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Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

nytimes.com

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Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#161

Post by iharhajster »

My anxiety and depression kicked in in 2006, after several triggers coincided. Some that I remember now are: dissapointment in my "friends", my inability to digest some college courses that had been way above my level of comprehension, falling in love with person A, while person B had fallen in love with me, alcohol overdose habit, stopping going to Sunday sermons after being dissapointed with local priest, pressure from my enviornment and myself to be best at everything I do, and so on. After that day X, I spent a whole week in bed, and started to behave strange.

So that left my parents no other option, but to eventually take me to psychiatrist.

When she put me on antidepressants, I started to act even worse. I wrote and drew on blackboards at college breaks, once asked a profssor in the middle of his lecture " what is time?", I wrote in my sister's chat while she was afk and talked nonsence to she's friends, I started to have all sorts of crazy ideas and I wrote on all walls and furniture in my room.

I can't really know exacly what happened, but my brain started a roller coaster ride between being uterlly depressed to extreme overthinking and I had a thought that I somehow controlled the reality by changing the mood I was in. At the same time all inhibitors were gone. A part of the feeling I had I can relate to a movie "A beautiful mind". That part of it that scares the uninformed viewer. So after regulating my treatment, my state become good enough for my parents to send me to the psychologist. Too bad she passed a few years latter. RIP. I mean she was top class. I had about 7-8 90-minutes sessions until my state became a-well-functioning-member-of-society again. My family's support was unprecendented. After a few more months I satrted team gaming heavily. After a year more my psychiatrist removed my therapy alltogether. After 1 more year I returned to church (other one) to youth choir and never had this thing again. The main thing that kept me alive and sane through my darkest hours was thought that I was once happy, and if God existed, he would not let me perish. This was just a hell one has to go through to get to heaven. Sorry for being a little off topic, I just wanted to share what had helped me. Oh, one thing, if you are diagnosed with anxiety and depression, hang in there and talk to somebody. It's not permanent. It passes. I wish you the best. ih

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#162

Post by stretchwithme »

hiram112 wrote: post #109
stretchwithme wrote: post #37

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?

I just turned the light on and kept my eyes open for at least 10 minutes.

Just turning on the light for a moment or looking at the time on your phone is not enough to stimulate the retinal ganglion cells. You have to keep your eyes open for several minutes.

If you consistently do this at a time before you would normally wake up, your clock shifts earlier. You'll wake up earlier even if you don't use an alarm. And you'll get sleepy earlier in the evening too.

Does that provide enough information?

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#163

Post by JasonSage »

homero wrote: post #142
JasonSage wrote: post #121

> Most people’s natural cycle is somewhat longer than the 24-hour solar day, which means that, left to our own devices, we would get quickly get out of sync with the external world. I've always had very bad issues sleeping and waking "on time." In school this led to me regularly missing class and eventually dropping school entirely, and with regular work schedules I hardly ever got good sleep. A little while ago, I m…

Same here, my schedule rotates and it's the only way I stay sane. For example, today I sleep at 6pm and wakeup at 2am. Jobs and relationships are hard tho, how do you deal with relationships especially?

Sorry, I forgot to mention relationships in my other comment!

When it comes to making your own work hours or keeping an unconventional sleep schedule, a lot of people don't have well-formed thoughts or reactions to this (it's pretty uncommon).

In my experience, as a first reaction it is characterized as an extreme version of "staying up late and sleeping through the alarm." Obviously there's a lot of stigma there. Some people will be able to get past this, and some people won't.

I'm perfectly okay keeping this rotating schedule with a partner on a regular schedule, but I can absolutely see how somebody would not be happy with this.

One interesting thing is that my sleep cycle is as fundamental to me as day/night is to folks on a regular schedule. I would say understanding this and being empathetic is essential, and it's probably best if your partner is not just understanding but also appreciative.

My close friends and family range from understanding to appreciative, and I've not had any issues staying in touch or staying friends with these people. They're also willing to compromise and work with me to accommodate my schedule because they understand that it's a very regular and deliberate part of my life.

