>But forget the practical side of this for now. It looks like sleep is somehow renewing these people's depressions. As if depression is caused by some injury during sleep, heals part of the way during an average day (or all the way during an extra-long day of sleep deprivation) and then the same injury gets re-inflicted during sleep the next night.
With that phrasing, I can't but muse that it is not the sleep that causes issues, but the "starting fresh" in the morning.
Hypothesis being that something about a well rested mind lets a waking person check off more of a list of things to consider first thing in the morning.
I've had panic attacks during loosely-structured periods in my life where sitting in the shower after waking up in the morning and having to decide what to do with that day was absolutely overwhelming. Sometimes when you have a lot going on and you're under a lot of stress there's a lot of pressure associated with deciding how best to allocate your time.
In contrast, I find a relative peace at 3am, since it's merely a continuation of what I had been doing earlier that day. I'm in a groove, and there's no major decisions to make regarding my resource allocation.
Waking up is absolutely one of my least favorite parts of the day. It comes with a tremendous burden, especially when living alone and not having a fixed schedule or a boss.
I’m glad if you feel better know. It’s interesting to know oneself because I have exactly the opposite experience. The more the day pass the more I am stressed, with sometimes panic attacks before sleep. I feel refreshed in the morning, the best part of the day for me. The exception is when I have a fixed schedule, a boss (also a long commute and a job I don’t like), then sure I don’t like waking up, because I know exactly what the day will be without surprise and it’s shitty.
Out of curiosity, what is it that gets you before you go to sleep? What is running through your mind when you experience the panic attack? (I mean, not specifics, but in a general sense.)
I think it’s general anxiety from the accumulated “thinking fatigue” during the day. There is a correlation with periods where I lacked a clear plan and spent too much time of the day in my thought planning the future. The process at sleep then is something like I feel tense -> I become hypersensible -> I notice each heartbeat accelerating -> maybe something is wrong -> ... Sometimes it was more sudden like waking up panicked in the middle of the night. Meditation helped because now I notice when I loose myself too much in my thought. The effect is not immediate but it makes a difference at the end of the day.
I can't help thinking that Scott Alexander has no clue what he's talking about, or more more benevolently, is writing quasi-poetic nonsense. Which is bad for someone with that many followers.
I can give another off-the-cuff alternative: sleep deprivation reduces self-awareness, and thus self-report of depressed feelings. It might be that at this point the "brain" is more susceptible to treatment, but that's an entirely different matter.
>I can't help thinking that Scott Alexander has no clue what he's talking about, or more more benevolently, is writing quasi-poetic nonsense. Which is bad for someone with that many followers.
Note how you haven't pointed to a single thing that's bad with his post, but nonetheless managed to sling several condescending accusations (has no clue, quasi-poetic, nonsense) at him...
And all that for a point where he doesn't even pretend to give any specific explanation or causual relationship or anything, just wants recap with a description of the outward appeareance of the phenomenon, precisely to show that we have no clue about it yet:
"It looks like sleep is somehow renewing these people's depressions. As if depression is caused by some injury during sleep, heals part of the way during an average day (or all the way during an extra-long day of sleep deprivation) and then the same injury gets re-inflicted during sleep the next night".
In TFA this is not an explanation of what happens, but an "it looks as if somehow" to highlight exactly the current lack of an explanation, an explicitly presented as such.
He's a psychiatrist and generally researches everything he writes about quite thoroughly, so I'd be surprised if he had no clue what he's talking about in this case.
If you're going to say someone is talking nonsense, maybe back it up with specific reasons how and why. (Not necccesarily saying he isn't, just without specifics we might as well just be calling people names)
fwiw I've used it on and off as a last resort and it saved my life.
The first few times I happened to do it was not because I was aware of the link (20 years ago nobody wrote about it). It was by accident because I've stayed up so late that dawn surprised me during a night of insomnia. So it made more sense to just power through the day with coffee rather than mess up my sleep pattern. It certainly works for me like some kind of reset.
I knew a Psyc. nurse years ago, and she said they prevent certain depressed patients from sleeping. I knew her 17 years ago, and she was a nurse since the 80’s.
She said it was for the patients whom were brought in because they just tried to kill themself’s, or told admittance they wanted to die.
I had the idiotic idea I could cure my dysthymia (Minor depression) by sleep deprivation, and it didn’t work at all.
