It has been known for quite a while that if a person is in a prolonged depressed mood state, simply shortening that person's periods of sleep (usually by getting the person up earlier, to bright light) can do a lot to boost the person's mood state.
On the other hand, for the many people who have bipolar mood disorders (so that they have abnormally elevated mood as well as abnormally depressed mood not related to immediate events in the people's lives), sleep deprivation can be dangerous, as it can trigger mania. Severe sleep deprivation can result in all the psychotic symptoms of florid mania even for most people without a medical history of mood disorders, and it is particularly dangerous for people who have already been through an episode of mania. So as other people here have already commented, regularity of sleep (sleep while it's dark, and get up while it's day) is helpful for mood disorders, up or down, and sleep deprivation by itself will not be a cure-all for all cases of depression.
AFTER EDIT: I appreciate HN participant falcolas reminding all of us, in a first reply to this comment, that the submitted article is about an animal model of a proposed drug treatment that may have some of the effects of sleep deprivation without having other effects. Yes, that is what the article is about, and I acknowledged that even after reading the article, the first part of this comment's text (above) had as much to do with other comments here as it had to do with the actual article, maybe more. That said, as investigation of new drug treatments moves from animal models to human clinical trials, the thing to look for in any drug proposed to treat "depression" (depressed mood) is whether it might trigger mania (elevated mood) in the patient receiving the treatment. It's tough to develop an animal model of the psychotic symptoms of mania, which is why this is not an easy problem to solve--how to develop a drug that makes depressed patients enjoy normal mood states without breaking through to florid mania.
"This finding points to a promising target for new drug development because it suggests that mimicking sleep deprivation chemically may offer the antidepressant benefits without the unwanted side effects of actually skipping sleep."
So no, they aren't recommending sleep deprivation as a method to combat depression. It has, however, given them other lines of research to follow.
Interesting. I've never had any damn idea what's definitely up with my brain, but I've experienced depression before. OTOH, I spend most of my actual life alternating between the managed hot-blooded mania I call normality and the managed lethargy of sleep-deprivation.
I actually have to semi-plan my workweek based on when I wake up each day and how much sleep I get, because only on days I've actually slept do I have the mood to deal with people or the energy and concentration to properly get anything done.
Caffeine works by blocking adenosine receptors. If build up of adenosine can alleviate depression, can its opposite cause or aggravate depression? Is my coffee making me sad?
You may already know this but generally it is contraindicated to prescribe antidepressants in bipolar (manic-depressive illness) because of the risk of triggering mania. Contra-indicated, but not unknown.
Bipolar and depression are, of course, very different illnesses.
As an aside, this basic research (binding adenosine receptors) is interestingly at odds with the very interesting drug modafinil which partially works by increasing reuptake/clearing adenosine from the brain, which has been thought to be responsible for its wakefulness promoting and antidepressant effects
It's been known for quite some time now, centuries, maybe millenia, among people practicing intensive meditation (monks, basically) in many different cultures and religion, that mild sleep deprivation (really, just keeping sleep at a minimum without impairing normal functioning) acts as a safeguard against depressed mood.
It's a constant advice in many different schools of meditation: "don't sleep too much, keep your sleep duration at a minimum, wake up early, and meditate".
bi-polar mood disorders tend to be quite different to depression. The medication for BPD is very different - putting someone on regular anti-depressants if they're bipolar would be a bad idea.
Anecdotally I can definitely say my depression seems to get worse when I'm sleeping more and it almost becomes a feedback loop because I want to sleep more therefore making it even worse. It might also have something to do with a sense of productivity feeding back into the depression but that's a different story. Ultimately this makes me want to do a better job of recording sleep patterns and seeing if that correlates with my depression. Anyone suggest using a tool like fitbit for this purpose?
"It might also have something to do with a sense of productivity feeding back into the depression but that's a different story."
I don't suffer from depression but FWIW I have noticed lack of productivity leading to a down mood in the same way simply accomplishing something (even getting the room cleaned up) can lead to an up mood.
I would go for a Jawbone Up if your using it mainly for sleep tracking. The sleep tracking on a fitbit is a bit of a hassle since you have to get it out and put it in its own separate arm band.
Potentially pointless anecdote: I've noticed sleep deprivation narrows my capacity for attention - to make an analogy with sight, it's like tunnel vision. As long as I have something to hold what's left of my attention span (e.g, work), I can't help but live in the moment, as I can't focus on (or even perceive, really) depressive thoughts at the same time.
