New 'Circadian' Subtype of Depression Affecting 1 in 4 Patients
sciencealert.com
sciencealert.com
I've been somewhat of a nightowl my entire life. I thought that was just how i was and it was in my genetics. There's also some correlation with adhd there according to some studies.
However i managed to be a morning person without strain when i wasn't working for a while and decided to focus on not letting too much light in my eyes in the evening, didn't drink much coffee and went for morning jogs.
It felt like without strain i woke up automatically in the morning and was a real eyeopener.
Sadly it's still a modern society issues feels hard to avoid screens when i have to work and do so much else during the day. Also big seasonal light changes at this lattitude means morning jogs would be in the dark right now if they have to precede work.
My cause: Basic training. Spend a few months waking up in a panic at 0400 and that time gets ingrained. I never had an issue before joining the military and now, more than decade later, it remains like a scar on my brain.
I had been a night owl since a teen, and yet here I was waking up naturally at around 7 am feeling refreshed. I realized a lot of what had kept me up at night was the freedom and silence. Once I moved on my own, there was nothing to escape so to speak. So I just stopped the caffeine and stopped avoiding bed.
My wife often goes to bed shortly before I get up in the morning, and doesn’t rise until mid afternoon - exhausted, pissed off, tearful, all of it.
There’s zero pressure on her to conform to any particular day/night cycle. By the time she gets up my day is half over, the housework is done, the meals prepared, the business for the day concluded, the kid at school, who I’ll pick up later.
I used to be a night owl, but as she has become more and more nocturnal over the years, I’ve adapted to live on 5 hours of sleep and became an early riser, so I actually get to spend some time with her in the evenings, and am up and ready to deal with the day so she doesn’t have to.
So. I don’t think it’s society. Sure, it’s a sample of precisely 1, but this phenomenon seems to be largely internally driven.
Right now, I’m rolling with her hypothesis that it’s purely environmental, and finish our intercontinental move next week.
Honestly, I don’t hold out hope, but at least our destination country is one with a good cultural attitude to mental health, which I’m hoping may rub off on her. And me - I come from the “keep calm and carry on” school, often to my detriment.
I come from a faith culture where seeking mental healthcare is both a sign of weakness and lack of faith. Instead you must first pray it away. Meanwhile I'm surrounded by so many "professional" faith based councilors that it's hard to find providers who take religious trauma seriously.
No one pushes her, she has troubles sleeping, you let her sleep, you do the household etc.
Tbh. doesn't sound healthy at all.
I'm sorry, but you did it first. I mean, being able to show correlation between variables in a formal, peer-reviewed study is something? What else do you expect scientists to do? This is how science works. You take an assumption, gather data supporting the assumption and establish facts from the assumption. You can't expect researchers to go by anecdotes and vibes when coming up with treatments, can you?
Most if not all Norwegians know this phenomena. Winter depression is considered a normal occurrence, starting right around this time of year.
Merely losing the sun behind cloud cover for an extended period of time seems to have an effect if not the quite gradual but rapid shortening of available daylight. When the weather reports start including how gray it is today, you know it's the season again.
Increasing your vitamin D3/D6 dosage and being exposed to bright blue light daily helps most people to get through the winter.
The one thing shifts the day length and disrupts the circadian more while the other doesn't give you enough light to produce vitamin b etc.
I highly doubt this is true. I have not seen any evidence for this claim. Generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder are typically considered distinct.
Giving people more time off work solves so many issues: it gives people more time to live healthy, take care of kids and just have more fun in the short time we have in life.
Instead tech executives believe the working day should be increased to 12 hours.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-...
As a doctor I would say this is incorrect.
Some other melatonin sleep aids give me the most vivid nightmares, so I definitely think it can be worth trying a couple different options.
And now a month on, and I feel so so much better, my depression is slowly disappearing and i've been on meds for 2 years tried both SSRIs and NDRIs, nothing worked. And it's not just me, lots of people are feeling in a much better place mentally.
I recently started a new job that forced me to wake up at 6:30AM and it was fucking misery. last weekend though was the DST change, effectively shifting everything one hour forward and oh god I finally feel alive and capable of doing anything but sleeping
In all seriousness, mornings are dreadful while in the evenings I feel like I can conquer the world, funny system I've got
Same with work, getting to the office at 7 is fine, at 10 is frowned upon.
What helps is circadian lighting, I have homeassistant and it changes the color temperature of my ikea smart lights to yellow in the evening, and white during the day. The yellow lights prepare me for the sleep.
Check out the video in the article, specifically from minute 2:50 onward, where the presenter asks Ian Hickie (co-author of the study) what other treatments (besides medication) people should try. He answers that treatments that focus on thoughts and feelings are "also less effective" and recommends getting sunlight, getting out during the day and being physically active
Perhaps you should try Ian's advice? Sounds like you've some frustrations to deal with
Was it the "physical activity" part that triggered you? Don't be afraid of the gym
They did not sleep in school because they were too tired, they are not highliy functional with depression.