> I dont know this guy. But his idea definitly works for me. The effect lasts longer than a day so i would argue its not the sleep deprevation itself
It is generally accepted that the negative effects of sleep deprivation last longer than a day too. If you are sleep deprived you can't 'catch up' by sleeping in for a night or two (for example on the weekend).
Scott's explanation at least makes sense with a causal chain of reasoning. "Self-awareness" is more a philosophical concept that has no psychiatric meaning, sort of like like "fairness" in economics. "It's all placebo here!" sounds lazy and like a cheap shot.
That might play a role, but sleep deprivation is also a trigger for hypomanic or even manic episodes in bipolar patients. There's something about sleep deprivation that alters mood in certain mental disorders.
Interesting, I've noticed for a while if I have a late night the next day I'll often be extremely energetic and more social than normal. The crash comes the day after.
Based on my experience I figure the "reasoning" behind this mechanism is that if my anxiety is bad enough to be keeping me awake, I clearly need more energy to deal with my problems (and, graciously, it is provided).
I have depression/anxiety and procrastination issue in the morning. It gets better especially once I decided to do something for the day. Then it's all momentum all the way.
I had a similar issue, and I found a solution : Rather than aiming to follow my plan, I aim to do a predetermined amount of tasks (25 in my cases), regardless of whether or not they are in my schedule. I use an app to keep track of the amount of tasks done, and it has been surprisingly effective!
I wish something like that would work for me. I would immediately begin to analyse what counts as a task. I'd set myself tasks, realise they're much more difficult than I thought they were and realise there's no way for me to complete this task and also hit my 25 goal.
Then I'd get frustrated with myself and probably go surf reddit for the rest of the day.
No system of any type has worked for me consistently.
I feel you on this. I have found that no system lasts for me. I have also found that any system can help to get me going. Such that now I try not to use anything to plan his things will end, but only how I will begin them.
Similar problems hit me with exercise. About the only system I have there is too obligate myself to finish something. For example, if I walk the dog a mile out, I have to walk the mile in, as well. Bike to work? I have to bike home now.
I also tend to overanalyze things, but books like "Atomic Habits" and "The Slight Edge" were really helpful. It made realize that there's no point to try to properly define what a task is, as what I can do at any given day depends on my physical and mental state.
How I perform when I have a bad day is completely different from my performance on a good day. Something that's a task today might not be considered like one tomorrow.
There'll be days where I'll only do 25 small things then call it a day, and that's okay.
> I wish something like that would work for me. I would immediately begin to analyse what counts as a task. I'd set myself tasks, realise they're much more difficult than I thought they were and realise there's no way for me to complete this task and also hit my 25 goal.
Can you permit yourself to subdivide those tasks that turn out to be more difficult?
So, if something is taking longer because you're identifying previously unanticipated subtasks, does doing the yak-shaving count toward your count of tasks, or not?
Ha! Sadly, no. Fidling with the editor is never really the next thing. I have had brew mess up things before, such that fixing it is.
I used to have an hour or so a week where I would consider what I called process improvement. And if anything ever really slows me down, I do consider that a priority.
I meant more along the lines of tracking an issue through transitive dependencies, and then having to make a change at each step before the fix is apparent in the code you were actually writing.
I once found a weird import issue in a Google App Engine demo that, IIRC, traced back through to pip, virtualenv, and eventually setuptools.
Which app? Definitely curious if it'll help with my own procrastination (and possibly undiagnosed depression).
The last time I made some headway on why I seem to endlessly procrastinate (said headway being enabled by, er, "self medication"), I came to the conclusion that it's because my brain sees a whole bunch of things to do, and instead of taking the rational approach of "well take things one at a time", it instead gets into a whirlwind of indecision, panics under the stress of all these things to do, and immediately starts reaching for an escape, thus compounding the problem. In the "self medicated" state my brain was more able to get into a groove of "okay, do $N more things" and actually make some headway, but only until the nausea caught up to me (at which point I had to force myself to call it a day).
My hope is that it's just a matter of tooling, and that a better toolset will help me get out of ruts without needing to rely on mind-altering substances.
I just downloaded one of the first apps that I found on the Google Play Store when I searched for "incrementor". I think any app where a number goes up when you press a button will do the trick.
this is so relatable. it takes so much effort to commit to any sort of plan in the first place, and then life circumstances happen and the plan has to change, and I'm left completely defeated by that development. this sucks.
