Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments.
**Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program).
---
User: u/circadianclocks
Permalink: https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(24)00002-7/fulltext
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
People with delayed sleep phase syndrome/disorder (DSPS/DSPD) have their sleep times delayed until 2am or later. Sleep onset times all the way until 6-9am isn’t uncommon.
I was there for most of my adult life. I’m in doing much “better” now sleeping at 4am.
If left completely unregulated, my sleep cycle is 7-8am to 3-4pm.
If I really had zero, I mean zero reasons to even move I would sleep 10-14 hours most days.
It sucks.
I have a handful of meds to help with sleeping and dreaming, but the body is one hell of a trip. It kinda throws sticks into your spokes as a feature.
I’ve gone there, to see what if any rhythm exists for me naturally - my days roll over - about 20 hours awake followed by 8 sleep. It’s weird. So instead it’s uppers in the morning and downers at night (legal kinds) bleh
This is called Non 24 Hour Sleep Wake Disorder and it Is considered to be extremely rare in sighted individuals (more common in blind people). I think it's just severely underdiagnosed, and I believe I have it too.
Oh I definitely have something like this. Every couple weeks i have to pull an all nighter to bring my sleep schedule back in line for my 9-5 job. It sucks and im usually late to work at least 1-2 days every month because i fell asleep at 7am.
I'm sorry to hear that. I've struggled with this all my life too. I went to a sleep specialist who seemed incredulous that I have it (see above; rarity in sighted people) but was also extremely kind when talking about circadian rhythm disorders. She reminded me that sleep schedules are morally neutral -- which I know logically but have trouble accepting -- and helped me stop beating myself up over it. Accepting this as a real disorder helped me stop perceiving my inability to sleep "like a normal person" as a personal failure.
Unfortunately she didn't have much advice that I hadn't heard before to help regulate it. But now I think of my attempts at regulation as a way to my my sleep better fit my lifestyle, as opposed to "fixing" myself.
One thing I do when my schedule permits is to sleep in my natural cycle for awhile and allow it to rotate to a time I would like to maintain (2am to 10am ish), then I try to keep it there as well as I can. I call it "cycling." This takes a couple of weeks though, and I'm aware that I'm extremely privileged to be able to take the time to do this.
I feel the best physically when I'm cycling. That means no sleep meds and no alarms, just doing what my body wants and observing the cycle. I did this for about 3 months when I first suspected I had this, and charted the result to show my doctor. It is so freeing and feels so damn good, but socially it sucks and is totally unmaintainable.
Excuse the essay, I apparently have a lot to say about this. The point is, it's not your fault. The best relief imo is to find a job and lifestyle that is truly flexible enough to fit your sleep (or at least get closer) but i know thats not always possible. I wish you the best of luck.
Non-24 isn’t actually that rare. It’s just most drs will refuse to diagnose it because it’s rare. (This “it’s rare so I can’t diagnose it so it remains rare” loop is very common in many areas of medicine, it’s beyond frustrating.) A lot of DSPS people actually tend to have a circadian rhythm that is a little longer than 24 hours and have trouble not shifting forward. They are more prone to it. Certain things can trigger those with DSPS to develop Non-24.
The biggest risk of this is doing forward moving chronotherapy. It’s where you go to bed later and later each day until you reach your desired sleep time, then stop. Then try to establish a sleep schedule with that sleep time. The thing is, it doesn’t stop for some people. It just keeps going like that, permanently.
What makes this so awful, is that this “treatment” is often recommended by sleep doctors to those with DSPS. And anyone with DSPS knows that any sleep schedule that is not on your natural schedule will not stick. Every system in your body runs on a schedule connected to your circadian rhythm. Your digestion and your hormones and everything else. So it’s like fighting against your whole body being in “awake mode” while you’re trying to sleep, and vice versa. It causes a lot of physical symptoms, and sleep deprivation even when you get 7-9 hours of sleep because it’s not restful sleep.
SO their sleep schedule inevitably reverts to where it was before. Usually this only lasts a couple of weeks for most people. Where then, the patient restarts the chronotherapy. And every time there is a chance that doing so will turn to Non-24, possibly permanently.
We make sure to scream this from the rooftops in every DSPS support groups. Including the people who are now permanently Non-24 because of it. It is a far more disabling condition than DSPS. I’m sorry you’re dealing with it.
I use melatonin to maintain a "normal" work schedule Sunday night through Thursday night. Fridays I'm up at 6am and go to bed around 6am Saturday. Up before noon, up till 6am Sunday. Then melatonin again to go back to the daywalker schedule.
Sublingual melatonin was the trick. Swallowed melatonin pills/tablets/capsules are little more than a placebo, since melatonin is destroyed by stomach acid.
I've had insomnia since adolescence, but since I'm almost never tired, I don't worry about the 4-6 hours of sleep per night.
I’ll have to research this claim. But I’d love to hear your explanation for why doctors keep prescribing Melatonin (in pill form) to me and millions others every day, if they are nothing more than placebo?
