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Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

nytimes.com

101–110 of 223 posts

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#101

I don't know about sleep and depression. My Mom was bipolar and the topic never came up, other than her being up to all hours when she was manic. But I recently read an interesting article about vitamin D and that lead me to supplement magnesium and vitamins D, A and K. I only do it once every three days to be conservative. http://www.precisionnutrition.com/stop-vitamin-d And I've found I'm much more decisive and lik…

Do you mind me asking what age you are? >last December I became a morning person using early morning light and exercise // Where do you live that gets light on December mornings?

The entire Southern Hemisphere gets light on December mornings. The summer solstice for the Southern Hemisphere is during December.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#103
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also did some reading about vitamins last year and ended up taking vitamin d for a while, then magnesium for a while. My method wasn't any more scientific than that, but the vitamin D had no noticeable effect, while the effect of magnesium was dramatic. I was suffering from mood swings, poor concentration and low energy serious enough that I was considering seeing a psychologist about depression. Magnesium seems to…

I've never heard that about magnesium, thanks for the heads up. It's worth a shot a suppose. Cheers

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry...

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#104
post #97

Thinking of the recent reproducibility crisis in psychology, I'm wondering how you can prove this without the placebo effect. How does someone try not sleeping without knowing if they are not sleeping? Or do you compare with people doing something else that is known to be useless? like a sugar pill. Thinking about how different colors of placebo in antidepressants have more or less intense effects, I wonder if the fa…

Obviously the proper starting point isn't comparing to placebo; it's gathering enough data to develop baseline expected rates of change before altering the variable you're testing.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#106
post #89
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also did some reading about vitamins last year and ended up taking vitamin d for a while, then magnesium for a while. My method wasn't any more scientific than that, but the vitamin D had no noticeable effect, while the effect of magnesium was dramatic. I was suffering from mood swings, poor concentration and low energy serious enough that I was considering seeing a psychologist about depression. Magnesium seems to…

There's a certain level of orthodoxy in psychiatry now.. I have yet to see anyone try to get any information other than "let's try putting you on this extremely mood altering pill with side effects for a month". No attempt is made to find any real evidence other than anecdotal patient information. Maybe the science isn't there?

Maybe the science isn't there?

That's exactly it. A given drug may be one person's savior and another person's nightmare. It's extremely complex. To get just a hint of what may be going on, check out Scott's article on ANTIDEPRESSANT PHARMACOGENOMICS [0].

[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/06/antidepressant-pharmac...

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#107
post #89
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also did some reading about vitamins last year and ended up taking vitamin d for a while, then magnesium for a while. My method wasn't any more scientific than that, but the vitamin D had no noticeable effect, while the effect of magnesium was dramatic. I was suffering from mood swings, poor concentration and low energy serious enough that I was considering seeing a psychologist about depression. Magnesium seems to…

There's a certain level of orthodoxy in psychiatry now.. I have yet to see anyone try to get any information other than "let's try putting you on this extremely mood altering pill with side effects for a month". No attempt is made to find any real evidence other than anecdotal patient information. Maybe the science isn't there?

The science isn't there yet :( Quite likely there are various neurologial/genetic reasons for things like adhd and depression.

It's quite likely that there are many subtypes of that, depending on which pathways are broken, but we aren't good enough yet to figure out the details.

If you have a car with a locked hood, there is not much you can do but hit it in various places and hope it works.

Some people are trying to unlock the hood, and one day they surely will succeed. But for now, all we're left with is listening carefully and trying from the safest to the craziest options.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#108
post #97

Thinking of the recent reproducibility crisis in psychology, I'm wondering how you can prove this without the placebo effect. How does someone try not sleeping without knowing if they are not sleeping? Or do you compare with people doing something else that is known to be useless? like a sugar pill. Thinking about how different colors of placebo in antidepressants have more or less intense effects, I wonder if the fa…

Just accept that psychiatry and most psychology has no basis in science.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#109

I don't know about sleep and depression. My Mom was bipolar and the topic never came up, other than her being up to all hours when she was manic. But I recently read an interesting article about vitamin D and that lead me to supplement magnesium and vitamins D, A and K. I only do it once every three days to be conservative. http://www.precisionnutrition.com/stop-vitamin-d And I've found I'm much more decisive and lik…

Could you comment a bit more on your light therapy?

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#110
I'm not an expert in either of these areas (VR or depression), but after reading this I began to wonder if virtual reality could somehow provide a solution or at least mitigate the effects of a jet lagged traveler and/or a person suffering from depression by 'normalizing' their circadian rhythm.
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