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

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

#271
post #52

https://www.reddit.com/r/hangovereffect/ This sub-reddit is dedicated to people who've noticed this effect for ADHD and probably depression as well. Drinking alcohol somehow causes the same 'reversal' of symptoms, either motivation or other mood problems. Lots of discussion as to what causes it - and questions/theories on how to reproduce without alcohol. Alcohol causing sleeplessness, or sleep that's not the usual q…

This is interesting, I have adhd and - other than the headache - I like the doziness that a hangover brings, now that I'm almost 50 though they do tend to be multi-day events so I don't drink as much.

Some people with CFS/ME also report that some symptoms are much better when they are sick with a cold or flu.

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

#272
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…

> any chemical that helps you sleep ensures that you can't sleep without it Except melatonin, because that's what your body natural produces as a signal for sleep.

I’m getting a kick out of how this is the same “because” for every drug that becomes a dependency for the exact same reason

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

#273

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.

I tried this once, Family Doctor actually ended up giving me a dose that was twice the maximum anyone is ever supposed to take. Thankfully the Pharmacist told me that was an extremely bad idea and he just gave me my normal dose and I continued on for a bit. After that was when I ended up cold turkey because I lost my doctor and psychiatrists during a big move and couldn't get a refill at any clinic in the new town. I…

Those drugs you used contains benzodiazepine [1]. It's addictive and if used long, do more harm than helping. I'm glad you get rid of it.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine

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

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems that I'm in the opposite. If I don't get enough sleep I would have noticeable bad mood.

The depression altering effect requires total sleep deprivation, or at least missing most of certain part of the night. Getting 4-6 hours of sleep generally won't do it. You really have to upset the whole system to trigger the effect. Which is also why it's completely unsustainable. More of a novelty and research topic, not an actual treatment.

>More of a novelty and research topic, not an actual treatment.

Sleep deprivation can be legitimately useful in crisis situations. Before the discovery of ketamine as a rapid-acting antidepressant, sleep deprivation was one of the only effective treatment options for an acutely suicidal patient. It doesn't solve anything long-term, but it can at least give the patient a bit of respite from their distress and perhaps engender a little hope.

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

#275
I think this in part drives the depression / mania cycle, At least it did for me.

Staying up coding or working on a project would life my depression, but then I’d go off in the other direction and end up in psychosis as I chased the sleep deprivation high.

Also why concerts, festivals, even cool conferences were so attractive.

That said, it seems possible to leverage this as a tool — certainly more useful than SSRIs, etc. which just punt the issues and tend to make things worse.

As for me, I ultimately healed so called manic psychosis, bipolar, schizoaffective, Anxiety through Transpersonal approaches, psychedelics, gratitude, meditation, nature and learning to regulate my nervous system. Without medications despite what the doctors said was possible.

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

#276

Having suffered from severe depression for over forty years, this reminds me of when I was 17, 18, etc. and suddenly discovered that if I stayed up for two days, the problem went away. So I knew this a very long time ago; but it always seemed to me that, besides smoking, this was just about one of the worst habits you could develop. By my mid-twenties, I had stopped.

I recently was forced off of SSRIs after nearly ten years because I lost my psychiatrist and couldn't get a new one because the waitlists were ridiculous. After 10 years on them, the next 6 months were absolute hell (i legit thought at one point I might go full Joaquin Phoenix in Joker) but I made it through, no small part thanks to my wonderful amazing wife. Rebound depression have been an issue - though in general…

I’ve yet to meet anyone who didn’t eventually do better off the SSRIs and the data supports this as well.

You need to right plan and support, but it’s worth it in my opinion.

Have you tried any trauma work or Transpersonal work?

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

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but now many GP's dismissed the symptoms of women's post-partum depression Weird example given you're arguing against GPs prescribing antidepressants because patients may lie. And I'd like to see someone lying to get SSRIs out of all the possible choices.

I'm arguing that in the US doctors can prescribe all medications regardless of their specialty (because it's true) and that it's not always a good idea, for example if the doctor is not familiar with recognizing the side effects which are outside of his specialty. (because that's also true) Your shrink is not going to prescribe you statins, as an example, but they could. It's important for a GP to recognize depressio…

We are talking about SSRIs here, not highly addictive substances. They're among the most prescribed drugs worldwide, I can guarantee you a GP knows very well how they work. Comparing that to a heart transplant is absurd.

