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Can staying awake beat depression?
- thecortado 9y agoWhat about people who have depression and get insomnia because of it?
- petercooper 9y agoIt's all about circadian rhythm disruption, a key feature of many types of depression. This can result in both hypersomnia and hyposomnia.
- Evgeniuz 9y agoMaybe this is natural defense mechanism? Body tries to alleviate symptoms of depression by sleep deprivation :)
- kyleschiller 9y ago"once you go to sleep and catch up on those missed hours of sleep, you’ll have a 95% chance of relapse." Unless you plan on spending the rest of your life severely sleep deprived, this doesn't seem like a great solution.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- scythe 9y agoThere's a danger in tabbing back to the comments page after the third paragraph. A few paragraphs lower, you would have seen this: >So he and his colleagues turned to the scientific literature for ideas. A handful of American studies had suggested that lithium might prolong the effect of sleep deprivation, so they investigated that. They found that 65% of patients taking lithium showed a sustained response to sleep deprivation when assessed after three months, compared to just 10% of those not taking the drug.
- blueprint 9y agowow that's so much better
- hateduser2 9y agoSustained sleep deprivation by lithium doesn’t sound any better than sleep deprivation by literal lack of sleep.
- aidenn0 9y agotoo bad lithium is such a hard drug to administer (it's psychoactive at doses very close to harmful doses, so usually there needs to be monitoring of the levels of lithium in the blood)
- mislankanova 9y agoLong term use of lithium may also lead to kidney problems[1][2]. Monitoring of kidney function is also needed over a long time[3]. [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25735990/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25735990/ [2]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0085253815326089 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S008525381... [3]https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/bipolar-disorder/treatment/#lithium-carbonate https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/bipolar-disorder/treatment/#li...
- noir_lord 9y agoMy mother has bipolar and takes lithium, it's scary stuff, the effective dose is so close to the toxicity dose that she has has to get her bloods checked every couple of weeks. The stuff works for her though, well enough that she sometimes feels she doesn't need it because she's OK, historically things have gone bad when that happens. Scary disease especially as they still unsure of the cause, we took part in a medical study 20ish years ago as they wanted siblings with a parent with bipolar so they could look for genetic causes/pre-dispositions.
- kaffeemitsahne 9y agoSounds like: - induce mania by sleep deprivation - take lithium to counteract the mania
- matt4077 9y ago5% not relapsing is actually more than I would have expected, and an astonishingly high success rate for an intervention as easy as sleep deprivation. There's also the hope of a sort of "learning effect": Chronically depressed people sometimes don't even know/remember the experience of normal or positive mood. Even short-lived fixes could allow them to find a way to better cope with the disease.
- andrewfromx 9y agoI've often wonder what the world record for a human is. Are their competitions? Like can you be the best at staying awake for > 2 weeks?
- FeteCommuniste 9y agoThe official record is only a bit over 11 days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_(record_holder) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_(record_holder)
- wlesieutre 9y ago> Randy Gardner (born August 7, 1949) is the holder of the scientifically documented record for the longest a human has intentionally gone without sleep not using stimulants of any kind. In 1964, Gardner, a high school student in San Diego, California, stayed awake for 264.4 hours (11 days 25 minutes). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_(record_holder) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_(record_holder) The article mentions longer records but they aren't so well documented.
- aidenn0 9y agoI wonder if there are longer records using drugs like modafinil; I know that the USAF used modafinil to offset losses to mental acuity for wakefulness on the order of 48 hours.
- randomfinn 9y agoRandy Gardner was on the Hidden Brain podcast last November. It's a good listen with plenty of reasons to always try to get enough sleep. https://www.npr.org/2017/11/06/562305141/eleven-days-without-sleep-the-haunting-effects-of-a-record-breaking-stunt https://www.npr.org/2017/11/06/562305141/eleven-days-without...
- sp332 9y agoSleep deprivation can have long-term cumulative effects. If you're not doing it for a good medical reason, it's probably a bad idea for your health.
- maxxxxx 9y agoInteresting. For me being sleep deprived is the number one way to get depression. Especially if it goes on for a few days.
- soared 9y ago2-4am used to be pure hell for me.
- juol 9y agoYep. After being on various prescribed drugs over the years i've settled on one. 25mg of Quetiapine at night when needed to knock myself out. Not being able to get to sleep - when i'm actually tired - and my brain spinning and running loops is not good for me.
