
Can sleep deprivation cure depression? - hvo
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/opinion/sunday/can-sleep-deprivation-cure-depression.html
======
JasonSage
> Most people’s natural cycle is somewhat longer than the 24-hour solar day,
> which means that, left to our own devices, we would get quickly get out of
> sync with the external world.

I've always had very bad issues sleeping and waking "on time." In school this
led to me regularly missing class and eventually dropping school entirely, and
with regular work schedules I hardly ever got good sleep.

A little while ago, I made a commitment to myself to sleep when I was tired
and to get up when I was rested. I eased into a schedule where every day I got
up and went to bed about an hour later every day.

This has been my schedule for the past 9 months or so. I sleep 8 to 10 hours
per night. Every night I go to bed about an hour later than the night before.
My schedule rotates about 6-8 hours per week, and about 12-14 hours every two
weeks, meaning I do a complete rotation about once a month.

During this time I've been vastly more productive and happy, I've had many
fewer emotional swings toward anger or sadness, and I'm much more calm and
less anxious in general.

My sleep schedule is easy to adhere to and self-corrects if I ever need to be
up early/late or at a certain time. I even have an easier time making
scheduled meeting times because I'm rested enough to be able to get up early
when I need to.

Interestingly, I'm consistently well-rested and alert with my schedule despite
having zero dependence on the natural sunlight cycle. I think this is because
sunlight has a much smaller effect on me in the morning than computer light
does in the evening.

~~~
Judgmentality
With your sleep schedule constantly shifting, how do you manage day-to-day
activities? You must have a job with very flexible hours for that to work. But
even things like going to the store and seeing a doctor must be slightly more
difficult if you might be asleep from morning to afternoon.

With 9 months of data, how consistently do you shift your schedule by 1 hour
each day? I'd imagine there are fluctuations, but I guess if it's reliable you
could schedule things on certain days.

~~~
JasonSage
I keep my own work hours and schedule my work around deadlines. If I have a
deliverable Friday afternoon and I'm going to sleep in the morning, I have to
get it done Thursday night. The beauty of this for me is that I know what my
productive hours will be and I can work during them, rather than shoving work
into a specific time frame regardless of my circumstances.

Things like going to the store I can do any time of day, pretty much. With
things like doctor visits or work meetings that happen in the daytime, I'll
stay up late or get up early as necessary. I can usually get back "on
schedule" very easily just by going to sleep when I feel tired and getting up
when I'm rested. I'll usually go to bed and get up close to when I usually do
because of where my circadian rhythm is, and even if my schedule moves a few
hours one way or another, that doesn't have a detrimental effect because I'm
so used to the lifestyle.

It's pretty consistent. I used to track it on a sleep app but I've gotten out
of the habit (it's not been necessary). I don't think there's been a month
recently where I haven't completed a full rotation. Back when I was tracking
data, I have graphs of my sleep schedule making a diagonal pattern across the
month. It's very reliable.

~~~
paulryanrogers
How does it work socially?

------
stretchwithme
I don't know about sleep and depression. My Mom was bipolar and the topic
never came up, other than her being up to all hours when she was manic.

But I recently read an interesting article about vitamin D and that lead me to
supplement magnesium and vitamins D, A and K. I only do it once every three
days to be conservative.

    
    
      http://www.precisionnutrition.com/stop-vitamin-d
    

And I've found I'm much more decisive and likely to take action. In fact, last
December I became a morning person using early morning light and exercise.
Instead of getting to the office after 10, I now get in by 8 most days. I keep
to it on weekends too and go to a coffee shop.

I also recently changed my evening routine during the week, cutting out TV and
stopped eating chips after dinner.

For the morning and the evening changes, I devised a routine of things I do
that make doing the hard parts easier. In the morning, I turn the light on,
use the restroom, drink some water, set a timer for ten minutes, relax until
it goes off, exercise, shower, dress and get out the door. I try to stick to
this every day.