My theory is that before going to sleep different parts of the brain shut down not in one single moment, but at different moments. Therefore before sleep some parts of the brain is already sleeping. That would explain why so often ideas that seem good before sleep look silly when you wake up. As in this case, maybe before sleep parts of the brain that produce depression shut down sooner and "temporarily cures" the depression.
At face value, it seems like this flies in the face of the commonly-held wisdom that regular patterns of sleep (as well as eating and other habits) help minimize depression over time. It seems like the research is actually referring to the short-term effect of sleep deprivation on brain chemistry, which makes sense in an evolutionary sense. Maintaining alertness in the face of sleep probably has a hard-wired association at quite a deep level with self-preservation, and I can see how that would explain in some way these findings.
Checked because I remember hearing about the somewhat horrific forced swim test. Idea is mice are trapped in a container fall of water; depression is when they give up and let themselves drown.
Being depressed made me sleep less, which in turns made me feel even less powerless and my depression got even worse... at least in my personal experience
The Hines article that this article is written about is open access, and worth a read, especially because the Introduction and Discussion sections look to be fairly comprehensible for people outside the field:
I have noticed this myself - I'm unemployed and frequently go to job interviews. If I slept badly, I'm much more calm and easy going. I may not be the sharpest knife in the shed when it happens, but I no longer care.
But I avoid sleep deprivation. It can't be good in the long run.
I have bought 1 year ago Zeo product and since than I have noticed that if I sleep more than 6h30 hours than I am tired and feel more depressed. With over 10 months result, I have DEEP sleep only in the first 2 hours of sleep, then I am moving between REM and light the rest of the night. I guess that, for me, too mush REM is making me more tired.
Could it be that you are not using the SmartWake feature or are waking up in the middle of a REM cycle? That does bad things to your alertness and how you feel.
I've seen studies where college students were shown a series of images. The sleep deprived students were more likely to recall the negative images. Focusing on the negative appears to be a hallmark of depression.
However, a depressed person can't seem to get enough sleep. Is it a snowball effect? Maybe the balance isn't about sleep deprivation, but finding the correct amount of sleep, waking to bright light, and keeping a consistent schedule.
> However, a depressed person can't seem to get enough sleep.
This has not been my experience. If you mean that a depressed person continues to be tired after waking up from a full night's sleep, then sure, but that's not sleep deprivation.
It's important to note that the studies show that the short term effects of sleep deprivation can reduce the symptoms of depression. The long term effects are the opposite and being chronically sleep deprived can aggravate and severely worsen someone who is suffering from depression.
Personal experience, I'd agree. If I stay up all night and then do not go to sleep, I'm more likely to enter a manic mode and continue to get little sleep for the next few days. But things usually crash not too long after.
Not necessarily. They say it works 70% of the time.
I'm a Bayesian, and looking at the posts here, I'd say the probability distribution of this probability is beta(5,2). The HDR runs from around 40 to 97 percent and it peaks around 0.8 so what you and the other guys are saying, plus a non-informative prior, agrees with what they say.
You're just one of the unlucky beta(2,5). Too bad.
Acute sleep deprivation can apparently make depression better, but the effect only lasts until you go to sleep. That's what this article is about. Chronic sleep deprivation is very different and can cause depression.
This article is not describing a treatment, just progress in understanding a mental illness.
> this is complete bullshit. Lack of sleep makes (my) depression worse.
Science isn't usually about the experiences of individuals, it's about the experiences of populations. This effect isn't true for each individual in the population.
Well, it makes mine better. Shall we continue with battle-of-the-anecdotes, or maybe permit science to continue doing its thing with the understanding that statistical results apply statistically?
[+] [-] tokenadult|13 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/Manic-Depressive-Illness-Disorders-Rec...
It has been known for quite a while that if a person is in a prolonged depressed mood state, simply shortening that person's periods of sleep (usually by getting the person up earlier, to bright light) can do a lot to boost the person's mood state.
On the other hand, for the many people who have bipolar mood disorders (so that they have abnormally elevated mood as well as abnormally depressed mood not related to immediate events in the people's lives), sleep deprivation can be dangerous, as it can trigger mania. Severe sleep deprivation can result in all the psychotic symptoms of florid mania even for most people without a medical history of mood disorders, and it is particularly dangerous for people who have already been through an episode of mania. So as other people here have already commented, regularity of sleep (sleep while it's dark, and get up while it's day) is helpful for mood disorders, up or down, and sleep deprivation by itself will not be a cure-all for all cases of depression.
