
Why Sleep Deprivation Eases Depression - youngerdryas
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-sleep-deprivation-eases-depression
======
tokenadult
There is a long line of research on mood disorders and the ways to deal with
those behaviorally and medically.

[http://www.amazon.com/Manic-Depressive-Illness-Disorders-
Rec...](http://www.amazon.com/Manic-Depressive-Illness-Disorders-Recurrent-
Depression/dp/0195135792)

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
From TFA:

"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.

~~~
kyro
Nowhere does he claim that sleep deprivation is a recommended treatment.
Simply that it has been found to boost depressive moods.

------
cmutty
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?

~~~
larrys
"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.

------
wonnage
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.

~~~
cLeEOGPw
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.

~~~
opminion
May I suggest that you measure that, even by your own definition on "parts of
the brain" (perhaps a choice of unrelated cognitive functions?) in a way that
allows you to make predictions?

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jdmitch
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.

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bjoernw
"Although the mice continued to sleep normally, after 12 hours they showed a
rapid improvement in mood and behavior, which lasted for 48 hours."

Does anyone know how we measure moods in mice? At first glance it seems like a
very subjective exercise.

~~~
dodo53
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.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_models_of_depression#Des...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_models_of_depression#Despair-
based)

~~~
nlh
The Wikipedia article doesn't mention anything about drowning, just "an
immobile posture".

/hopes that we're not torturing mice for our own benefit.

~~~
lacksconfidence
i could be mistaken, but i'm pretty sure we do all kinds of horrific tests on
mice, specifically for our own benefit.

~~~
shardling
Someone I knew once explained how their lab had a machine to give mice
_precisely calibrated_ amounts of brain damage through impact. The control
group had their skull fractured without causing any direct injury to the
brain.

This has always struck me as the ickiest thing I've heard, but I'm sure
there's much worse out there.

------
gdonelli
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

~~~
silverbax88
I agree, I have to watch my sleep patterns because when I don't get enough
sleep, it's much easier for depression to kick in.

~~~
rgoodwintx
Agreed as well. Nothing makes the day WORSE than not enough sleep; and it
never feels like enough.

Edit: And, as is the style of the day, we've had links on HN/SA and others
that not enough sleep hampers cognition, weight control, and stress (which are
all triggers/symptoms for depression in many people). So, you need to sleep
more, and less, simultaneously?

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criswell
I don't think there's enough stuff popping up on my screen for me to fully
enjoy this article.

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whattabow
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:

<http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v3/n1/full/tp2012136a.html>

------
b0rsuk
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.

------
daok
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.

~~~
gwern
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.

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mrtksn
This is one of the things that you know instinctively and you can relate
immediately when somebody puts it out in a formal way.

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
From personal experience, I would say it was the opposite. Being overly tired
and sleepless lead to depression.

But I guess being busy and active can move your mind off from depression and
make things better for some.

------
BIair
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.

~~~
saraid216
> 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.

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rzimmerman
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.

------
cycojesus
I want to believe it yet every shorten night sends me to lengths of hellish
angry letargious time.

------
MichaelGG
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.

------
Ziomislaw
this is complete bullshit. Lack of sleep makes (my) depression worse.

~~~
acomar
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.

~~~
lutusp
> This article is not describing a treatment, just progress in understanding a
> mental illness.

If the article's thesis is correct, if depression can be modulated by way of
brain chemistry, the it's not a mental illness, it's a physical illness with
mental symptoms.

I say this because over time, more and more "mental" illnesses have been
recategorized as physical or genetic conditions that happen to have mental
symptoms, including schizophrenia and bipolar syndrome, both of which respond
dramatically to neurological treatments, and not at all to psychological
treatments.

This change in the status of "mental" illnesses was recently recognized by the
director of the NIMH, who in Scientific American said, "In most areas of
medicine, doctors have historically tried to glean something about the
underlying cause of a patient's illness before figuring out a treatment that
addresses the source of the problem. When it came to mental or behavioral
disorders in the past, however, no physical cause was detectable so the
problem was long assumed by doctors to be solely "mental," and psychological
therapies followed suit. Today scientific approaches based on modern biology,
neuroscience and genomics are replacing nearly a century of purely
psychological theories, yielding new approaches to the treatment of mental
illnesses."

Reference: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=faulty-
circ...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=faulty-circuits)

~~~
mjn
But it's trivially true that any "mental" state can at least be _modulated_ by
brain chemistry. Unless you posit some kind of free-floating mind that
operates magically, all mental states supervene on physical, biological
processes, whether we're talking about depression or programming ability or
personality or food preferences.

~~~
kbutler
Not every computer problem is a hardware problem, even though the software is
running on some hardware. Whether the "mind" is emergent or external, it is
not particularly useful to ignore it.

Brain injuries and hormonal problems are hardware.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a database problem.

Illogic and a tendency to over-simplify or rely on metaphors are software
bugs. _grin_

Of course, the software and database are built in self-modifying firmware, so
physical and mental issues do interact in interesting ways.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Not every computer problem is a hardware problem, even though the software
> is running on some hardware.

Well, there is a level on which it is, in that "software" is just hardware
writ small. That is, all software that exists and actually runs on a computer
exists in the form of physical configuration of states of matter, not as some
non-physical entity. This was obvious in the case of some early computers
where "programs" were macroscopic wiring configurations, but it is no _less_
true of modern computers.

The artificial distinction between hardware and software can be a very useful
tool in thinking about computer issues, but it isn't really true in the
fundamental sense.

------
hasenj
Maybe during the 4-5 hours that you spend resisting sleep.

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.

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ttrreeww
It causes early death too...

