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What does this mean in the context of depression? Sleep deprivation is a method to treat depression for a short time until medication kicks in. In addition in t

What does this mean in the context of depression? Sleep deprivation is a method to treat depression for a short time until medication kicks in. In addition in the former melancholic depression there is a recognized pattern of mood improvement over the course of the day.

Detrytus 3y ago
Well, if the lack of sleep decreases your cognitive performance, then maybe it treats depression because being sleep-deprived you start to forget how much your life sucks? Or in general, you have less mental energy, so you do less thinking, including negative thinking?
- autofunctor 3y ago
  thx. you seem to have pointed out my vicious cycle. it seems... i will wake up before i become conscious aware of how my life sucks... like waking up before having a nightmare. i will then be too lazy to be productive, waste my dopamine into thoughts about others... and then i will not have any good feeling of relieve and success (due to reaching my goals) when going to bed. (i suffer badly from bed-time-procrastination and insomnia.) the exit strategy would then imply that i would replace all those daily routines and useless habits that i would end up keeping to have further down that spiral. i should instead do the things that i procrastinate due to the excuse they do not seem urgent enough... replacing the useless with the not-urgent. that way i influence what my brain digests during my sleep. the sleep-deprivation relaxes me to not judge my useless habits, but now that i know that, i can see myself from a different perspective, judge/plan differently what i will do next, take control... i'm gonna try that now. :)
nacho-daddy 3y ago
Perhaps depression (and by extension other mental health disorders) are a vector away from criticality in a different direction than the one that is refreshed by sleeping. Sum of vectors may partially cancel when depressed and sleep deprived. Needs more study.

Detrytus 3y ago

Well, if the lack of sleep decreases your cognitive performance, then maybe it treats depression because being sleep-deprived you start to forget how much your life sucks? Or in general, you have less mental energy, so you do less thinking, including negative thinking?

autofunctor 3y ago
thx. you seem to have pointed out my vicious cycle. it seems... i will wake up before i become conscious aware of how my life sucks... like waking up before having a nightmare. i will then be too lazy to be productive, waste my dopamine into thoughts about others... and then i will not have any good feeling of relieve and success (due to reaching my goals) when going to bed. (i suffer badly from bed-time-procrastination and insomnia.) the exit strategy would then imply that i would replace all those daily routines and useless habits that i would end up keeping to have further down that spiral. i should instead do the things that i procrastinate due to the excuse they do not seem urgent enough... replacing the useless with the not-urgent. that way i influence what my brain digests during my sleep. the sleep-deprivation relaxes me to not judge my useless habits, but now that i know that, i can see myself from a different perspective, judge/plan differently what i will do next, take control... i'm gonna try that now. :)

nacho-daddy 3y ago

Perhaps depression (and by extension other mental health disorders) are a vector away from criticality in a different direction than the one that is refreshed by sleeping. Sum of vectors may partially cancel when depressed and sleep deprived. Needs more study.