~~~
Kluny
I also did some reading about vitamins last year and ended up taking vitamin d
for a while, then magnesium for a while. My method wasn't any more scientific
than that, but the vitamin D had no noticeable effect, while the effect of
magnesium was dramatic. I was suffering from mood swings, poor concentration
and low energy serious enough that I was considering seeing a psychologist
about depression. Magnesium seems to eliminate the problem completely.

I just wish there was a better way to figure out your deficiency than just
popping some pills and wait to see what happens. A weekly blood test for
vitamin levels combined with mood and health journaling would probably give me
the kind of data I'm looking for, but that only seems to be available in
science fiction so far.

~~~
fusillijerry89
Sorry man but I have to butt in here.

The culture of hacker news-type thinking can be very toxic and lead to such
thoughts as "I just wish there was a better way to figure out your deficiency
than just popping some pills and wait to see what happens. A weekly blood test
for vitamin levels combined with mood and health journaling would probably
give me the kind of data I'm looking for, but that only seems to be available
in science fiction so far."

Notice how you are trying to find a solution based around technology. Why does
the solution have to involve technology? I think hanging around on forums like
this, or with engineers to often can blind us to solutions which don't require
engineering.

If all we have is hammer then nails nails everywhere!!

We're all guilty of it. Let's just be aware of it when it happens and move on.

Ready for the solution? It's very simple but tough to follow through with :
Radically Change your diet.

Eat plants mostly, eat within a time window (don't allow yourself to
oversnack, etc.), don't eat shit, not even a little bit, cut it out 100%. Be
extreme, this is the experimentation phase. Later you can be less extreme, but
let's see how much a radical change to the diet will affect the body.

This isn't a guarantee to fix vitamin deficiencies, but I will gladly bet that
it will sure help a hell of a lot.

Finally, I would like to add that another trap that we all fall into is trying
to optimize a system by changing one thing at a time. Firstly, this doesn't
actually work. Secondly, this is extremely slooooowww.

If we want to experience change fast we have to be radical about changing our
habits. If I am experimenting with anything in my life it's a good idea to try
all sorts of different stuff. Diversify my experiments. Explore. If you are
having vitamin deficiency issues and are not setting yourself up to be in the
position to explore and experiment with diet, then you will have to wait for
luck to come along before your issue can find itself a solution.

Again, hopefully I don't sound like an ass, I am just trying to help, given
that I make the same mistake a lot in my own life, and have screwed myself
over too much to not try and speak up a bit on the subject.

Feel free to be angry with me :) :(

~~~
projektir
Please source or argue your claims.

> Why does the solution have to involve technology?

Because technology has the potential to be more powerful than other solutions.

Your suggestion, and the direction of your post in general, sounds like
moralism. Moralistic suggestions have more to do with virtue and privilege
signaling than actual results. I am generally extremely suspicious of any
advice that comes from a moralistic angle because it's noisy and mostly driven
by logic in the nature of "bad things don't happen to people who live
correctly".

Unsurprisingly, the suggestion misses the fact that eating plants is not going
to address something like a Vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D deficiencies, as
far as we currently know, are caused by lack of sunlight and the use of
sunscreen.

------
update
> Tübingen who was hospitalized for depression and claimed that she normally
> kept her symptoms in check by taking all-night bike rides. He subsequently
> demonstrated in a group of depressed patients that a night of complete sleep
> deprivation produced an immediate, significant improvement in mood in about
> 60 percent of the group.

I thought this bit was neat. I'd heard that sleep deprivation can bring on a
feeling of euphoria, and anecdotally, it has worked for me

~~~
pharrington
Your anecdotal experience is far from uncommon. For the article to even imply
this as any sort of cure for depression, though, _massively_ misinterprets the
small amount of research on this.

edit: And as a sibling comment mentioned, we do know that cognition suffers
immensely when sleep-deprived.

~~~
hive_mind
I was thinking maybe the poorer cognition actually _helps_ relieve the
depression. Because a lot of depressives overthink (some past event, etc).

~~~
pharrington
While you are certainly less able to overthink in that state, the euphoria is
a discrete phenomenon. The euphoria and poorer high-level cognition seem not
to be caused by each other (obviously discounting any cyclical feedback
effects once they're both in play), but instead caused by the same process.

~~~
Mouse47
>discrete

'Distinct' you mean?

