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How does sleep deprivation alleviate depression?

Posted by Walfredo on March 2, 2010, at 16:28:01

Count me in the boat where if I go a night without sleeping, the next morning I don't want to go to bed because my depression is in remission and I want to enjoy it. Verbal facility is improved ten-fold. I actually feel the way I want to feel. You know, the whole nine yards.

When I tried Nardil (never actually making it to a target dose of 90 mg - I stopped at 60 mg b/c the side effects were so harsh), it gave me SEVERE insomnia. For several weeks I could only sleep like 3-6 hours while usually waking up 3 hrs in. At one point, I didn't sleep for like 2.5 days. Ironically though, at this point, despite feeling like a bit of a zombie, underlying being genuinely tired, I actually felt emotions and experienced moods/ways of feeling that I remember from like childhood, way pre-depression. And, I am 99% sure it was the severe sleep deprivation (not the Nardil) because after those few days of zero sleep, I finally was able to sleep again (I guess this side effect subsided), and of course the mood improvement vanished after I started sleeping again.

So, I have been reading up some on sleep deprivation, and it seems my experience is not that rare based on some articles I have found doing basic google searches. However, nothing I have read seems to implicate what mechanism is involved biologically that seems to result in the mood improvement or how to apply this phenomenon in treating depression.

So, I was hoping to get a discussion going, hoping some of you real savvy posters might have some idea or theory as to why this happens and possibly even some pharmacological applications if I'm lucky.

I'm especially interested in any ideas involving acetylcholine as I am starting to suspect that this under-discussed neurotransmitter's over expression might be a key to my depression (for several reasons which I won't delve into unless someone is curious or wants to hear more in depth).

So, fire away with experiences, theories, or any other comments. I'm curious to hear some of you veteran's takes on this phenomenon.


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poster:Walfredo thread:938371
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100216/msgs/938371.html