High IQ + busy brain.

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I have an IQ of 160 as recorded by an Educational Psychologist.

My mind never stops buzzing with thoughts, calculations and theories. I see the world through numbers and scientific formulae. When my mental health is relatively stable, I see the world through rules and logic too.

I have trouble falling asleep despite being on sedating medications for my various conditions (including the maximum dose of olanzapine); it often takes me more than an hour to fall asleep each night. This is due to my mind being so busy with imagining Pascal's Triangle in 3D, calculating the powers of 2 up to 1,073,741,824 (that was last night), learning pi etc.

Is this "overworking" brain of mine a result of my AS or my high IQ, or both? Can anyone here relate?

I have both a high IQ and AS and my brain is very busy as well; it's rarely ever at rest. Apparently there are studies correlating stress with high IQ also.

I think where the AS part comes in is that you get addicted to those thoughts and you can't drop them.

Yes, I do get obsessive about the things I work out. I have covered whole notebooks in mathematical scribbles that I can't leave alone or unsolved.

But to be honest I prefer being this way than remaining idle for all this time.

It's 23:38 and I took my meds at 21:00. As usual I am mildly ataxic in my gait and feeling dizzy, but my brain is always the last part of my body to be knocked down by 20mg olanzapine!

personal belief on it is that it is nothing to do with inteligence,the inteligence will just make people think in more complex ways.
am under the label of severely learning disabled [UK definition for intelectual disability],it has had its greatest impact on functioning,development,comunication/language etc,however am still tortured by the brain been in constant active wave mode,its always got something to yap about and process to itself,this is a big cause of why have never been able to sleep,besides lacking melatonin.

itd be interesting to see a fMRI test across the whole autism and mental capacity spectrums to see if having the brain equivilent of a never ending yappy chihuahua is a autism trait,and hopefuly lead to ways of how to deal with it.

What are in my brrrainzzz are these:

And these:

And a few times an hour, these:

Seems to be a common Aspie issue - the incessant internal monologue. I don't notice it, if my focus is externally engaged - on reading or watching TV (though I will sometimes start talking to myself and miss an entire program or movie I intended to watch). I refuse to take Big Pharma Prescription SSRIs or sleep meds, because I know friends who have sleep-walked all over creation and one even woke up in the middle of the road at 4 in the morning, where a driver on his way home thought she was dead and called police. So, I use alcohol to self-medicate, along with a Melatonin tablet or three, just before I'm ready to conk out for the night. Not recommending it, but it works for me.

Yep I also have extremely high IQ (probably 150+) and my brain is buzzing with math and physics problems. I think that it's whats causing my extreme anxiety because I question EVERYTHING. I also have eidetic memory so when Im writing (riding lol) the subway, I always stare at the floor and a 3D image appears before my eyes. It's very cool... except the anxiety.

Last edited by slushy9 on 12 Jul 2013, 7:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I can relate completely. From my earliest days, I've been told by others around me that I make their heads hurt when I relate what I'm thinking about. I understand because I can make my own head hurt!

What I try to do is to harness that mental energy and put it to good use.

I would not mind it at all, if y'all would let me have some of that extra brainpower.

I have a busy brain but it's never anything productive.

I have a busy brain, but I like it.

As for IQ, at last test on the WISC-III, my verbal IQ was 131 while my performance IQ was 93, for a full scale IQ of 113, if I recall correctly. Nevertheless, I am constantly thinking of things like programming projects.

Agree. Plenty of morons have insomnia. And plenty of genuises sleep great.

You may consider exploring mindfulness and meditation.
The techniques of yoga(one example among many) have been settling restless minds for at least 4000 years.

Anyone can PM me if you wish to discuss the many options.

I have high IQ, ADHD, and ASD. My brain does this too. Mine seems to be mostly a product of high-IQ. What helps me is doing something very intellectually stimulating (past my normal, not normal normal) for at least an hour or so a day and then for at least an hour before going to bed. It works well. PM me if you would like to discuss this more.

I can relate all too well. I have struggled with sleep problems since childhood, to the extent that I barely slept 1 hour in 24 in my mid-20's. A few years ago I met an amazing psychologist who prescribed fluoxetine, as his other AS patients had reported positive results in both sleep behaviours and social anxiety.

Since then I average 5-6 hours sleep per night - although I still regularly have problems actually getting to sleep - despite being off fluoxetine for almost a year.

Your profile tells me that you're studying pharmacology, which means you're probably aware of melatonin. Abnormally low levels of melatonin have been found in many cases of adults and children with ASD's, and supplements are available in the UK on prescription.

My own "overworking brain" has been the bane of my life, especially when the subject my brain chose for me to obsess over was incompatible with the situation - classrooms are a perfect example of this. Most teachers tend to view an interest in anything but their lesson plan as somewhat disruptive.

Has anyone heard about liquid L-tryptophan and know whether it works well for sleep?

Melatonin did not work on me and what's more there was an incident with a botched batch of it some time back, in which people suffered permanent health repercussions.