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Comment by austinwade | Hacker News Reader

This is interesting as I’ve noticed that when I sleep only 6-7 hours and leave my bed in the morning feeling tired because I could have slept more, I typically feel happier throughout the day than days when I sleep 8-9 hours and wake up naturally without an alarm.

I’ve suffered with depression on and off myself and I really think there is something to the article’s claims.

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I just want to point out though, depression isn't about feeling happy or sad throughout the day. Depression is more of a long-term condition.

It's likely you have something interesting to do or something to keep you occupied in days you're waking up early. You might feel happy those days, but lack of sleep might actually be worsening your depression in the long run. Not saying this is what's happening necessarily, but it's possible.

That said, the article isn't even talking about sleeping less, it's talking about waking up early. But I remember seeing interesting studies that are actually studying the link between sleep deprivation and depression.

I don’t think the article is talking about sleeping for one hour less. It has examples saying “go to sleep one hour earlier; wake up one hour earlier” - so the same amount of sleep.

How this reconcile with the school that says people have a natural sleep pattern? For example I cannot fall asleep earlier than 2am. I was actually depressed because of everyone telling me I have to go to bed at 11pm or even earlier and that made me feel sad that I just couldn't. Only through a therapy I learned that it is perfectly okay to go to sleep at 2am. I also found out that in my case I only need 6 hours of sleep max. I was very sad that I almost never had the mythical 8 hours of sleep.

The abstract just says people genetically inclined to wake up early are less likely to have major depressive disorder.

The full text says their data are consistent recent randomized clinical trial that shifted the sleep timing of individuals with an evening diurnal preference.[1] But that study seems to be about making an unnatural schedule more bearable.[2] It should be compared to accommodating people's natural sleep cycles.

[1] https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/correlation/2021-daghlas...

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31202686/

So isn't that a common sense? If you are inclined to wake up later than the society expects of you, then you are likely to be depressed because of the pressure?

> that shifted the sleep timing of individuals with an evening diurnal preference

> But that study seems to be about making an unnatural schedule more bearable.

That's sounds like something akin to telling a depressed person "why can't you just be happy?" and then making them watch comedy?

Best thing for me is to wake up early and then take a nice 2 pm nap for whatever hours extra sleep you feel you need. Much more refreshing than just sleeping late.

Don't you find it painful to wake up that way? Waking up without enough sleep feels terrible, even without ostensible bad effects on health and performance.

I remember reading something recently about (short term?) benefits of sleep deprivation for various mental illnesses. (Note, not medical advice!)

It's not really the same scenario you've described, but you might be interested in knowing that sleep deprivation can treat depression: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/sleep-is-the-mate-of-d...

Exactly this. One day I slept like 2 hours and all my anxiety and depressive symptoms went temporarily away.

I would not recommend it btw, even if you have that little extra energy boost at the beginning.

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