Any sort of table, plan or a roadmap makes me more depressed, because I cannot stick to it and that amplifies feeling of guilt. Best results I had when my plan was to do just one thing, even if it was only one line of code throughout the day and even doing nothing at all I had coded as doing resting. I had incredible progress with this approach.
Despite the article's title, its subtitle qualifies it as a possible treatment for severe depression.
Ideally under supervision, at that. Near the very end:
>In the case of wake therapy, Benedetti cautions that it isn’t something people should try to administer to themselves at home. Particularly for anyone who has bipolar disorder, there’s a risk of it triggering a switch into mania – although in his experience, the risk is smaller than that posed by taking antidepressants. Keeping yourself awake overnight is also difficult, and some patients temporarily slip back into depression or enter a mixed mood state, which can be dangerous. “I want to be there to speak about it to them when it happens,” Benedetti says. Mixed states often precede suicide attempts.
Sleep deprivation is nothing to fuck around with. If you're emotionally unstable, it'll usually make that worse.
Same for me. If I spend the whole next day exhausted after sleep deprivation, my emotional state feels really fragile, my decision making is impaired, and everything just feels harder.
It can also worsen any other symptoms -- sometimes the depression itself too. For example, people who experience anxious depression may end in a much worse situation as a result of sleep deprivation.
This study always needs to be qualified with "your mileage may vary".
I only have anecdotal evidence. Long time depressive, combination of several SSRI and atypical antidepressants with cyclical efficacy, about 1 decade of varying treatment approaches. One weekend in summer 2016 was the changing point between "old very depressive me" and "new just regular depressive me" - involved intercontinental travel, zero sleep for somewhere 48+ hours, and some socialization and 'partying' in a culture new to me. My first response to feeling this change a couple days later after I had returned to my home country was too look up research on sleep deprivation's use in depression treatment. Was pleasantly surprised when there seems to be some marginal evidence for its efficacy. That being said, staying awake for that long was a misery in itself and I'm not looking to repeat that in the future so I'll stick to the couple pills I take in the morning to tame everything for now.
Do you know anything about long-term consequences of taking melatonin supplements? I remember the results being inconclusive when I looked it up once.
I'm currently trying to get off melatonin and also get to a natural sleep cycle (meaning I won't have an alarm in the morning). But that usually means that I won't be able to fall asleep at night and I'll sleep forever in the morning if nothing external is waking me up. I'm not sure if I should continue or if I should just start taking melatonin again because it helps tremendously.
I haven't found anything that would point to total safety or the opposite. Then again, there are plenty of studies on the dangers of sugar and I still eat a bit of chocolate every day. Same for red meat, plastics touching food, caffeine, beer, being slightly overweight, driving, not using sunscreen regularly, stress, lack of sleep.
Is the risk of taking a small amount of melatonin every day really something to worry about in the bigger picture, if it helps you and has a long history of being used for this purpose without problems?
Like lots of people here I just can't beat my tendencies to stay up late despite massively good sleep hygiene. I end up missing sleep, being cranky and depressive, and generally having a lower quality of life because I just don't feel like going to bed - and when I do make it to bed I ruminate for a long time before falling asleep. If no new information presents itself, I plan on keeping good habits and being on melatonin for the rest of my life.
Sounds reasonable. I'll try it a little bit longer without melatonin, but if the issues with falling asleep persist, I'll probably start taking small amounts of melatonin again. It definitely helped a ton with falling asleep over the past few years, but I'm actually not sure how much of that is placebo.
Melatonin does (reasonably) well against placebo in the time-to-sleep studies I've read. If you want to read up, Gwern has the most accessible collection out there:
I don't have an answer for long-term melatonin unfortunately.
In most folks circadian rhythm is not exactly 24 but slightly more or less. In this case it is helpful to force the sync by getting exposure to sun light (or a source of similar quality) in the morning and religiously cut off exposure to light several hours before going to bed.
Ideally you completely filter out both blue and green wavelength (which trigger the suppression of melatonin) and keep overall levels low.
For more information see shift workers' strategies - they have to change their rhythm on a weekly basis.
It is worth mentioning that lifelong sleep deprivation is linked to different types of dementia in the elderly, so I’m not sure which is worse: persistent sleep problems or nightly hormone supplements.
I should note that I often spend my days working construction and regularly average 3 hours of exercise per day. Doesn't help me that much. Big exception made for the first day spent surfing if I haven't surfed in a while, that knocks me out cold.