AFTER EDIT: I appreciate HN participant falcolas reminding all of us, in a first reply to this comment, that the submitted article is about an animal model of a proposed drug treatment that may have some of the effects of sleep deprivation without having other effects. Yes, that is what the article is about, and I acknowledged that even after reading the article, the first part of this comment's text (above) had as much to do with other comments here as it had to do with the actual article, maybe more. That said, as investigation of new drug treatments moves from animal models to human clinical trials, the thing to look for in any drug proposed to treat "depression" (depressed mood) is whether it might trigger mania (elevated mood) in the patient receiving the treatment. It's tough to develop an animal model of the psychotic symptoms of mania, which is why this is not an easy problem to solve--how to develop a drug that makes depressed patients enjoy normal mood states without breaking through to florid mania.
[+] [-] falcolas|13 years ago|reply
"This finding points to a promising target for new drug development because it suggests that mimicking sleep deprivation chemically may offer the antidepressant benefits without the unwanted side effects of actually skipping sleep."
So no, they aren't recommending sleep deprivation as a method to combat depression. It has, however, given them other lines of research to follow.
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|13 years ago|reply
I actually have to semi-plan my workweek based on when I wake up each day and how much sleep I get, because only on days I've actually slept do I have the mood to deal with people or the energy and concentration to properly get anything done.
[+] [-] hammock|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robbiep|13 years ago|reply
You may already know this but generally it is contraindicated to prescribe antidepressants in bipolar (manic-depressive illness) because of the risk of triggering mania. Contra-indicated, but not unknown.
Bipolar and depression are, of course, very different illnesses.
As an aside, this basic research (binding adenosine receptors) is interestingly at odds with the very interesting drug modafinil which partially works by increasing reuptake/clearing adenosine from the brain, which has been thought to be responsible for its wakefulness promoting and antidepressant effects
Thought you would find that interesting
[+] [-] Florin_Andrei|13 years ago|reply
It's a constant advice in many different schools of meditation: "don't sleep too much, keep your sleep duration at a minimum, wake up early, and meditate".
[+] [-] DanBC|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmutty|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] larrys|13 years ago|reply
I don't suffer from depression but FWIW I have noticed lack of productivity leading to a down mood in the same way simply accomplishing something (even getting the room cleaned up) can lead to an up mood.
[+] [-] scorcher|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deweerdt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wonnage|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cLeEOGPw|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdmitch|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bjoernw|13 years ago|reply
Does anyone know how we measure moods in mice? At first glance it seems like a very subjective exercise.
[+] [-] dodo53|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_models_of_depression#Des...
[+] [-] gdonelli|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silverbax88|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonymous|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] criswell|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whattabow|13 years ago|reply
http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v3/n1/full/tp2012136a.html
[+] [-] b0rsuk|13 years ago|reply
But I avoid sleep deprivation. It can't be good in the long run.
[+] [-] daok|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gwern|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrtksn|13 years ago|reply
Myself and a friend of mine suffer from depression and we both feel much better when we are somewhat tired late in the night.
Anecdotal evidence was there, so we both used to get things done just before sleep.
[+] [-] rmdoss|13 years ago|reply
But I guess being busy and active can move your mind off from depression and make things better for some.
[+] [-] BIair|13 years ago|reply
However, a depressed person can't seem to get enough sleep. Is it a snowball effect? Maybe the balance isn't about sleep deprivation, but finding the correct amount of sleep, waking to bright light, and keeping a consistent schedule.
[+] [-] saraid216|13 years ago|reply
This has not been my experience. If you mean that a depressed person continues to be tired after waking up from a full night's sleep, then sure, but that's not sleep deprivation.
[+] [-] rzimmerman|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cycojesus|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] MichaelGG|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ziomislaw|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PaulHoule|13 years ago|reply
I'm a Bayesian, and looking at the posts here, I'd say the probability distribution of this probability is beta(5,2). The HDR runs from around 40 to 97 percent and it peaks around 0.8 so what you and the other guys are saying, plus a non-informative prior, agrees with what they say.
You're just one of the unlucky beta(2,5). Too bad.
[+] [-] acomar|13 years ago|reply
This article is not describing a treatment, just progress in understanding a mental illness.
[+] [-] lutusp|13 years ago|reply
Science isn't usually about the experiences of individuals, it's about the experiences of populations. This effect isn't true for each individual in the population.
[+] [-] fusiongyro|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daok|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyro|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmutty|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silverbax88|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JackFr|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hasenj|13 years ago|reply
But the next day you will wake up in a bad mood from not sleeping well.
At least this is what happens to me.
So in general it's a bad idea.
On the other hand, I've found that if I sleep for too long I also get a bad mood the next day.
8 hours of sleep seems to be the sweet spot that puts me in a decent mood.
[+] [-] ttrreeww|13 years ago|reply