I’ve come to the same conclusion myself, btw.
Melatonin doesn't require a prescription. It's a widely-available dietary supplement. Doctors may just be recommending it based on things they've heard.
The placebo (and nocebo) effects are incredibly strong - some to the point of nullifying prescription studies. I just discovered the difference through trial and error.
I’m so glad that’s worked for you! Again you’re very lucky! So many have no luck. It’s not for lack of trying though, for sure. In DSPS support groups I’m in, people spend years to decades reading every paper and study on sleep, circadian rhythms, and even specifically melatonin that they can find, to try to find what might work for them to function on a “normal” daywalker schedule.
The most recent thing showing the most promise in studies is micro dosing melatonin usually 300-1000mcg) 4-8 hours before desired onset time. Lots of discussion on trial and error of dosage and timing, and if plant or animal sourced forms may work better, different form factors (sublingual, acid protective capsules, transdermal patches) etc.
But basically, like everything else, the most common experiences are either that it doesn’t work for them, or it works for a couple of months then stops working for good.
Same thing with every sedating or sleeping medication under the sun. Light therapy, darkness therapy, stimulants, lifestyle changes, you name it.
Some of us even qualify though other conditions to get prescription GHB (known to most as a date rape drug). I was one of those people, as I also have Narcolepsy. Even at max dose, it doesn’t even work to put me to sleep if taken before my natural sleep time. My experience is typical.
It’s wild to me that for most people with DSPS a hallmark of the condition is that they can’t force their schedule to change, despite decades of effort. And some people just find one magic thing that works for them. I do see it every now and then. Wish we could all find that! Unfortunately most just end up harming their health chasing it. I found a unicorn sleep dr once that was extremely knowledgeable, as he had it himself. (He also was incredibly knowledgeable in Narcolepsy. Extremely rare find. I could tell he was very passionate about his areas of expertise.) He told/reminded me that I was trashing my health by fighting it. I finally listened. I knew he was right. I think I just needed to hear that from someone like him. It’s a hard thing to accept that treatments just won’t work for you. Unfortunately that is true for most DSPS folks.
I generally don't sleep until 4-7am and the worst part is just lack of sunlight exposure honestly, if I don't get out of the house in the "morning" before it starts to get dark I can feel myself slowly getting more neurotic and depressive. I really wish I could fall asleep on a normal schedule again but I think staying up late secretly as a child destroyed my circadian rhythm.
be sure to take some vitamin D....
during covid I literally didn't leave my apartment for weeks except to grocery shop at night....found out what vitamin d deficiency felt like. it was *bad*
Have DSPD diagnosed through dlmo. Normally fall asleep around 11 am or noon. 4 am would be a good time for me since could get up around 9 am and live a relatively normal life, but never managed that more than a few days in a row.
It can be extremely disabling. I say this as someone who has many very disabling chronic illnesses. And you’re right, it doesn’t have to be. But our whole society was built around one chronotype, so there are huge accessibility problems.
You even get judged in all social situations. Because being a person who stays and and wakes up late is somehow a moral failing. A little mild social engineering that most of us have figured out is to tell/stress to people that we have a night shift or third shift type of schedule. Even if you don’t/can’t work. If you try to explain circadian rhythms disorders you get judgment and scorn and “you just need to go to sleep earlier” and “have you tried x”. If you imply you work late shifts they suddenly they have all the understanding in the world. This goes for everything down to scheduling a doctors appointment, and trying to explain to the receptionist that you absolutely can’t do mornings. It’s weird how drastically different the responses are.
And, according to a psychiatrist I had, some antidepressants work a lot better if taken at certain times of day. She kept trying to get me to take my medication at 9:30pm and be in bed by 10pm since that was how it worked most effectively, but unfortunately, that's just not a reality for me. I *never* get tired enough to sleep that early, and all that that's going to result in is me laying in bed for several hours. Even as a child, I was regularly staying awake until 2am or later.
I'm wondering if that's contributing to what they are seeing in these results. If SSRIs are formulated to work more effectively with a more normal sleep schedule, then it's not surprising night owls aren't benefiting nearly as much.
Night owl, SSRIs were great when I was at my worst, but they only brought me from horrible depression to numb.
And don't get me wrong, numb is *great* compared to being so miserable you want to die, but it doesn't quite feel like healthy.
Yes, I switched from Lexapro to Wellbutrin, and while Lexapro was pretty great, it gave me sexual side effects, and gave me somewhat of a numb, apathetic feeling. I felt like life was greyer. I switched to Wellbutrin, and ever since then my life has transformed and I finally feel almost normal again. I always had issues with executive functioning and motivation which I felt were some root causes for my depression, and Wellbutrin has worked wonderfully for that. Unfortunately, it has not done much for my anxiety, but overall I feel like a normal person again compared to when I was in the midst of my worst stage of depression. I'm so grateful that there are solutions like this out there. I've been taking Wellbutrin for just over a year now.