It makes sense to me that if we stimulate ourselves through sugar, caffeine, artificial light, information, worry etc that we can benefit from a mild depressive to balance the stimulus. The other option is a monk-like existence that I haven't been able to keep going for more than a few months at a time and wouldn't want to go back to.
I'd ask you to consider that whenever you turn on a lightbulb or a computer screen you're already interfering with your body's agency over this particular chemical. Don't spend 10 hours every day outdoors? You are well out of natural parameters already.
I know that exact feeling. In 2010 I went from pretty crippling depression to a higher-functioning (lol) depression/anhedonia. It involved a nonstop drive from eastern Washington to south Texas. Never thought about it but it might have been the sleep deprivation and adrenaline.
Here's my anecdotal experience as a relatively young person. I have some form of untreated (and admittedly self diagnosed) long term depression, and experience depressive episodes in addition to that (yes, I've tried exercising. Yes I have a good diet. Yes I try get enough sleep)
If I skip a night, I find I feel very productive and ready to work starting around 6am. I have a generally more positive outlook on things, I feel like I can achieve my goals etc. Mental clouding isn't too bad until the late afternoon, at which point I turn into a depressed lump incapable of doing things that require much mental effort. Mental health at this point basically returns to normal.
If I supplement this with additional (prescription) ADHD medication (taking it at around 1am, and at prescribed intervals until bedtime the next day) I'm actually in a pretty good place for an entire day. I feel barely physically impaired at all. I probably wouldn't operate heavy machinery or drive long distances (or with other people), but I can function quite well.
In either case, the next day is horrible. Oversleeping, feeling tired all day no matter what, sever brain fog, measurably worse reaction times. The improved mood is not worth it, especially when I'm already so used to dealing with it. I don't think I could physically stay up for two nights (three full days) in a row.
What do you mean my the funk? Without meaning to sound melodramatic, I’ve been depressed for so long I can cope quite well with it. The additional depressive episodes mostly come and go of their own accord
I got a bit of an existential creative mind, and I love sleep deprivation because it kicks me into lucid dreaming a lot.
I have incredibly intense waking dreams for hours on end, I fall asleep and wake up up to 15 times in a row.
They are more intense then most psychedelic trips I've had. Lucid dreams feel like I'm some where between the material and metaphysical world.
I use the WILD or Wake-Initiated Lucid Dream method. It can be annoying sometimes because you essentially have to go through sleep paralysis every time, which can be terrifying if you don't know about it or aren't in the mood for it.
Copying this from another website but it sorta works like this;
> "Wake yourself up after 4 to 6 hours of sleep, get out of bed and stay up for anywhere between a few minutes to an hour before going back to bed. It is preferable that you do something related to lucid dreaming during this time, but it is not required.
Go back to bed and lie absolutely still, as if your body is melting into the mattress and losing all sensation. Silence your inner monologue if it starts to chime in. You may hear hypnagogic sounds, echoes of voices and other sounds in your head.
Once in the half-dream state, you will experience hypnagogia as a mixture of patterns and colors that take over your vision in the darkness. Observe your hypnagogia and stay relaxed, allowing it to hypnotize you and draw your awareness away from the outside world into the internal dream world that is starting to evolve now."
I've experienced similar things using this pattern, but also using melatonin before going to sleep. Not only I get to sleep 12+ hours, the dreams I do are so lucid it's crazy. I get to explore the world as I know it and sometimes I can even fix nightmares. This has helped me a lot.
Why would you want to do this? I have some sleep paralysis like experiences from time to time and have never found them enjoyable. Even more so when the dream only leads me into another dream and on and on.
It's hard to describe if you've never experienced it. It's like the most powerful psychedelic drug you can take. It allows you to manifest an entirely new world into existence. It's the ultimate power trip. True autonomy. But it's addictive, and will fuck up your sleep habits if you fall under its spell too much.
I discovered the technique he’s talking about on my own back in maybe 2016. He has some extra fluffy language around it that makes it seem more than it is. It’s really just falling back asleep after you’ve already woken up at a specific time. For me, it was 4 AM. The point is that you can control your dreams. So I was using it to have sexual dreams. Which is why the other guy says it can be addictive (which I’d argue is also hyperbole).
They depend on my attitude and sense of well being. When I was a child it was like swimming but with less friction; I was buoyant (or maybe there was no gravity).
In high school when I first became insecure, I began to fall out of the sky.