If only there was a way to get the euphoria without the reduction in function,
huh?

~~~
pharrington
I mean discrete.

------
adamnemecek
I'm hoping that society will adjust to recognize this because it feels like in
certain circles, saying that you need to sleep seems to be seen a weakness.

~~~
mtdewcmu
I think that's part of a near-universal fallacy that conflates good health
with strength of character. In the situation you described, having the ability
to shrug off lack of sleep is a source of pride, as if it was entirely about
willpower; in fact it is more likely related to health.

~~~
maxerickson
There is even a genetic component to it, at least for a small portion of
people.

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetic-
mutation-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetic-mutation-
sleep-less/)

------
roywiggins
I wonder what damage our twice yearly clock changes do. An hour doesn't seem
like much but, giving an entire population a little bit of jet lag
simultaneously has to be bad for us, right?

~~~
transcranial
There are definitely measurable population-level effects, like increased
traffic accidents [1] and heart attacks [2]. And given that its purported
benefits are completely unsubstantiated, it's amazing that DST still exists.

[1]
[https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20140100](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20140100)

[2]
[http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc0807104](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc0807104)

~~~
weaksauce
I wish we would all go on DST and be done with it forever. The extra hour of
usable daylight after work is a net win for societies mental health. We have
farming machines that do the heavy lifting and are mostly automated now
anyway. Unlike when it was enacted, there simply are much fewer farmers.

~~~
joecool1029
Think of the children!!!

EDIT: I should clarify that this is nearly always the argument brought up
against year round DST, so that children during winter go to school with
sunlight in the morning.

~~~
petecox
Spain has this issue. It is in the wrong timezone, which the government
changed in the 1940s. Consequently it stays light until 6:30pm in winter. In
mountainous regions such as Picos de Europa, towns in the valleys do have kids
catching schoolbuses in near darkness at 8:30am. As a traveller I found the
experience surreal. Although, we put the clocks forward an hour leading up to
the 2000 Olympics so construction workers could work longer.

~~~
danieltillett
The 2000 Olympics where held in Sydney :)

~~~
cortesoft
Yeah, the last Olympics in Spain were in 1992 in Barcelona.

------
make3
Thinking of the recent reproducibility crisis in psychology, I'm wondering how
you can prove this without the placebo effect. How does someone try not
sleeping without knowing if they are not sleeping? Or do you compare with
people doing something else that is known to be useless? like a sugar pill.
Thinking about how different colors of placebo in antidepressants have more or
less intense effects, I wonder if the fact that using a placebo so different
from the actual thing makes it pointless.

~~~
pharrington
Obviously the proper starting point isn't comparing to placebo; it's gathering
enough data to develop baseline expected rates of change before altering the
variable you're testing.

------
tabeth
I wonder how much coffee plays into this. I've yet to meet someone who sleeps
consistently more than 8 hours per night who feels the _need_ to drink coffee.

edit: 8 quality hours of sleep, e.g. you wake up and you're not tired.

~~~
Bluestrike2
It depends on how much more than 8 hours we're talking about. Consistently
oversleeping, especially 10+ hours a night, can be indicative of some
potentially serious problems that either already exist or may in the future.
Rather than making someone feel well-rested, it often has the opposite effect:
confusion, lack of energy, sluggishness, etc. due to a poorer quality of sleep
in general.

I'd imagine that self-medicating with lots of caffeine is a pretty natural
response for most people in that situation even though it doesn't actually
solve the problem.

------
failrate
My experience is that sleep deprivation leads me into a manic episode, but any
benefits are outweighed by the inevitable crash. My depression is generally
treated effectively by a rigid sleep schedule and lots of sunlight.

------
3pt14159
My father, brother and I all only need about 5 or 6 hours of sleep. We all
just wake up, no matter when we go to bed or how light or dark the room is at
night or in the morning. I strongly suspect we have that gene that lets you
sleep less, but NYT is indicating that they think I'm depressed based on the
embedded interactive.

I don't feel depressed.

Short of a genomic test, how can one differentiate?

