I'm all for news about novel treatments to common difficulties such as depression. That said, it would be best if there were substantive support for something before it's spread around as a solution.
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.
Do you think incumbent drugs companies with significant interest in keeping their expensive drugs on the market would let a free, anyone-can-do-it therapy see the light of day?
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.
It isn't just one anecdote: there are dozens of studies spanning decades that demonstrate TSD (total sleep deprivation) and PSD (partial sleep deprivation) are effective in treating depression depression in the short term.
> this is exactly the sort of thing people may try at home.
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.
> 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.
Which is why I always insist on "...if you have fully educated yourself on the matter and follow each and every one of the rules" (and this includes: don't touch it if you have schizophrenia or psychosis running in your family). It was btw how I managed to end depression while stopping meds completely.
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.
Depression isn't cancer. That's not to be confused with making light of it, or saying it isn't an illness. "Experimenting" won't be easy/doable for everyone suffering from depression, and for many people the experimenting should be done with the help of one or more professionals, but ultimately experimenting is all you can do. Maybe that means trying different antidepressants until one works for you, maybe therapy, maybe life changes... depression affects different people differently, and for different reasons, and it's common knowledg that different people need to treat it in different ways.
I hate to bring this up, but treatment of depression, anxiety, and I gather, most mental illness is an Art.
Psychiatry should be extremely embarrassed of just how little progress they made over the years.
This lack of sleep trick has been practiced in most psychiatric hospitals for at least a decade, or more.
As usual, they don't have a clue to why it helps some depressed patients, but it does.
I am extremely dissapointed in the treatment of mental illness. Some days I think the profession does more harm than good. I've personally kinda given up.
I do know this, we have made just living too hard. It shouldn't be this difficult. "Yes, life is difficult." By the rich MD, but life shouldn't be like this. Plus, we should be a lot more understanding of our fellow inmates. Yes--we are all in this chit hole together. People are bombarded on what supposed failures they are daily; that needs to stop. Media is the worst offender. And it's all designed to buy their products.
I see nothing wrong with self medicating by sleep deprivation. I see a lot wrong with giving some Golden Boy $350 hour for dubious advice, especially if your insurance doesn't cover the Doctor's rediculious fees, and high priced dubious drugs.
If your reading this and depressed; just try walking for at least 30 min a day, depending on your health. Fast walk, or run if you can. It's been The only thing that very helped me with my minor, dysthymia(low level depression). The only thing.
I was responding specifically to what you quoted, and didn't commit to memory your parent's comment - which I guess has now removed the mention of hallucinogens. (I do remember seeing "LSD" when skim-reading, so not questioning your assertion that it was mentioned.)
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.
I absolutely would say that if you can come up with an experiment that has reasonable risk, some connection to your cancer, and has measurable effects or lack of effects, you should go for it.
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.
Given that it's not completed research, yes. If were the "public report" of completed research, I wouldn't have commented on not spreading information around until it's substantively supported.
Yeah I'm not so sure that this could be a sustainable treatment, even if we assume it has some temporary mood-lifting effect.
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.
There is nothing unscientific about anecdotes. The problem with anecdotes isn't that they are unscientific, it's that the scientific claims they allow you to make are very, very small.
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.
If you suffer from depression, don't rely on only 1 method (therapy, mindful meditation, the Wim Hof method, nutrition, sleep hygiene, yoga, spiritual quest, sports, meds, etc.), combine as many as you can, especially if you're in a deep hole. Certain psychedelics such as psilocybin [0] and LSD (very similar) do have a positive effect, if you have fully educated yourself on the matter and follow each and every one of the rules.
That's all good if you have the blues. When I was clinically depressed just putting on my shoes was too much effort. Chewing and swallowing food was exhausting. There wasn't really a cure except to wait until I was ready to start climbing out of the hole I was in. Once you have at least a rudimentary capacity to self-actualize, the rest is gravy. Use the Wim Hof method, become a whirling dervish, it doesn't matter so long as you're reinforcing that you have the ability to do anything at all.
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.
