Fighting Depression by Staying Awake
scientificamerican.com
scientificamerican.com
Especially given the reproducibility questions that have come up in a range of fields lately, it seems a little premature to publish this anecdote. Even more so because this is exactly the sort of thing people may try at home.
This time, that might not be so terrible. And there is the disclaimer that you shouldn't pull an all-night without clinical guidance. But that's not likely to be heeded, and it's a bad practice to be contributing to in terms of scientific literacy and trust.
Sunlight is a perfect and free remedy for jaundice and vitamin D deficiency, and yet the pediatrician will prescribe blue light therapy and vitamin D medicine and tell you to keep the baby out of sunlight.
Scientific literacy and trust are conflated with industry interests, especially in medicine.
I would actually strongly urge people who suffer from depression to experiment (while observing and adjusting diligently) with all kinds of things. Usually, when you suffer from depression, it's because you have lost some sort of balance - a happy life is about a rich mix of a lot of things, and sometimes you need to search and experiment to discover what is/was missing in your life for too long (and no doctor is ever equipped and able to give you the full solution you personally need).
So go on, experiment and search until you find your way back to your equilibrium.
Do you say the same about eg cancer?
> (while observing and adjusting diligently)
Depression is an illness that affects a person to observe and adjust.
This is true to some extent. I'd say it depends on the severity of the case. Yes, sometimes you depend on strong guidance from a doctor, because your brain is just completely out of order. But this is never the full and only answer to the source of the problem.
For clarity: I think telling people with depression to experiment with hallucinogens is fucking dangerous.
Also: cost = $30 for 1 dose + testing kit; compare that to the price of months/years of meds (this should be relevant especially for US citizens which do not benefit from a sane/affordable health care system). Not to mention their oftentimes heavy "side" effects which can even become permanent, such as the loss of libido, etc.
Sure. Parent poster is suggesting people with a potentially fatal illness try experimenting with random hallucinogens.
Doesn't that strike you as irresponsible?
As to specifically experimenting with hallucinogens: there's growing evidence that they can be helpful in treating depression, from anecdotes to studies - most recently, a couple of days ago: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/01/magic-mushro...
Should people be recommended to try these sorts of drugs without proper guidance and likely supervision? Generally I'd say no. But if they can provide people with the help they need, and the legal system doesn't allow for a formal way of using them, I do support people discussing their use, ideally with disclaimers about potential risks and how to use as safely as possible.
Good luck finding an experiment that fits those criteria for cancer, though.
Pulling an all-nighter to see its effects on your depression fits all that. It's low-risk: it doesn't interfere with your doctor's orders and plenty of people have survived all-nighters without ill effects. It's connected to depression in that it affects the brain, which we believe to be connected to depression. And it has measurable effects or lack of effects in that you can take stock of your mood at intervals after doing it.
Speaking as someone who's now suffered through a series of major depressive episodes over the past year and a half, the only effects 2 nights+ sleep deprivation has had on me are: worse mood, dis-inhibition (sort of like being drunk), and mild auditory hallucinations. No long-term benefits that I've noticed, other than a bit of insight into the nature of (mild) hallucination (difficult to explain, but they're more like 'misinterpreting' things, rather than straight up imagining things that are not there).
EDIT: I really would advise who is suffering from depression, if you're hell-bent on the DIY approach I wouldn't start with this one. Frankly, it could be dangerous. Maybe start with one of the more proven approaches: exercise, diet, mindfulness meditation or regular and sufficient sleep.
Anecdotally, I've found that Vitamin D3 helps me with motivation. That's a very small claim, but it's a scientific claim because I've experimented extensively with supplements to improve my motivation. However, "I've found that Vitamin D3 helps people with motivation" would not be a scientific claim, because I've only experimented on myself, and don't have enough evidence to extrapolate to the rest of humanity.
Personal experimentation is a useful tool. It's how we know our personal preferences, fears, and hangups, which nobody else can tell us. Applying scientific process to it allows us to avoid some of our biases. We just have to be careful not to extrapolate our results to other people.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/01/magic-mushro...
It such cases, you clearly need one of the chemical kickstarters mentioned above, but, if you can, avoid those that "require" you to depend on them long-term.
If you wait too long, you risk reinforcing your "depressive neurological pathways", thought patterns, etc. and it may become much harder to reverse the spiral.
Wouldn't bother reading the article, honestly, it doesn't go into details on any of this.
I don't mean sleeping too little, but not sleeping at all for a night or two.
I know it is anecdotal, but for this reason it seems that taking this advice may be risky for some.
I trailed away a little there, sorry about that. Anyway, I always like to leave "red-eye" when I go on trips. I'm only 19, this is only the second time I've ever flown, but I quite like red eye. Because I made the decision to do that, I'm inadvertently pulling an all-nighter. I hope it works out.
On the other hand, if you're experiencing acute anxiety, this approach ends up hurting more than it helps. Try meditation, yoga, massage, muscle relaxation, exercise. Pretty much anything that gets you more in touch with your body.
I guess reading (not necessarily just philosophy) can have a cathartic effect and thus relieving some of the symptoms of depression.
And clearly, having a good therapist to talk to when nothing else works.
This may sound cliché but the "trick" is to try being aware of that threshold and when you pass it take some action or better yet stay away from it as much as you can using whatever works for you.
The fact that depression is correlated with poor sleep doesn't support your claim.
Telling people to get their sleep schedule in order isn't likely to help either. Some people might have control over that, but there is no reason to suppose that people with depression can simply change their sleep schedule any more easily than anyone else.
For what it's worth, when I experienced depression, even a temporary interlude from it was valuable in working out how to get out of it.
I am simply asking how you come to this intensely held belief?
Nobody anywhere at any time in this discussion has suggested doing this to depressed people.
Common sense means not using absurd misinterpretations.
Sleep deprivation increases some people's risk of suicide.
> She was hesitant—but then again, she was already sleeping poorly, so what did she have to lose?
It may have made her suicidal, and she could have lost her life.
It's great that he's doing some research (because there doesn't appear to be much around at the moment) but it's a bit worrying that he's writing this article as if this treatment works before the research is in. Especially because mainstream media is going to report this as if bright light therapy and sleep deprivation definitely works as a treatment for depression.
Got a source for this?
The Link between Suicide and Insomnia: Theoretical Mechanisms - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3791319/
> Insomnia has been established as a risk factor for depression and mental illness for decades, but a growing body of evidence has recently exposed insomnia to be an independent risk factor for suicide that encompasses all age ranges. This discovery has invigorated investigation to elucidate the relationship between insomnia and suicide, and over 20 studies reinforcing this association in adults have been published since 2010 alone.
This is a much riskier therapy to try on your own, true.
The many thousands of people who die by suicide each year while under the care of a multi-disciplinary team of doctors, nurse, etc show that merely catching suicidal thoughts isn't always enough.