~~~
lj3
Why is there a comment like this on every single HN post lately? Yes, you fall
outside of the fat part of the bell curve. Congrats. What's your point? A
single outlier does not disprove the post.

edited to add: _fat part of the bell curve_ , since being _outside_ of the
bell curve entirely is not what I meant.

~~~
3pt14159
1\. This isn't a _lately_ thing, this type of thing has been happening for the
over eight years I've been here.

2\. Around 1% of people have the gene I'm referring to. Telling them they are
all depressed without bothering to mention the possibility of the gene is
something I'd expect better of the NYT. Just sharing the comment provides
alternate theories to other HN readers that don't feel depressed.

3\. I'm not sure if you read to the end of my comment, but the point is right
there in black and white: "Short of a genomic test, how can one
differentiate?" It isn't just a question for me, it's a question that I'm sure
many people going to the article might have, and it broadens the topic more
generally.

~~~
kolinko
Hear hear.

On the other hand you have people who have messed up sleep due to genetics,
and this causes depression. And people who could sleep all the time and on
schedule and still not feel rested.

The article hurts them all, and you too.

------
iharhajster
My anxiety and depression kicked in in 2006, after several triggers coincided.
Some that I remember now are: dissapointment in my "friends", my inability to
digest some college courses that had been way above my level of comprehension,
falling in love with person A, while person B had fallen in love with me,
alcohol overdose habit, stopping going to Sunday sermons after being
dissapointed with local priest, pressure from my enviornment and myself to be
best at everything I do, and so on. After that day X, I spent a whole week in
bed, and started to behave strange.

So that left my parents no other option, but to eventually take me to
psychiatrist.

When she put me on antidepressants, I started to act even worse. I wrote and
drew on blackboards at college breaks, once asked a profssor in the middle of
his lecture " what is time?", I wrote in my sister's chat while she was afk
and talked nonsence to she's friends, I started to have all sorts of crazy
ideas and I wrote on all walls and furniture in my room.

I can't really know exacly what happened, but my brain started a roller
coaster ride between being uterlly depressed to extreme overthinking and I had
a thought that I somehow controlled the reality by changing the mood I was in.
At the same time all inhibitors were gone. A part of the feeling I had I can
relate to a movie "A beautiful mind". That part of it that scares the
uninformed viewer. So after regulating my treatment, my state become good
enough for my parents to send me to the psychologist. Too bad she passed a few
years latter. RIP. I mean she was top class. I had about 7-8 90-minutes
sessions until my state became a-well-functioning-member-of-society again. My
family's support was unprecendented. After a few more months I satrted team
gaming heavily. After a year more my psychiatrist removed my therapy
alltogether. After 1 more year I returned to church (other one) to youth choir
and never had this thing again. The main thing that kept me alive and sane
through my darkest hours was thought that I was once happy, and if God
existed, he would not let me perish. This was just a hell one has to go
through to get to heaven. Sorry for being a little off topic, I just wanted to
share what had helped me. Oh, one thing, if you are diagnosed with anxiety and
depression, hang in there and talk to somebody. It's not permanent. It passes.
I wish you the best. ih

------
392c91e8165b
Sleep deprivation would be a bad idea for me because sleep helps the immune
system, and my immune system needs all the help it can get (because of my
chronic infectious disease).

I have found however that _listening to music_ during sleep will prevent my
sleeping a lot from having a depressant effect on my mood. I recommend
avoiding music contain exciting or bracing passages; you don't want your
sympathetic nervous system to become active during sleep.

If I learn something that I want to retain, then I don't listen to music that
night, because the same process (REM sleep?) that tends to depress the mood
also helps with the consolidation of new learnings and new skills.

------
ryanmarsh
Que: people who deprive themselves of sleep and then fall into depression
because that's what happens when you don't get enough sleep over a long enough
period

~~~
always_good

        > Que
    

It's 'cue'.
[http://www.dictionary.com/browse/cue](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/cue)

------
mwpmaybe
As an interesting anecdatum, I've noticed that when I binge-sleep, i.e. for
more than 8.5 hours, I feel depressed.

~~~
LordHumungous
Yeah that happens to me too. It's almost like a sleep hangover. Very weird.