I'm currently sitting in an airport after just getting back from Seattle. I had an interview for an internship with Microsoft. It was proably one of the best experiences of my life. Alone, in a big city, everything paid for, you couldn't beat it. Leading up to it, though, and after it I have had some of the worst thoughts, doubtfulness, strife, pain, and headaches that I have ever felt. I couldn't concentrate when reading, my appetite was way out of wack, and I really couldn't sleep at night. I haven't been able to sleep at night for a while now, perhaps a few months, and I'm tired of it. I lay there and toss and turn, and even when I do sleep I don't feel refreshed like I used to, or a refreshed feeling lasts only for a few minutes after I wake up. It's a little scary to think that this crept up on me without me even noticing.
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.
I've found that all nighter euphoria kicks in around 30 hours. It's nice as a momentary reprieve, and gives you a notion that you can feel different, which gives you motivation to get better. But if you're legit suffering from major depressive disorder it still takes years of hard work.
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.
tl;dr, sleep deprivation can help quickly alleviate symptoms of major depression but symptoms return after a few days. Author thinks that using light therapy may extend the symptom relief, long enough for antidepressant meds to start working.
Wouldn't bother reading the article, honestly, it doesn't go into details on any of this.
> nor should people try it without a clinician's guidance.
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.
> 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.
The link with insomnia is pretty clear, because it's a structural, long-term and uncontrolled problem. But I'm not sure that (controllable/wanted) short-term sleep deprivation can be directly compared to it.
> Any increase in suicidal thoughts would have been caught.
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.
Maybe it works different for different people, but for me hallucinations and paranoia induced by heavy sleep deprivation (then into some existential dread panic + strong derealisation) were a trigger for depressive episodes (especially during my religion-losing phase in my life, but not only).
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 think this is very very dangerous advice. So much so that I flagged this article. Sleep deprivation is harmful in most cases and is very likely to worsen depression and work performance significantly (not to mention - you shouldn't drive cars and operate heavy machinery when you're deprived of sleep, it has similar effects as being drunk). Don't do sleep deprivation. Get your sleep schedule in order, rather than devastating it even more.
I assume you have no evidence to support your idea that sleep deprivation will worsen depression.
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.
Sleep deprivation helping with depression is among the dumbest things I've ever heard and "doctors" who advise this strategy and harm people as a result should be held liable as harshly as possible. I am serious: This idea could cause serious harm. You have to be highly educated to be this far from common sense and the real world.
Sleep deprivation is torture. This has been clearly established and the evidence of harm that sleep deprivation causes is so vast that I'd rather not continue discussing this. "Eviduuuuuuuuunc! Prove that which is common sense!"
Completely anecdotal, but my depression and severe anxiety was put under control with healthy diet, exercise, mindfulness practice, and a low dose of Lexapro. I was very hesitant to use medication but it totally changed my life. Hang in there if you are struggling, I know it's so hard.
I know this is highly anecdotal but for me reading the works of Nietzsche, Camus, Cioran, Kierkegaard et al does help in moving me a couple of steps back from getting myself into that deep dark hole from which it's really hard to climb back.
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.
46 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 91.3 ms ] threadEspecially 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?
Psychiatry should be extremely embarrassed of just how little progress they made over the years.
This lack of sleep trick has been practiced in most psychiatric hospitals for at least a decade, or more.
As usual, they don't have a clue to why it helps some depressed patients, but it does.
I am extremely dissapointed in the treatment of mental illness. Some days I think the profession does more harm than good. I've personally kinda given up.
I do know this, we have made just living too hard. It shouldn't be this difficult. "Yes, life is difficult." By the rich MD, but life shouldn't be like this. Plus, we should be a lot more understanding of our fellow inmates. Yes--we are all in this chit hole together. People are bombarded on what supposed failures they are daily; that needs to stop. Media is the worst offender. And it's all designed to buy their products.
I see nothing wrong with self medicating by sleep deprivation. I see a lot wrong with giving some Golden Boy $350 hour for dubious advice, especially if your insurance doesn't cover the Doctor's rediculious fees, and high priced dubious drugs.
If your reading this and depressed; just try walking for at least 30 min a day, depending on your health. Fast walk, or run if you can. It's been The only thing that very helped me with my minor, dysthymia(low level depression). The only thing.
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.
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.
Wouldn't bother reading the article, honestly, it doesn't go into details on any of this.
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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1251879
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.
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.
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.