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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday January 24 2018, @11:20PM   Printer-friendly

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

For two decades, Francesco Benedetti, who heads the psychiatry and clinical psychobiology unit at San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, has been investigating so-called wake therapy, in combination with bright light exposure and lithium, as a means of treating depression where drugs have often failed. As a result, psychiatrists in the USA, the UK and other European countries are starting to take notice, launching variations of it in their own clinics. These 'chronotherapies' seem to work by kick-starting a sluggish biological clock; in doing so, they're also shedding new light on the underlying pathology of depression, and on the function of sleep more generally.

"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. But if you're depressed, it can prompt an immediate improvement in mood, and in cognitive abilities. But, Benedetti adds, there's a catch: once you go to sleep and catch up on those missed hours of sleep, you'll have a 95% chance of relapse.

So pulling more all-nighters makes me feel better?

Source: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180123-can-staying-awake-beat-depression


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday January 25 2018, @12:32AM (2 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Thursday January 25 2018, @12:32AM (#627483) Homepage Journal

    Back in 2009 I determined that I could stay awake and work for four days at a time. I knew when it was time to go to bed because I had subtle visual hallucinations. For example one time my bathroom rug was sparkling, another time my bedroom window screen looked like an animated Mondrian painting.

    I started having brain seizures in 2010. They weren't diagnosed for several years when I had a seizure at the mall and some right chap called 9-1-1 for me.

    I feared that pulling all-nighters so frequently was damaging my brain.

    For me to give up all-nighters was just as difficult as it is for alcoholics to stop drinking. I am absolutely serious.

    I'm happy to report that I haven't had a seizure in over two years.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 25 2018, @07:20AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 25 2018, @07:20AM (#627583)

    I had subtle visual hallucinations. For example one time my bathroom rug was sparkling, another time my bedroom window screen looked like an animated Mondrian painting.

    That is a clue about seizures - if you start seeing things, bad things can happen soon ;) We need sleep to filter the crap out of our brains and seizures are a result of that system failing (or unable to function).

    • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday January 25 2018, @02:23PM

      by acid andy (1683) on Thursday January 25 2018, @02:23PM (#627687) Homepage Journal

      Hmmph Some people just gotta take the fun outta everything ; )

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