From this time, flying became very unstable (swerving) and required a constant strain to resist the force of gravity -- and was accompanied by a constant fear of falling to my death.
More recently, as I am gaining confidence again, flying still requires concentration, but it is smooth and stable, and now most dreams are partly lucid and I know I will not be harmed even if I fall.
As for the mechanics, as a child I swam, as a teenager created an upward lifting force with my hands, and more recently I am pushing downward against something invisible (I almost feel like a quadcopter).
Interesting. I have semi vivid dreams often. Basically I'm able to recognize that I'm dreaming but shortly after taking control or if I try to change to much I wake up immediately.
I did not succeed in lucid dreaming until I tried astral projection (entering a lucid dream while awake). I didn't succeed at this, but the efforts led to many spontaneous lucid dreams.
In other words, by trying and failing at something harder, I effortlessly achieved what had eluded me for 9 years.
You can certainly try this method, especially when you're younger, and you'll probably feel exhilarated and your mood will improve... until you finally go to sleep again. The effects don't last very long, and losing sleep continually is very bad for your health.
I would recommend to anyone with depression that you first change your diet. Stop eating refined carbs & processed foods of any kind. Stick to basic fruits & vegetables with some whole grains, and beans for protein. Adapt this as your personal needs vary, and as you see fit. I think you'd probably be amazed how much eating well affects your mood, especially if you've never done it before for any long period of time.
I find that any change I would like, I think about the change and how it fits into my values structure over a few days and change my mindset on the matter. Then I slowly shift in little steps towards that goal. When I experience barriers, I take those seriously and incorporate the insights into my mindset and maybe adjust my it accordingly. In a sense the initial mindset work is asking myself to be serious about what I really want and how it fits holistically into my ways of being. Then I am more motivated because it's not just -I have this idea that it's what I want" it is "I want that" so I trust I'll get there and allow myself to work through the full complexity of the change.
In particular, this gets rid of the "I must exert energy to do this" dynamic that can be an unbreakable barrier in a depressive state.
I started suffering from depression at 18 and it got progressively worse, with periodic bouts putting me in bed for days. True misery. I switched to a very disciplined lifestyle of exercise and a diet as suggested above and it helped a lot, but it did not cure me. I just suffered less.
What cured me was SSRI medication (Lexapro). I still try to maintain healthy diet and exercise but the SSRI was night and day. I had minimal side effects and it completely changed my life. My 2 cents.
For me, an SSRI worked wonders, but was just a short term band aid. I had to adjust my dose or switch medications pretty early on. I also felt like I lost something ephemeral while medicated.
Diet and exercise also helped tremendously and had lasting effects. I not only felt better, but it was earned. It took a lot of discipline to make this happen while depressed.
Therapy is what worked. Everything else was great at relieving symptoms, which gave me the capacity to work through therapy. But, for me, they didn’t act as a cure any more than cough syrup and chicken soup cure a cold.
I tried years of therapy but honestly never found a therapist that clicked. I am a very corporate, achievement, “work 80 hours a week” type person and therapists didn’t understand and constantly identified my lifestyle as a source or symptom of my depression which is 100% not true.
The human brain is enormously complex. You can be depressed by patterns of thought, past trauma / historical issues, or simply a chemical imbalance. I firmly believe I had a chemical imbalance and the SSRI fixed it. It was seriously a night and day difference in my life.
I think there are many varied causes of depression and this is why the same techniques don’t work for everyone. But for my situation the drugs worked.
I get depressed from 36 hour weeks. Maybe the therapists arent wrong thinking that 80 hour weeks aint healthy, even if you love your job lessure is super relevant too
Depression is not about "your mood". Depression is not the same as feeling slightly unhappy. By all means, everyone should eat healthy foods. But if you have a medical condition (depression), get medical help.
"oh, have you tried more sunshine?", "try taking vitamin D, it's probably just a seasonal affective disorder", "just sleep well, eat well, drink well, don't do anything else and you're good to go"
How about just go see some damn doctors first, and who knows if they'll find something off with your thyroid, if they can't do anything but diagnose a severe depression, if your super-healthy-diet-2.0 is lacking in something and it's in your blind spot, etc.
This trend of lifestyle coaches telling obvious things is getting on my nerves quite frankly. I've drank your 3 liters of water per day, I've taken your vitamin D supplements in the winter, I've done the five kinds of fruit and veggies per day, I've done the low to no carb diets, I've done full years of thorough tracking on myfitnesspal, I've done the running frequently and lifting often. I've followed proper sleep habits that didn't budge even on weekends in order to retain a rhythm. I've gone on walks. And so on.
