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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 25 2018, @12:51AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 25 2018, @12:51AM (#627489)

    Taking drugs for anxiety is asking for trouble. Unless you've got extreme anxiety and need the pills in order to get treated, it's a very, very bad idea.

    Anxiety exists for a purpose, if you haven't been taught how to manage it without the pills, you're just masking it over. Anxiety is one of the areas where modern psychology does a pretty good job.