up with questions for the speaker; if a project or proposal is being outlined, try to think of ways to improve it; try to figure out what motivations are behind what the speaker is saying - is there a hidden agenda? emotional reasoning? backstory that you don't know about?
posted by lollusc at 7:19 PM on October 7, 2010

Nthing stopping caffeine. It'll be rough at first (maybe wean off if you really can't handle cold turkey) but you won't be groggy anymore. I did it and now when I have a can of pop, I can tell the point when I have the post-caffeine-and-sugar crash, because it's like taking a sleeping pill.
posted by IndigoRain at 12:36 AM on October 10, 2010

Stand in meetings. Stand at your desk. Claim back pain. There are desks for this. Get good shoes. Better than losing your job in this economy.
posted by By The Grace of God at 12:36 AM on October 11, 2010