> I'm saying very generic anodyne things, i'm arguing for sober reasonableness

You're saying vague things that are roughly as controversial as "water is wet" when read literally, but are out of place and tone-deaf in the context of above discussion.

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

#278
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sleep quality is super lossless and actually gainful when you compress it by allowing a slight sleep debt to accrue

Are you claiming that 2-3h of sleep is enough or healthy?

There's also sometimes this very strange time dilation that occurs in this 2-3h sleep such that it "feels" much longer and almost impossibly drawn-out psychologically as opposed to the much smaller true anount of time it constitutes

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

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so cynical, but I've suspected that SSRIs are a preferred treatment because it is almost impossible to get off of them. They say "It can take up to a month for it to work" is just a way to make sure dependency is strong enough by that point to make withdrawal unbearable. Many people don't fully understand the concept of withdrawal or chemical dependency, and will think the "medicine" works b…

SSRIs replaced older-generation antidepressants because they're similarly effective and much safer - that's not to say that they don't have side-effects, but they probably won't kill you. TCAs are extremely toxic in overdose (an obvious and serious shortcoming in patients with elevated suicide risk) and MAOIs come with a really difficult set of drug-drug interactions and dietary restrictions. We know from the data th…

I strongly agree with everything you say, but...

> but I've always been slightly sceptical of claims about withdrawal effects of antidepressants.

Even the manufacturers warn against discontinuation effects. See the "If you stop taking venlafaxine" paragraph here: https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/764/pil#gref

The UK NICE has advice about stopping antidepressant meds: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng215 and the UK BNF will mention withdrawal for some meds: https://bnf.nice.org.uk/drugs/venlafaxine/#treatment-cessati...

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has advice about stopping anti-depressants: https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/treatments-and-wellb...

Clearly, it's not a problem that affects everybody, and it's more common with some meds than others, but that doesn't mean these effects are not real.

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

#280
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try buying a quarter pound of CBD hemp and turn it into a small amount of concentrated oil. I want to spread the word, this is the way. The best bang for your buck and highest quality oil you can get, better than most commercially available edible products. I wrote some more info and my process on another comment on here. If your interested, I can write more here too.

I've bought CBD distillate and augmented regular tincture provided by a friend. I used to smoke a lot of weed and can no longer do so (lungs and head have had enough). For actual "head space" it's hard to beat inhaling but one must do what the body needs... I saw your other comment and am intrigued. What do you use to extract with? Ethanol? Glycerine? Link to the tek? As to your other comment about pharma -- I'm a be…

I don't have a link to a tek, as I've combined my findings to make the best quality oil with my current understanding and available technology. It's evolved over the batches and is pretty good I think now. Though you could find something similar on the internet. It does use food grade grain alcohol, close to ethanol.

I start by grinding the flower to small pieces, or use shake which is significantly less expensive and of similar quality, and matters less if your not gonna smoke it.

Next I take 3-3.5 ounces and cook it in the oven. I've tried a few different things. Mason jar or a Pyrex pan. I've done some smaller batches in the past, but now I do 4 ounces at once, a normal size mason jar doesn't usually fit everything. Ive used pickle jars and jalapeno jars which are larger and can fit everything. I heat the oven to 245, and put it in there for an hour, rotating and shaking it every 15 to 20 minutes. Don't cover the jar too tight, as it can explode from pressure. If you use a mason jar, you can use foil with the lid instead of the normal metal cap. I also use a temperature gun on my oven to check on it, many ovens will not be accurate.

I only cook 3 ounces because I keep the rest uncooked to use later. Heating the CBDa will turn it into CBD. You probably won't get everything converted, so there will be a little bit left. You'll keep some of the terpenes if you cover what your heating. Some people believe that the terpenes in cannabis, which give it flavor and taste, can be helpful. Personally, I believe that some of them may be helpful, but some of them are harmful, especially when inhaled. Helpful in the way that they could boost the effects or create strain specific effects.

Now to the uncooked 0.5-1 ounce, I keep that so I can have CBDa and a little THCa. It's commonly thought that you need to heat these acidic cannabinoids to make them useful, but this is not the case. The acidic version like CBDa and THCa have their own effects, such as a much more powerful anti inflammatory effect, stronger anxiolytic effects, and different serotonin effects. I would also like to add that normal CBD is excellent for blood pressure. If your goal is to get high, then youll probably want to turn your THCa into THC. Leaving some uncooked will also make the final product taste very strongly of the original strain, if your into that. There's another cannabinoid called CBGa, which is the precursor to CBD and THC, when the plant is growing it goes from the enzymes it produces, to CBGa, to THCa (or CBDa), the THCa will then degrade into THC, then finally into CBN. You could make your own CBN by heating THC for a long period of time. Another cool thing you could do is convert CBD into D8-THC with citric acid. I'll also note that CBG/a is supposedly good for your gut health, inflammation, and protects your brain. Ive taken higher doses of CBG, and experienced some irritability when taking it, but I can't confirm that it was from that, I'll have to experiment more in the future.

