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One sleepless night can rapidly reverse depression for several days in mice

news.northwestern.edu

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Re: One sleepless night can rapidly reverse depression for several days in mice

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a side note for anyone reading: you can get an SSRI prescription from your GP (general practitioner i.e. normal doctor) you don’t need to go through a psychiatrist. This is especially true if you are at risk for withdrawal, they will want to prevent that.

any medical doctor of any specialization can legally prescribe anything. that doesn't make it a good idea. a piece of supporting evidence is that the doctor's malpractice insurance may not cover any "cowboy" prescribing tendencies.

That’s fair. But I’ll note that the “General” in “General Practitioner” means they specialize in the wide range of health problems that occur frequently in the general population. That includes things like depression, anxiety, ADHD, etc.

I wouldn’t advocate you get a prescription for antipsychotics from your orthopedist, but SSRIs from a GP is probably pretty safe.

Obviously, it depends on the doctor and the symptoms. But a good GP will also refer you out to a specialist when needed. That’s a big part of their job: assessing when to call in a specialist.

Re: One sleepless night can rapidly reverse depression for several days in mice

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why don't you try it and see? I feel great after a few beers, but keeping that state is a very bad idea. "try it and see" is not a great idea when it comes to your brain.

I don't think you build up a "Beer Debt" that grows as it depletes like sleep and hunger. Cute wrong example but there's really nothing all that malevolent or irresponsible about the suggestion. Maybe keep it to the weekend (like don't start till Friday/Sat night) and obviously you need the set it up so you don't have to be places or hold meaningful convos although Im not going to rule them totally out

> there's really nothing all that malevolent or irresponsible about the suggestion

You are underestimating the impact of sleep deprivation, and the ability for a person to recognize the impacts while sleep deprived.

https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...

"It was concluded that sleep deprivation has a greater impact on driving performance than a BrAC of 22 μg/100mls of breath, as measured by driving simulation. Coffee is not an effective countermeasure for sleep deprived driving and drivers’ ability to judge this impairment is suggested to be limited."

Re: One sleepless night can rapidly reverse depression for several days in mice

#143
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I feel like you exactly identified the long term problem in the same paragraph. I learned years ago that any chemical that helps you sleep ensures that you can't sleep without it. I've used everything from thc to Benadryl to lavender and everything in between. It all had the same effects: slowly degrading effectiveness and sleeplessness without it. Pro-tip: find the source of your insomnia. Is it chemical or is it…

Yeah. I’ve tried. My problem is that 3-4 days of no sleep and I’m just about ready to sign off from this life. I’ve managed with 5mg THC pills for years. Never had to increase the dosage. I’ve never ever slept well. But back before kids it was easier to just sleep in if I had to. As best as I can tell, the cause is my adhd or related. My brain will simply. Not. Stop. Racing.

I was in the same boat with the racing mind at bedtime preventing me from getting much if any sleep. I have been a pretty aggressive exerciser but that only improved things part way. I finally got a prescription for a 50mg dose of Seroquel (https://www.drugs.com/seroquel.html) which i was told is an anti psychotic but at the 'low' dose of 50mg i would only get the 'side effect' of being drowsy. It was a lifesaver (literally). At least for me it got me off the no sleep hamster wheel which made just getting through every day such a challenge because i was tired and groggy. Everything felt very difficult to deal with. I got immediate benefit from taking the generic version of this med nightly. Now not being able to fall asleep or waking up in the middle of the night and not getting back to sleep are anomalies instead of normal. I also try to keep a consistent sleep/wake up time so my body is trained to expect these things to happen at a specific time. Obviously YMMV but for me this was a spring board to a new chapter in my life. I'm not super creative so i just called it 'Chapter 2'.

Re: One sleepless night can rapidly reverse depression for several days in mice

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

any medical doctor of any specialization can legally prescribe anything. that doesn't make it a good idea. a piece of supporting evidence is that the doctor's malpractice insurance may not cover any "cowboy" prescribing tendencies.

GPs routinely prescribe SSRIs. Even pediatricians. At least in the US.

A lot of non-psychiatrist doctors prescribe SSRIs around the world, and that's a very good thing. These drugs are safe.

Re: One sleepless night can rapidly reverse depression for several days in mice

#145
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sort of interesting how your/you're, its/it's, shrimps/softwares and others sort of unconsciously makes what you're reading less authoritative in a 4th wall way.