- lazerpants 9y agoOut of curiosity (not judging), is your doc okay with that and did they prescribe it that way? I've never heard of quetiapine being prescribed on an as-needed basis.
- juol 9y agoYeah the prescription is PRN which means as needed i think. As well as helping me sleep it helps a bit taking the edge off some other issues. I've got a good relationship with my doc and he trusts my input. I've got good drug 'insight' apparently.
- tomsthumb 9y agoIME, not going to sleep causes depression.
- Reason077 9y agoThis is my experience too (jet lag, staying up way too late, etc), but I would hesitate to call it "depression" out of respect for those who suffer from the real thing. At least when I'm feeling this way I have the comfort of knowing that I'll feel much better after a good night's sleep.
- mratzloff 9y agoAs a "healthy" person, if I'm feeling overwhelmed or (situationally) depressed I find that I almost always feel better in the morning after a long sleep. It may recur as the day wears on, but sleep is extremely helpful. That makes sense if people with depression experience the opposite effect. What I wonder is if those sleep-deprived individuals are experiencing a semi-manic state. I once had severe insomnia for a period of two weeks, and during that time I slept maybe 0-3 hours per night (typically zero). Early on I experienced manic effects. Toward the end, I felt like I was going completely nuts.
- IntronExon 9y agoSleep deprivation doesn’t make you feel like you’re going nuts, it makes you go nuts. Hallucinations, paranoia, agitation, transient hypnogogic states, memory loss, and eventually psychosis. I’m glad that you pulled through.
- apotheosis 9y agoCan you source? Specifically the "eventual psychosis" part?
- IntronExon 9y agoI can, but it’s not just one source with one clear answer. https://www.uni-bonn.de/Press-releases/sleep-deprivation-leads-to-symptoms-of-schizophrenia https://www.uni-bonn.de/Press-releases/sleep-deprivation-lea... http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/27/9134.short http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/27/9134.short Lighter reading: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-a-lack-of-sleep-cause/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-a-lack-of-sle... https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/how-sleep-deprivation-decays-the-mind-and-body/282395/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/how-sleep... I should admit that there is still some debate around this issue, with key points being: 1. Do people who experience a psychotic break or symptoms during sleep deprivation represent a vulnerable group? 2. Sleep deprivation is often seen in the context of stimulants, from caffeine to methamphetamine, and they are known to potentially lead to psychosis when abused. Personally I’m in the camp who believes that sleep deprivation is more than capable of leading to transient psychosis without preexisting risk factors. The problem is that long term sleep deprivstion studies can’t be done for ethical reasons, so it’s hard to know for sure. Ultimately it comes down to a combination of studying more limited sleep deprivation, and evidence gathered in the field over time. It is all highly suggestive though.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- InclinedPlane 9y agoThis seems like really bad advice on several fronts. For one, sleep deprivation has severe negative side-effects and is implicated in long term decline of overall health. For another, this is a big risk for people with bipolar, many of whom are unaware of that fact and may think they only have depression. Aggressive sleep deprivation can trigger a psychotic break in people who are susceptible, which is a shockingly high percentage of the population, especially along with other factors like stress and certain kinds of (very common) drug use. That's something you generally want to avoid at all costs.
- freeflight 9y ago> For another, this is a big risk for people with bipolar, many of whom are unaware of that fact and may think they only have depression. Imho this is the biggest issue with this whole complex of psychology. I've struggled with mental issues for pretty much my whole life, in my teens, it was considered "clinical depression", a couple of years later it was supposedly something along the lines of ADHS or maybe I'm somewhere on the spectrum, another couple of years later it's either borderline or bipolar, depending what doctor you ask. It's just a frustrating situation to be in because it feels like the diagnoses wholly depend on what doctor you ask, what mood they are in, how well you vibe with them on a personal level, or what literature they've read recently. In the end, it all feels like "professionals" who are mostly just wild-guessing around and on the basis of said wild-guess start suggesting some pretty drastic medication. At this point, I've pretty much given up on getting a "solid diagnosis", it all just feels way too arbitrary which is not at all helpful to my self-perception and my trust in medical institutions.
