3 ms·

I think this question is probably misframed. The first-order effects of sleep deprivation are comparable to alcohol intoxication. In so far as that is the case,

I think this question is probably misframed. The first-order effects of sleep deprivation are comparable to alcohol intoxication. In so far as that is the case, a more accurate model for a post-partum mother's mood after a night up is that she's disinhibited. Another model might be the moderately true reality that she just fulfilled her role as she believes it to be: to stay up with that crying baby when needed. Encouraging sleep-deprived young mothers to stay up sounds like uniquely bad advice. There are plenty of pathological mood disorders where part of the syndrome includes periods of elevated mood. That doesn't make it less pathological.

squee 17y ago
This is an intriguing comment, but I'm not sure it's valid in all cases. From my experience, getting up to feed a baby isn't something a woman does to fulfill her role - it's something she does to get sleep. I could not sleep if my baby was crying, or even just restless. My husband could. I could feed the baby; my husband could not. So I was the one who woke up to feed the baby. (Fortunately, feeding him put me right back to sleep, most of the time, due to the drowsiness-inducing effects of oxytocin.) I get the same kind of elevated mood from staying up all night programming or writing, not because it fulfills my role as I believe it to be - though it does, at least when it goes well - but because there is a physiological chain of events that leads to the mood elevation. I'm glad researchers are working on figuring out exactly what that chain of events is, because as a lifelong insomniac, it's a phenomenon I've noticed before, and I've often wished I could bottle it.