Now onto the next step.

Next I take all of the material in the jar, cooked and uncooked, and cover it with 95% food grain alcohol. I use this because it's safe to consume. I assume I can't get 100% of the solvent out later, and using isopropyl or butane would not be safe to consume. So I cover it, shake it up, and stick it in the freezer. Shaking it every so often. You could leave it in for a few hours or days, you might get a little more out. If you leave it for more than a few minutes, you'll get a lot of chlorophyll, which will make the final product very dark due to how light interacts with it. I put it in the freezer to try and reduce this a little bit, but it probably doesn't help too much, nor does it really bother me.

After letting it soak in the solvent, I take it out and strain it into a bowl using a nut milk bag, then transfer it to a beaker. Now here is where my process can definitely be improved. Currently, I put the beaker in a pot with a small amount of water, to evaporate off the alcohol. This is kind of wasteful, as you lose the alcohol after now. Instead, and in the future, I would like to set up a distillation apparatus so that I can catch all the evaporating alcohol to use again. I just haven't got the equipment yet.

Now you should let all the alcohol be removed from the solution. I keep it at about 120-150 degrees fahrenheit. When it's done, you'll have a small amount of black oil, 15 to 20 grams of pure concentrate. I assume the efficiency is about 85-90% from what we started with. But this isn't all, the oil that is now in the beaker is very thick, it's hard to get it out in its current form. So, take the amount of concentrate you have now, and subtract it from the final amount you want to have. I turn 4 ounces into a 60 ml bottle. Usually I have about 20 grams of concentrate. So Ill use 40 grams here. I have another measuring cup, I fill this with a mixture of MCT oil, grape seed oil, and sunflower lecithin. MCT oil vs grape seed oil is a choice you can make, some people's bodies don't react to MCT oil well (nausea, usually from large doses, 1+ tbsp at once, especially if you've never had it before). I use a combination of all three. The MCT may help with absorption into your body later as well as bind together in the final product better. The sunflower lecithin is an emulsifier, which will help your body absorb it when you take it. Use at least 1/3 sunflower lecithin. These 2 oils also can have positive effects on your health.

Now you take this mixture, and heat it up until it's homogeneous. Then dump that into the existing black oil concentrate while still heating it to dilute it to your desired dosage and overall amount. Carefully shake the beaker in a circlular motion to help mix it in. I estimate that with 4 ounces, you'll get about 250-350mg of cannabinoids per gram in the oil. That range depends on your starting material potency and amount.

Something else to mention is that eating cannabinoids provides a different effect than smoking them. Your body digests and metabolizes them differently. When it comes to THC, which there will be a small but notable amount of, especially if you have no tolerance, your body will turn it into 11-hydroxy-THC. Depending on your genetics and how well you absorb it (some people can't absorb edibles at all), it will be about 5x stronger than the same amount smoked, while lasting longer. If you don't want any THC, make sure what your getting has none or very little in it. Personally, I don't like taking pure THC strains anymore, but the tiny bit that does occur in CBD dominant hemp, does boost the overall effects in good way unless I take too much.

To respond to a few other things you said. Inhaling can have a different head space effect, yes. With that said, eating it does produce a more powerful, sometimes more sedative effect, more psychedelic. The first time I made THC edibles and took them, it felt like the first time I smoked, everything was hilarious and I talked a lot. I also stopped smoking due to my lungs, unfortunately from covid, but I've found now that taking oil is a lot easier to do consistently (primarily CBD), and is much less addictive than smoking (because the act of smoking itself can be addictive), so it feels like less of a "drug".

My other comment about pharma may have come off a little harsh. I do believe there is good, but also bad. Some doctors are more empathetic and understanding, while others are there for their job, don't research outside what they already know, and push what they are told to. To be the best, you must have a genuine interest and desire to know more, maybe even an obsession, with whatever it is. Pharmaceuticals certainly have their place, as not everything can be solved with nature. Though I also believe many drugs produced by pharma are designed to be sold and make money, not to cure and help people, which is a conflict of interest.

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