- InclinedPlane 9y agoYep. When you start digging into mental health you realize that we're at a very primitive level of understanding of it, in almost every aspect. For one there's this sort of broken model of untainted perfect neurotypicality that is the gold standard and any deviation from that is a disease or a disorder. For another there's a very poor understanding of what different classes of symptoms actually represent in underlying physiology and how they are related. Many times things are described as being "comorbid" when in reality they are just different expressions of the same underlying biology or psychology. Also there's a huge role that culture, education, and so forth play into these things. In general I'd say the best tactic is to learn as much as you can yourself (while remembering to be honest with yourself) and pursue general purpose coping strategies across the board (for example, mindfulness based cognitive therapy).
- tinix 9y agostaying awake for extended periods leads to a manic state. sure, it beats depression, but it's not necessarily a good way to persist either. indeed, a blurb in the article mentions this, only once... > Particularly for anyone who has bipolar disorder, there’s a risk of it triggering a switch into mania – although in his experience, the risk is smaller than that posed by taking antidepressants. i don't think that's necessarily true only for those with bipolar disorder though, anyone sleep deprived long enough will end up in a manic state. perhaps some are more susceptible to it than others, or others may be more adept at navigating that headspace, than many. i find some of my most productive hours are late at night, after i've been awake for a while... for one there are less distractions from everyone else, but primarily, it's much easier to get into that "zone" when the brain is tired. or maybe it's just a honing of focus over time, and sleep resets that ability and all the short-term memory that has been built up during the day. shrug
- B1narySunset 9y agoNot depression, but I notice that I have less social anxiety when sleep deprived.
- sbinthree 9y agoI notice this but with inhibition. I find I do different kinds of coding, more creative and less rigid, when I have less inhibition. Good sleep is good for rigid code, bad sleep is good for creative problem solving and inhibition. I tend to be better on the phone on <6 hours of sleep as well. I think getting a full night's sleep leads to my prefrontax cortex functioning properly, which I find makes me rigid and anxious with all the threads I follow and things I predict. Without a good sleep, that is significantly inhibited, making it easier to go with the flow, on a call or writing code.
- xen2xen1 9y agoSleep deprivation increases serotonin and dopamine directly. Of course it helps with depression.
- jbradach 9y agoI've felt that semi-manic state you're referencing when I haven't been sleeping. Several nights lately I've been in bed awake until 5:00 or so when I doze off (only to get up at 6 for work). In these situations, I've felt great considering my lack of sleep. In the long run, lack of sleep (for me) results in depression. I'm probably not normal. I take three antidepressants and an anxiolytic.
- nabla9 9y agoAs the article says, sleep deprivation has been used to treat depression for years. It has been used in inpatient care because it often has immediate short term effects and provides relief before the medication kicks in. The attempt to use chronotherapy as a long term treatment seems to be a new development. The problem with depression is that it easily becomes "trashbin diagnosis" trough diagnosis of exclusion. Depression symptoms are common with many physical and mental problems. After other options are excluded, what is left is depression diagnosis. It's possible that there are people suffering from depression where the root cause is malfunctioning circadian system. This research direction might end up with real cure for them. For others suffering from clinical depression chronotherapy might ease the symptoms and help with other treatments.
- richard___ 9y agoNot sleeping induces a state of mania - temporary frenzied relation. So if you're depressed, you'll temporarily feel better the next day, but the relapse comes soon after.
- zdragnar 9y agoStrange, I've always found that sleep deprivation decreases my ability to handle stress, increasing the effect of depression. Even now that I'm stable, it sends me into a blue funk the next day or the day after.
- shironineja 9y agoHmm what could people do while trying to stay awake? I know how about some light exercise dancing to some music you enjoy or even don't enjoy but rather go out just to learn about it. Maybe there are other anti-depression techniques out there as well? https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/14/how-a-party-drug-could-become-the-next-big-antidepression-treatment.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/14/how-a-party-drug-could-becom...
- DyslexicAtheist 9y agoit works but not when it becomes routine IMO. pulling 1 or 2 all nighters in a row, gives kind of a once in a while snap-out of it effect. I have no proof other than this worked for me in practice only in the decade and half that I suffered from it.
- somberi 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_therapy
- twobyfour 9y agoYeah, except the effect only lasts past the next good night's sleep for 5% of patients. And I can't speak for about anyone else, but having experienced moderate depression, I'd rather be depressed than chronically sleep deprived.