What I haven't done is get proper help with people who knew what the hell they were talking about, because everybody else was trying to be a damn doctor and telling me that the lemon in their hot water in the morning is probably the difference between my messed up self and their stable life. Proper treatments made the difference between life and death. Thanks everybody else..
Doctors are too expensive and there are too many gaps in social safety nets that allow some people to access medical care who otherwise couldn't. Sometimes people who can access medical care have had bad experiences with doctors. I think most people who go to woo, life coach hell, and different medical traditions were driven there by terrible doctors or desperation.
And I was too. But I wasn't taken out of that hell by the lifestyle coaches, I was taken out of that hell when "good" (knowledgeable and empathetic and available) doctors, who do exist, brought their actual knowledge and experience to my problem. After about 20 excruciating years.
The point is, you don't know if you have a small cut or a fracture. While the bandaid can help the lesser problem, you're going to have a very bad time if you let people advise you to just put bandaids on your fracture.
I'm not saying people shouldn't apply at all general tips, but people need to realize that it should mandatorily come with "and go seek professional help if your suffering is increasing or if it is hard to bear, no matter how long it takes". It should be encouraged, because people who are suffering from various kinds of issues like depression or bpd are likely already not wanting to go due to both psychological factors (anhedonia, anxiety disorders about what they'll find or how their finances affect them, self-abandonment) AND the state of their lives.
High-functioning depression? well there can be a degree of delusion to operate well enough ("It's not that bad" until you flip out). Or not functioning at all? then your income is likely lower than if you were feeling well, thus the financial stress and lack of access to convenient solutions for medical support. And then you just read people saying how they went from couch to being a CEO because they wake up at 5 every day and drink lots of water.. well cool for you, but if you were lucky that it wasn't a fracture that doesn't change the lack of diagnosis of MY thing!
Me too, but when I forget to drink water, I feel awful and my mental/physical wellbeing tend to spiral. An easy thing to forget when I'm depressed and focusing on anything but my own existence.
Compared to "depressed? Just make nutrition an even taller barrier with an extra heap of guilt if you soft-fail!", it's at least benign, and beneficial for me
Agreed but drinking the recommended amount of water is harder than I thought it would be!
For one, it’s a lot of water. More than I would have thought. And second, if I’m ever going to be out and about or not able to use the restroom frequently I find it impossible.
I highly recommend more people hydrate properly but I don’t blame people who have a hard time, especially if they don’t work tech jobs where bathroom breaks are plentiful. Some of my teacher friends have it rough.
It's very strange to me that this is the case for those with clinical depression; I personally feel great each morning and by the late evening my mood tends to be nearly as low as it was when I did have a bout of clinical depression. I wonder if this suggests a different mechanism for my melancholy.
This is so interesting to read. I'm not always in a deep depression, but I'm trying to recall a period of my life where I could say "I generally feel great in the morning" and I can't think of one. I'm not saying I generally feel bad, but never great.
The "great" is after maybe a half hour of grogginess. Then I feel like I have peak motivation and am ready to take on the world, for the rest of the morning. I sure would love to have that perspective for the rest of the day. Caffeine kind of enhances it.
Possibly relevant, I regularly get about 9 hours of sleep each night.
In the US, the only controlled clinical setting I know of that performs wake therapy (in the form of "triple chronotherapy") to treat depression is in Chicago: http://www.chicagochronotherapy.com/protocol.html
Often, after 24 hours of being awake, I've noticed a weird euphoria on he second morning day. Intellectually quite useless, but nevertheless a kind of bliss. I've always associated it with a kind of 'ignorance = bliss' related to the total inability to mentally linger on the issues of the day. But the types of 'issues of the day' for people who are depressed may be the problem.
It's an interesting thought. Excessive rumination is generally pretty bad for your state of mind. Maybe with sleep deprivation, you don't have the spare brainpower to spend ruminating.
Yup, too embarrassed to admit it, but this... People love me when I'm in that state, which, I guess who I am when not going through (waves arms this), so I make sure to give it to them. I tested myself and besides some extremely light loss in agility and mental acuity (then again more social when tired) my work's the same... except for the flashes of insight, drive, energy and hmmm... Given the MASSIVE gains to productivity, wealth creation and global competitiveness any sane government should be investing incredible sums into mental health.