------
baus
Jet lag was a major contributing factor to a bipolar episode I had in Brazil
late last year (1), but I will admit to being skeptical of the advice to avoid
sleep.

As much as I love to travel, at this point I have to cognizant of how it
affects my mental health

[https://crisisofthemind.com/fallout-from-an-international-
bi...](https://crisisofthemind.com/fallout-from-an-international-bipolar-
episode-f9e1d9358308)

------
emersonrsantos
This is very interesting. I hope to see treatments that not only uses
melatonin and environmental light, but one that also modifies artificial light
(indoor/computer/phone/TV/etc...) to optimize wellness. Kind of a F.lux of
Things.

~~~
krrrh
One option is wearing blue-blocking sunglasses in the evening. It's cheap, and
I know a couple of people who do it and believe it has helped with sleep.

------
psyc
Seems like curing pain in your foot by hitting your thumb with a hammer.

------
peterburkimsher
Sleep deprivation amplifies my emotions. The highs become higher, and the lows
are lower. Like an op-amp.

Prayer and music helps to cope with the lows. Like a diode.

Sleeping less to wake up early and pray before work has had a huge emotional
benefit. It's like an half-wave rectifier.

------
safeandsound
The New York to Italy example in the article is a bit confusing to me. Seems
that there's about 6 hours difference between Milan and New York, and the
flight itself is 8~9 hours. Leaving New York at 6PM, arrives Milan at 3AM EST,
9AM Milan time. "Instead of shifting you earlier to Italian time, it makes you
feel it’s even later — that the night is over and it’s already morning." Does
the body choose to this because shifting to "already morning" is smaller
difference(6 hours) than "still not night time" (18 hours)?

------
iharhajster
About jet lag and so forth, why not try forget about DST and time zones and
use UTC? There are already people working night shifts and feeding babies :),
everywhere, so we can assume, the number on our watch doesn't correlate to a
certain mood-I-must-be-in-at-this-hour. After all, if we ever leave for
another planet, having single clock for single planet sure shall make
communication easier than having time zones. Somebody always has eye bags.

------
nabla9
Inpatient wake therapy has been used to treat hospitalized patients to
jumpstart the antidepressant. Relapse happens soon after the treatment ends.

------
clbrook
I'm not an expert in either of these areas (VR or depression), but after
reading this I began to wonder if virtual reality could somehow provide a
solution or at least mitigate the effects of a jet lagged traveler and/or a
person suffering from depression by 'normalizing' their circadian rhythm.

------
nlh
The section in the article on jet lag mitigation was extremely confusing --
the author wrote of evening light and morning light but was unclear which time
zone he was referring to.

Can someone explain a bit more clearly? If someone is traveling from SF to
Europe or SF to Asia, when should melatonin and light be used optimally?

~~~
surfmike
Not sure what is optimal, but I find melatonin 30min before the normal bedtime
in a new country helps a lot (3mg day one, 1-2mg days two and three; 3 days
total).

~~~
krrrh
Interesting point here, if you search old HN discussions you can find a
reference, but 200-250ug is the effective dose for melatonin, and larger
amounts have a slightly decreased effect. I know it's never sold this way, but
it's something you might want to experiment with (quartering 1mg pills or
taking a few drops of a 10mg/ml liquid works well here).

------
benevol
If you suffer from depression, you should _thoroughly_ research LSD and then
make your _fully informed_ personal decision.

On the negative side, this substance may become one of the reasons the
pharmaceutical industry _will_ lose recurrent revenues from disappearing
dependency on expensive anti-depressants.

~~~
krrrh
The research on Ketamine as a one-shot cure is very promising too. Microdosing
of LSD or psilocybin also has some interesting anecdsta behind it. There is
definitely a lot of research to be done on these and other psychotropics like
Ayahuasca/DMT, and MDMA. Organizations like MAPS are starting to get this work
done.

------
verulito
Depression is a symptom of sleep apnea, which is essentially sleep
deprivation. In fact, the disease was only uncovered because psychiatrists at
Stanford were noticing that all their depression patients were complaining
about their sleep.

