Sleep deprivation to treat depression

What are the mental effects of sleep deprivation? Why does a lack of sleep make us depressed? How does depression affect sleep? Recent research, though, shows that sleep deprivation can actually help alleviate the symptoms of depression.

As counter-intuitive as this sounds, sleep deprivation can be a quick and efficient way to treat depression.

But how is this possible? You must be thinking that this goes against all logic. It may sound counter-intuitive, but for decades it has been known that sleep deprivation can rapidly alleviate symptoms of depression. A new meta-analysis from a team at the University of. The tricky thing is that sleep deprivation (insufficient sleep ) can also lead to depressed moo moodiness, and irritability.

It can be difficult to decipher which came first, the depression or the sleep disturbance. Symptoms of sleep deprivation.

Studies for a number of years have attested to the connection, as counterintuitive as it may be. There is a definite link between lack of sleep and. Sleep deprivation really has opposite effects in healthy people and those with depression,” says Benedetti. If you’re healthy and you don’t sleep, you’ll feel in a bad mood.

However, a team of researchers have recently turned their attention to a fast, powerful, and somewhat confusing alternative therapy: sleep deprivation. I know that when I sleep too much, or in fact when I wake up from a night’s sleep, almost half my day is lost to very depressive and anxious thoughts. Wake therapy is a form of sleep deprivation used as a treatment for depression.

The subject stays awake all night, or is woken at 1AM and stays awake all morning, and the next full day. While sleepy, patients find that their depression vanishes, until they sleep again. While many people have heard the term insomnia, Sleep Deprivation is actually a type of insomnia.

It is caused by the inability to fall asleep or stay asleep soundly. In its most basic definition, insomnia is the general sleep disorder of either not being able to fall asleep, or waking in the middle of the night and being unable to fall back asleep. Psychiatrist Professor David Veale explains how staying awake for hours, under carefully controlled conditions, can result in a rapid recovery. Nearly every study has suggested short-term efficacy of sleep deprivation as a short-term treatment for a majority (up to ) of those with major depression.

Over time, lack of sleep can cause problems from obesity and cardiovascular disease to a variety of mental health problems.

Yet, surprisingly, scientists are actually using sleep deprivation to treat depression. Experts argue that in extreme cases it’s an effective — if somewhat paradoxical — way to rewire the brain. However, such improvements are unreliable and are reversed after a night of normal sleep , making sleep deprivation an impractical therapeutic choice for depression. Moreover, sleep deprivation carries the potential for serious side effects such as extreme sleepiness, cognitive impairment and an increased risk of injury or traffic accidents. Brief periods of activity may help you to stay more alert, especially when you are experiencing minor sleep deprivation.

Research studies have shown that a five-minute walk can improve excessive daytime sleepiness as measured by multiple sleep latency testing (MSLT). Can an understanding of this relationship help us to treat depressive episodes? One indication that the answer to this question is yes is that one or two nights of deliberate sleep deprivation can.