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Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

nytimes.com

41–50 of 223 posts

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#41
post #38

The section in the article on jet lag mitigation was extremely confusing -- the author wrote of evening light and morning light but was unclear which time zone he was referring to. Can someone explain a bit more clearly? If someone is traveling from SF to Europe or SF to Asia, when should melatonin and light be used optimally?

Not sure what is optimal, but I find melatonin 30min before the normal bedtime in a new country helps a lot (3mg day one, 1-2mg days two and three; 3 days total).

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#44
post #12

> Tübingen who was hospitalized for depression and claimed that she normally kept her symptoms in check by taking all-night bike rides. He subsequently demonstrated in a group of depressed patients that a night of complete sleep deprivation produced an immediate, significant improvement in mood in about 60 percent of the group. I thought this bit was neat. I'd heard that sleep deprivation can bring on a feeling of eu…

Mood yes. Ask the kids who rave all night. But cognition? Im not convinced. I find my memory and problem solving abilities really drop after 30+ hours without sleep. Maybe it is a good tool for the depressed, but i would not suggest it to those looking to boost otherwise healthy/normal minds.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#45

I thought this was interesting until I saw the author was a psychiatrist, and psychiatry has zero scientific validity. And his article is just referencing a bunch of tiny sample size studies of dubious merit.

Psychiatrists hold a medical doctorate, so unless you are claiming that medical science has no scientific validity I believe you are thinking of Psychology, which is an entirely different field.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#46

My father, brother and I all only need about 5 or 6 hours of sleep. We all just wake up, no matter when we go to bed or how light or dark the room is at night or in the morning. I strongly suspect we have that gene that lets you sleep less, but NYT is indicating that they think I'm depressed based on the embedded interactive. I don't feel depressed. Short of a genomic test, how can one differentiate?

It could be that you are more wired for anxiety than depression, though. My mother is much like that. She's always been fine on 5-6 hours of sleep. She's also good in stressful situations - as long as there is stuff for her to do. If she's stuck waiting, not so well.

Anxiety is weird in that some of the symptoms overlap with depression.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#47
post #12

> Tübingen who was hospitalized for depression and claimed that she normally kept her symptoms in check by taking all-night bike rides. He subsequently demonstrated in a group of depressed patients that a night of complete sleep deprivation produced an immediate, significant improvement in mood in about 60 percent of the group. I thought this bit was neat. I'd heard that sleep deprivation can bring on a feeling of eu…

Mood yes. Ask the kids who rave all night. But cognition? Im not convinced. I find my memory and problem solving abilities really drop after 30+ hours without sleep. Maybe it is a good tool for the depressed, but i would not suggest it to those looking to boost otherwise healthy/normal minds.

I sometimes go a whole night without sleep when I'm nervous about something important. I function much better on no sleep than on less than 5 hours of sleep (for one night only that is).

What I've noticed is that without sleep, some of my abilities are stronger, but everything memory-related is much weaker. I notice everything extremely fast, think quickly and react much faster than normally. My focus is pretty crazy. But, I can't remember some things I know, and detailed memories of that day after a sleepless night are usually gone by the next day. I think it might be some sort of survival mode.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#48
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish we would all go on DST and be done with it forever. The extra hour of usable daylight after work is a net win for societies mental health. We have farming machines that do the heavy lifting and are mostly automated now anyway. Unlike when it was enacted, there simply are much fewer farmers.

I will never understand this argument. Noon should be when the sun is roughly directly overhead. And there will be no increase in daylight compared to businesses adjusting working hours to open an hour earlier.

I never understand why people care what number it is on a wall when the sun is anywhere.

I go even further with this and say the whole world should be on the same clock. Who cares if it says 03:00 when you eat dinner or 17:00 when you eat breakfast - and think how much easier it will be to plan anything that spans timezones!

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#49
post #12

> Tübingen who was hospitalized for depression and claimed that she normally kept her symptoms in check by taking all-night bike rides. He subsequently demonstrated in a group of depressed patients that a night of complete sleep deprivation produced an immediate, significant improvement in mood in about 60 percent of the group. I thought this bit was neat. I'd heard that sleep deprivation can bring on a feeling of eu…

Your anecdotal experience is far from uncommon. For the article to even imply this as any sort of cure for depression, though, massively misinterprets the small amount of research on this.

edit: And as a sibling comment mentioned, we do know that cognition suffers immensely when sleep-deprived.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely measurable population-level effects, like increased traffic accidents [1] and heart attacks [2]. And given that its purported benefits are completely unsubstantiated, it's amazing that DST still exists. [1] https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20140100 [2] http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc0807104

I wish we would all go on DST and be done with it forever. The extra hour of usable daylight after work is a net win for societies mental health. We have farming machines that do the heavy lifting and are mostly automated now anyway. Unlike when it was enacted, there simply are much fewer farmers.

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