------
imissmyjuno
I always get euphoric during sleep deprivation as well, however even if it is
a "cure" it is not sustainable.

I believe this effect during sleep deprivation is due to dopaminergic
supersensitivity.

------
majorarcher
Too much sleep can also cause depression. I would know I sometimes sleep
during the day and when i wake up i get upset that i did accomplish the things
i wanted to do during the day.

------
nkkollaw
My GF has major depression, and slept 3-4 hours/night for months before she
started taking sleeping pills.

Didn't seem to help with her depression in the slightest.

------
lormayna
For my experience sleep deprivation increase aggressivity and nervousness.

------
WastedSanity
I think it does help, but it can also be really detrimental as well.

------
ringe
No.

------
anigbrowl
I'm sure it works great for some people and very poorly for others. I am
disappointed by this headline though. While the story is interesting, 'can X
CURE depression?!'is basically clickbaity bullshit, and if the NYT is serious
about the value of journalism it should abandon clickbaiting as a strategy,
for two reasons. One, it's _because_ of shullshit headlines like this that
people in general distrust the media in general. Two, people who suffer from
depression are really suffering, and exploiting that (and the suffering of
their caregivers) for an eye-grabbing headline that's basically bullshit is an
unethical exploitation of their medical condition for profit.

~~~
tovacinni
I don't know why this makes you so mad, but the title definitely helped me be
interested in the article and I ended up learning a few things about myself
through the article.

~~~
kolinko
The article's title (not the HN title) says: "the sleep schedule is making you
sick".

That is blatantly untrue. For a large part of the population it is not, and
even the content of the article acknowledges that.

------
palavsen
My experience is sleep deprivation increases depression

~~~
zippergz
For me as well. Sometimes I go through periods where I stay up too late, and I
almost always end up feeling depressed after a few days of it.

~~~
aethos
I think it's a matter of degree.

If you usually sleep 7 hours a night, and you're only getting 4, then you will
feel tired grumpy and sad. But if you stay up all night, you may start to feel
euphoric and energetic. Of course, you'll need a good long sleep the next day
or so.

~~~
lazyasciiart
According to the article, this is the case for slightly over 50% of people.
Hardly good enough odds to suggest that someone who doesn't experience this is
just 'doing it wrong'.

------
always_good
To chime in among the other comments, most of which don't address the article
either:

I was a night owl + stimulant fiend until I started working out in the
morning. Decided to pull the trigger on a daily 9am Crossfit habit.

Now I'm too tired to stay awake past 11pm or so.

------
demonshalo
weed cures my depression. so why deprive myself of something I enjoy doing?

------
valuearb
I thought this was interesting until I saw the author was a psychiatrist, and
psychiatry has zero scientific validity. And his article is just referencing a
bunch of tiny sample size studies of dubious merit.

~~~
jakewins
Psychiatrists hold a medical doctorate, so unless you are claiming that
medical science has no scientific validity I believe you are thinking of
Psychology, which is an entirely different field.

~~~
fjdlwlv
I studied chemistry in college. That doesn't mean computer programming is a
chemical discipline.

Psychiatrists go to medical school so they can prescribe medicine without
killing a patient, not because medical school has a scientifically rigorous
psychiatry curriculum. Remember that homosexuality was a psychiatric disease
until recently.

~~~
jakewins
So, this may simply be because this differs between countries - I live in the
US. Here, you do not study psychiatry in med school, it's something you study
after you complete regular medical school. The rough path looks like:

\- 4 years of undergrad, ideally with one major in Biology

\- MCAT

\- 4 years of general medical school

\- 4 years of specialized psychiatry residency, usually at university hospital

Meaning, here in the US it's a medical discipline, but this may not be the
case where you live.

You're absolutely right that there is a horrific history to the field of
psychiatry - homosexuality indeed wasn't unlisted until a little over 40 years
ago. However, this is rapidly changing with the advent of tools like PCR and
Western Blotting, which allows psychiatry to research mental disease on the
level of individual gene expression and proteins.

------
dominotw
I know the answer without even reading the article. NO.

~~~
bbcbasic
Hail Betteridge