I had a partner that was very disapproving of me staying up past their sleep time and sleeping through their free hours on occasion, and there was no chance of it working out.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#164

Post by lazyasciiart »

stretchwithme wrote: post #156
Houshalter wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But think of the chaos if every person and business had to implement their own alternative to DST. Every business would change it's hours on a different date, and many wouldn't change their hours at all. Everyone would have to completely change their routines ad hocly. It's nice to have a single standard, and only have to change the clock. If it helps, don't think of clock as a measure of the sun. Think of it as a me…

Why would anyone want to implement their own DST? Why would anyone need to trick themselves by changing their clocks when they can just decide to get up at a different time? And what was going on before DST was invented? Chaos? And where people ignore this idea? Is it chaos there?

This is an argument against DST, not clocks.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#165

Post by lazyasciiart »

aethos wrote: post #94
zippergz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me as well. Sometimes I go through periods where I stay up too late, and I almost always end up feeling depressed after a few days of it.

I think it's a matter of degree. If you usually sleep 7 hours a night, and you're only getting 4, then you will feel tired grumpy and sad. But if you stay up all night, you may start to feel euphoric and energetic. Of course, you'll need a good long sleep the next day or so.

According to the article, this is the case for slightly over 50% of people. Hardly good enough odds to suggest that someone who doesn't experience this is just 'doing it wrong'.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#167

Post by peterburkimsher »

Sleep deprivation amplifies my emotions. The highs become higher, and the lows are lower. Like an op-amp.

Prayer and music helps to cope with the lows. Like a diode.

Sleeping less to wake up early and pray before work has had a huge emotional benefit. It's like an half-wave rectifier.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#168

Post by 392c91e8165b »

Sleep deprivation would be a bad idea for me because sleep helps the immune system, and my immune system needs all the help it can get (because of my chronic infectious disease).

I have found however that _listening to music_ during sleep will prevent my sleeping a lot from having a depressant effect on my mood. I recommend avoiding music contain exciting or bracing passages; you don't want your sympathetic nervous system to become active during sleep.

If I learn something that I want to retain, then I don't listen to music that night, because the same process (REM sleep?) that tends to depress the mood also helps with the consolidation of new learnings and new skills.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#169

Post by stretchwithme »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #164
stretchwithme wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone want to implement their own DST? Why would anyone need to trick themselves by changing their clocks when they can just decide to get up at a different time? And what was going on before DST was invented? Chaos? And where people ignore this idea? Is it chaos there?

This is an argument against DST, not clocks.

That's right. I was referring to how clocks are used by DST to change our behavior. I wasn't arguing against clocks.

Re: Can sleep deprivation cure depression?

#170

Post by fusillijerry89 »

Kluny wrote: post #77
stretchwithme wrote: post #37

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…

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…

Sorry man but I have to butt in here.

The culture of hacker news-type thinking can be very toxic and lead to such thoughts as "I just wish there was a better way to figure out your deficiency than just popping some pills and wait to see what happens. A weekly blood test for vitamin levels combined with mood and health journaling would probably give me the kind of data I'm looking for, but that only seems to be available in science fiction so far."

Notice how you are trying to find a solution based around technology. Why does the solution have to involve technology? I think hanging around on forums like this, or with engineers to often can blind us to solutions which don't require engineering.

If all we have is hammer then nails nails everywhere!!

We're all guilty of it. Let's just be aware of it when it happens and move on.

Ready for the solution? It's very simple but tough to follow through with : Radically Change your diet.

Eat plants mostly, eat within a time window (don't allow yourself to oversnack, etc.), don't eat shit, not even a little bit, cut it out 100%. Be extreme, this is the experimentation phase. Later you can be less extreme, but let's see how much a radical change to the diet will affect the body.

This isn't a guarantee to fix vitamin deficiencies, but I will gladly bet that it will sure help a hell of a lot.

Finally, I would like to add that another trap that we all fall into is trying to optimize a system by changing one thing at a time. Firstly, this doesn't actually work. Secondly, this is extremely slooooowww.

If we want to experience change fast we have to be radical about changing our habits. If I am experimenting with anything in my life it's a good idea to try all sorts of different stuff. Diversify my experiments. Explore. If you are having vitamin deficiency issues and are not setting yourself up to be in the position to explore and experiment with diet, then you will have to wait for luck to come along before your issue can find itself a solution.

Again, hopefully I don't sound like an ass, I am just trying to help, given that I make the same mistake a lot in my own life, and have screwed myself over too much to not try and speak up a bit on the subject.

Feel free to be angry with me :) :(

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