Not even unconsciously, I stop reading anything I've been reading once I meet one of these. It's disrespectful to the reader to not even check what's the correct spelling of a word you are using, and in my opinion indicates that the writer is not intelligent enough to recognize patterns in text, it really isn't that hard to see how a word is used in the wild. Kind of a hot take

You can't put all people on a scale like that, less intelligent vs more intelligent. Some people are great with letters and words and spot typos quickly, some just don't see it as easily. They can still be very intelligent in other aspects. People are different.

Re: One sleepless night can rapidly reverse depression for several days in mice

#146
Not for me. I think this will vary by person, especially as causes of depression vary and the whole phenomena is not fully understood.

But for me, depression can be bouts of fatigue and lethargy, but also are sometimes accompanied by crippling thoughts off.. well, things that keep me awake. And losing an entire nights sleep like that was not at all helpful. I felt just as bad or worse, only with some additional things related to sleep loss mixed in.

That said, I also know (not from experience) that even in "normal" people, skipping too much sleep can produce minor bouts of mania (where mania can vary from highly unpleasant to highly energetic/productive/euphoric) so it does make sense to me that some depressed patients response positively to it.

Re: One sleepless night can rapidly reverse depression for several days in mice

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I’ve tried. My problem is that 3-4 days of no sleep and I’m just about ready to sign off from this life. I’ve managed with 5mg THC pills for years. Never had to increase the dosage. I’ve never ever slept well. But back before kids it was easier to just sleep in if I had to. As best as I can tell, the cause is my adhd or related. My brain will simply. Not. Stop. Racing.

I highly recommend the podcast Sleep With Me. It’s extremely weird and the guy’s voice isn’t exactly “comforting” the way most sleep-inducing things try to be, but give it a few tries. It’s basically bedtime “stories” that are more like improvised narrative mazes that are just interesting enough to keep your interest (and exhaust your brain) but not interesting or meaningful enough to keep you awake. I went from layi…

> just interesting enough to keep your interest (and exhaust your brain) but not interesting or meaningful enough to keep you awake

Exactly. Back when I read more, I would have books to stimulate (daytime/commute reading) and 'bedtime books', which had to be interesting enough to read, but also effortful and ultimately tiring enough to promote sleep.

Now I do the same with TV shows in Plex, late at night. Unusually, it's the documentaries that stop me sleeping, and the classic US TV shows (that I like) that help me drift away.

Re: One sleepless night can rapidly reverse depression for several days in mice

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why don't you try it and see? I feel great after a few beers, but keeping that state is a very bad idea. "try it and see" is not a great idea when it comes to your brain.

I don't think you build up a "Beer Debt" that grows as it depletes like sleep and hunger. Cute wrong example but there's really nothing all that malevolent or irresponsible about the suggestion. Maybe keep it to the weekend (like don't start till Friday/Sat night) and obviously you need the set it up so you don't have to be places or hold meaningful convos although Im not going to rule them totally out

I have extensive experience with it. I would disagree that there’s nothing irresponsible. I don’t recommend anyone try skipping a night just to see. Blood pressure, heart rate, and glucose levels can easily go to shit and exacerbate underlying any conditions. FWIW it would take me 1-2 weeks after shifting to a polyphasic before seeing any benefits (which makes sense, respective to jet lag). I can easily skip a single night (without stimulants, etc) and run off adrenaline the next day, but the day after sleeping again I’m useless state of sleep-lag-wtf.

Mediocre analogy: something like polyphasic sleep with extremely disciplined sleep-hygiene is like using a stack of high-interest credit cards for the rewards/benefits, but if you make a mistake then there’s a high cost and it’s not really tenable forever. Skipping a night of sleep outright is basically a pay-day loan.

Re: One sleepless night can rapidly reverse depression for several days in mice

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even unconsciously, I stop reading anything I've been reading once I meet one of these. It's disrespectful to the reader to not even check what's the correct spelling of a word you are using, and in my opinion indicates that the writer is not intelligent enough to recognize patterns in text, it really isn't that hard to see how a word is used in the wild. Kind of a hot take

You can't put all people on a scale like that, less intelligent vs more intelligent. Some people are great with letters and words and spot typos quickly, some just don't see it as easily. They can still be very intelligent in other aspects. People are different.

You know, you are right. I agree, but it still drives me nuts seeing this, maybe it's just ignorance? I expect a higher standard from a .edu website
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