(MONEY Magazine) – Some people organize their lives around television shows like Sex and the City or Survivor. But for many of us, the most absorbing drama is the stock market, whose wild ups and downs have transfixed us for years. Bungee jumping was never so thrilling--nor, as it turns out, so addictive. What did my "rat lab" professor back at college call it when we rewarded our not-so-beloved rodent, Bowie, with food pellets every time he clicked on the little silver bar? Positive reinforcement. The market's long-established pattern of recovery after every downdraft has been my positive reinforcement.

Recently, however, I've been finding the relentless deluge of market data annoying. No, it's worse: It is becoming a bore. How could this be? How could I be feeling blase about hundred-point swings in the Nasdaq? When did logging on to my Schwab account become a chore?

Maybe I just need a data vacation. Perhaps I'm glutted with stock market food pellets--I'm overstimulated. The daily changes are making me dizzy. My tech stocks are compensating for the drop in my blue chips; my blue chips are compensating for the drop in my techs. Inflation's on the way up; no, no, it's quiescent. My value-oriented mutual fund is finally starting to move; no, it's just another head fake. Whatever!

I recently spoke with a money manager who took drastic action to improve his perspective on the markets: He dumped his Bloomberg terminal. "Too much noise," he says. "The net gain from all that information is too marginal." And the barrage of data is too distracting. I chose my investments for the long haul, so maybe I need to learn not to hover over them like a day-trader. Focusing on a company's fundamentals, and not the minute-by-minute froth in the market, is the thing.

A few data-free days at the beach should cure my malaise. But woe to any market-mesmerized brokers or traders who dare interrupt my sun-induced stupor by checking in on the markets (and sharing loudly, of course) via their wireless data devices. They may find themselves unwilling participants in my next experiment: Which lasts longer once it's hurled into the ocean, a Palm Pilot or a BlackBerry e-mailer?

--SUZANNE WOOLLEY