Not intensely depressed, though I am still heaming trauma.
From my teens to mid thirties, I often stayed up very late well until 4 am. Usually I’d find it very difficult to restore my sleeping hours so I would keep shifting forward, like sleeping at 11am, getting up at 8pm... until i was again up at like 5 am... then i managed normal waking hours for a few weeks and the cycle would repeat.
In hindsight I always felt safer at night. When the world seems to be asleep, i felt less pressure, it was quiet...
I also remember when staying awake longer or sleeping a few hours, it was pleasant in some ways, i didn’t feel as anxious, like sailing on a cloud.
The research doesn’t surprise me but sadly it is always a clinical perspective. These people are not genuinely cured of "depression" whatever is the clinical description. We know a lot more about the physiology of trauma these days, and there is almost always some type of trauma involved, meaning an experience of physical / emotional overwhelm, and a nervous system that never quite returned to normal. Usually there is a history of developmental trauma and / or tramatic events like violence, or serious accidents. Sometimes a stay in hospital can be traumatic as well, invasive procedures, lack of connection, etc.
A long time ago I used to play World of Warcraft for days at a time taking naps every 30 minutes or so every 4 hours. Needless to say I was tired as hell.
Interestingly though, my mood was excellent - and not from playing the game. It was almost as if the fact I had been awake for so long itself is what made me happy.
For me as a parent, I found this snippet from the article interesting:
It may also work as a prophylactic: recent studies suggest that teenagers whose parents set – and manage to enforce – earlier bedtimes are less at risk of depression and suicidal thinking. Like light therapy and sleep deprivation, the precise mechanism is unclear, but researchers suspect a closer fit between sleep time and the natural light–dark cycle is important.
I have an 8 year old girl and notice that every time the bedtime routine is delayed her behaviour gets worse both in the evening and the day after.
What's to stop someone conducting safe, ethical trials into the random 'forbiddens' such as magic mushrooms in a far off country?
Deal with their FDA system?
Because far of country still has laws :/ but yeah mushies definitly hold a key that could help many people. Starting with migraines where for some nothing else helps, bit mushies do
Strange there's not a single mention of the serotonin spike on the onset of waking up. Some people have a higher surge than most, which causes adrenaline to flood the system leaving them in fight-or-flight mode, anxiety, and ... depression.
We shouldn't need to say it, but the most simple things like sun exposure, outdoor activities, organic food help a lot against any mental issues, and sleep only when you need it!
The reason we shouldn't say these things is because they are wrong in general. There is no magic silver bullet against depression. Especially not a one-size-fits-all one. And telling depressed people to go out and exercise can be actively harmful because it puts even more pressure on people who find it hard to cope with everyday pressures.
definitely, what I mean is refocusing on the very basic things humans do and exiting the excessive social pressure help to regenerate ourselves. By "outdoor activities" I don't mean something with other people, with schedules etc.. no just very simple things, like walking alone, around trees, and releasing all that pressure
You don't understand depression, and you are not qualified to make suggestions to people with depression. Please stop.
We are talking about people who find it hard to get out of bed in the morning, and to motivate themselves to do the most basic tasks, let alone putting on clothes, going out, possibly going among people to ride public transport to where the nice trees are. Ugh. Also, the season/weather might be all wrong for enjoyment outside. Also, even temporary enjoyment outside might not cure a medical condition that you obviously do not understand.
"Just motivate yourself" is not a solution for not being able to motivate oneself. Please stop.
Or maybe they've found walking alone in nature has helped with their own depression. It's certainly helped me.
Stop with with "you aren't qualified" crap. This is an internet forum where anyone can contribute their own thoughts. Do you actually want only certified mental health professionals to be able to comment on these threads?
To take an analogy, I feel like I'm suggesting someone should try and fix himself his bicycle flat tire, and you're reponding: "No, don't, you could injure yourself. Make sure you go see a professional and don't listen to those personal experiences"
I know it's a serious topic, I've been diagnosed with depression several years ago, that's why I just let my simple experience with it, that goes well with ideas developed in the article, of natural & risk-free drug/treatments alternatives
>But forget the practical side of this for now. It looks like sleep is somehow renewing these people's depressions. As if depression is caused by some injury during sleep, heals part of the way during an average day (or all the way during an extra-long day of sleep deprivation) and then the same injury gets re-inflicted during sleep the next night.