
How sleep and mental health are linked in the brain - miolini
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/11/how-sleep-and-mental-health-are-linked-in-the-brain/?utm_content=buffer0592b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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bpchaps
In my experience with mental health adventures, sleep is absolutely essential.

It's difficult to explain, but when my sleep patterns become sporadic or
light, my behavior and thought processes become... erratic. The way I
internally describe it is as "heady", where my mental state has an almost
physical feel that almost matches the feeling of blood rushing to an arm or a
leg after standing up. During this time, I can get extended periods of
hypomania and isolation. The only fix I've found is to simply get an amount of
sleep that makes sense, which makes me think that there's an enormous
correlation between mental health and sleep.

Edit: For what it's worth, it's also the same feeling I get when I don't take
lithium.

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0xcde4c3db
I won't dispute the importance of sleep, but what really rubs me the wrong way
about this article is how it doesn't really even acknowledge sleep disorders.
I'm biased; my life was semi-fucked for a while because it took ~20 years to
stumble across a psychiatrist who thought to order a sleep study. But when I
was researching sleep disorders, I found a lot of mention that several of them
are believed to be hugely underdiagnosed (e.g. there are estimates that only
~20% of sleep apnea in Americans is diagnosed). I wonder how many other people
out there are still stumbling along on their fourth or fifth antidepressant
when CPAP is what would actually help.

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xlayn
When you see the suspense/terror movie the Babadook... you could as well be
seeing a documentary from the perspective of someone who is sleep deprived.

I remember the words of a psychiatrist... whenever someone comes with any
problem the first thing they must is sleep.

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alfiedotwtf
For me anyway, I find that there's little link between the two. I sleep on
average 4.5 hours and (I don't think) it has effected in any way my mental
health.

The biggest thing for me that completely changes my mood (not world caving in
type, but noticable), is amounting external presures like obligation,
deadlines, etc - the inescapable. I've learned to minimise these in my life,
much to my happiness.

YMMV

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stinos
That is easily explained by the theory that is us not just the amount of the
sleep that counts, but rather the quality.

I can wake up after 5 hours of sleep and be completely refreshed. I can also
wake up after 8 hours of bad disrupted sleep due to various reasons and feel
like a trainwreck the entire day. Including most symptoms in the article,
especially if that happens a couple of nights in row: first and foremost the
anger (well, mainly the amount of effort it takes to suppress that is killing
me) but also the 'wrong' trains of thought, seeing flashes of things which
aren't there etc.

All of which can then again be rest by 5 (or more) hours of proper sleep.

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mafuyu
Quality of sleep is definitely a big factor, but genetics also govern how much
sleep an individual needs. Some people just naturally need less sleep than
others. Personally, I've found that if I allow myself to sleep and wake
whenever I want, I eventually settle to a stable state of 8.5 hrs sleep/night.
However, I typically get less than 8.5 hrs/night on weekdays and sleep in on
weekends. After keeping track of my sleep, I found that on average, I was
still sleeping 8.5 hrs/night every week, and I would sleep in just enough on
weekends to hit my quota.

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dghughes
I think you'd need at least three consistent days of sleep before you could
even begin to assess what is your normal amount.

Isn't that some sort of biological rule? You couldn't settle into a normal
pattern in just one day since all the previous days poor sleep would still be
affecting you.

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mafuyu
Yeah, I forgot to mention that this was over a period of two months. I settled
to 8.5 hrs, on the dot, but with a shift of sleeping a bit later every day.

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dreamdu5t
This was a terrible article, and did not explain any link to mental illness.

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DrScump
Did you miss the entire "Sleep disruption in mental illness" section?

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noButSeriously
This is pop-psychology garbage. Pat yourself on the back and feel good about
agreeing with something obvious.

Drugs are bad, m'kay. Sleep deprivation is bad, m'kay?

This is linked to that. Broad sweeping statistics seem to indicate whatever.
Someday science will know more, but gosh Mr. Science sure could know a lot
more right now. So many millions of numbers, and then there's people who do
such and such. We're only beginning to unravel the mysteries of faith.

Not much to say about why brain cells die. Not much to say about the specific
mechanics of any direct outcome, or why the brain actually needs up to a third
of it's time wound down to a state of minimal activity, or what really happens
during that downtime.

But 99% of all boogey men are sleep deprived. Furthermore here is a glossary
of mental illnesses from the hall of fame of DSM V diagnosis, that everyone's
sure to recognize, and sleep deprivation can be tied to all of them with
delicious weasle words. Yay!

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DrScump
If you disagree with the content there, fine; I was responding to the above
comment that the reference to mental illness _wasn 't there_.

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papapra
Maybe the mental health conditions are the cause of bad sleep?