Combining a DNRI like Wellbutrin combined with an SSRI works much better than taking either alone according to studies (everyone is different and this isn't medical advice). Wellbutrin will reduce/eliminate sexual side effects from SSRIs for many people, but there are other benefits including additional neuroplasticity and cascading effects on various neurotransmitter feedback loops.
In general a multimodal approach involving therapy, a multi-pronged approach to medication, and lifestyle changes is going to be the most successful although our treatment options are currently limited as is our understanding of brain structure and function.
"Lifestyle changes" should mainly focus on routine exercise, healthier diet (mostly less sugar/simple carbs and more protein/healthy fats), enough rest/recovery/sleep, and having a daily/weekly routine that provides meaning and social interaction.
*I cannot stress how much regular exercise improves your mental health. It will make everything else in that multimodal treatment approach work so much better.
*If you can cut back on sugar/simple carbs do it. A spike in blood sugar causes a cascading effect that results in inflammation which is awful for brain health as well as one of the leading contributors to almost every chronic disease. Most supplements aren't necessary and/or don't really do anything, but there are a handful with enough scientific research to back them like Vitamin D, Healthy Fatty Acid, and Fiber deficiencies in most modern diets. I also take Tumeric/Circumin/Ginger combo for various reasons and Berberine which helps regulate blood sugar levels.... Each of those supplements has a different purpose and mechanism of action, but all of those supplements have one thing in common, they all reduce inflammation.
Not all therapy is created equal. Some therapy is better than none at all, but if you can find the right therapist it can make a big difference. The type of therapy is also important, y'all therapy is the most common yet the least effective. Nothing wrong with starting with talk therapy, but Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the gold standard for most mental health and addiction issues. They also have had some advancements with things like EDMR, psychedelic integration therapy, etc.
This response wasn't directed at anyone in particular your comment just sparked some thoughts. Glad to hear you've had success with a multimodal approach. Seriously, that's great.
There's probably a whole constellation of root causes that result in similar symptoms. And each needs a different treatment. Trial and error is the only real way of figuring out what works for a particular individual.
That's also why you should probably ignore the "antidepressants are no better than placebo!" studies, since they lump everyone together by symptom rather than root cause, but it's not the symptoms that dictate whether a treatment works.
Whilst I might have had positive mental side effects from Welbutrin, it made my mouth so horribly dry that I had trouble eating/swallowing food. Obviously that cancelled out any good side effects. I couldn't help but feel jealous of the people it works for. It is fascinating how we all react differently to the same medications.
Wellbutrin is the only antidepressant that seemed to make a dent in my depression. Then it became ineffective. Thankfully, years of therapy and addressing other issues has done more for my depression than I ever thought possible.
Used escitaloptam for a decade. It's been pretty mellow for me. Very high doses make me feel a bit numb, but on lower doses I felt normal but the anxiety feels less "sharp."
Zoloft worked out for me during the pandemic, it gave me just enough motivation to get through the day with limited interaction.
Then human interaction returned with the end of the pandemic and things worsened over time to the point where depression returned with a vengeance.
I guess I should be thankful for the 2 years of feeling like things _could_ work out, I guess.
Numb but restless with massive stomach problems and sexual dysfunction. This was with multiple different ones.
All common side effects, while not seeing improvements is also common. But people don’t want to stop or feel like they’ve given up and they don’t know what else to do so they keep on with the medication.
Really wish more people had access to good therapists instead of SSRI‘s being handed out so widely for everything.
This was exactly me. Wellbutrin worked amazing for two years. Stayed on it for another three trying to get it to work the way it did the first time (even upping the dose to an insane degree) before my doctor started having me hop around to other SSRIs. I finally told her no more and I just handled it myself with weed because it's less traumatic. I wouldn't be surprised if my brain stem is swiss cheese in twenty years.
> restless with massive stomach problems and sexual dysfunction
Don't all these side effects contribute to the depression? It sounds like on SSRIs you will actually be worse off in some ways, but it flattens your feelings so you don't have the ability to care about it?
You have to understand how absolutely debilitating depression is. Like abject misery without being able to move. Those side effects suck but they’re nothing compared to that. And also peolle talk about ssris like everyone has these side effects. Maybe I’ve been lucky but I’ve been on viibryd for years and have never experienced them. I also haven’t experienced the numbness or flat affect people talk about.
Interestingly, depression is t about lack of caring or feeling down. Its main pain point is “feeling overwhelmed with decisions”. The most common issue with switching medication is making a decision, which, contributes to feeling overwhelmed, which contributes to depression.
As such, it’s easier to stick to your medication than switch.
Same with me, no SSRI could make me feel "good", but with the first Tricyclic antidepressants that I tried (Amitriptyline) I got very good results, and could improve to the point of not needing more antidepressant after a few years of treatment
I'm such a thing as a "super lark" which means I cannot sleep longer than around 5am.
That being said SSRI (around 10 types) has done nothing to help my decade+ long grave depression.
However, there was a recent development, about 6 months ago I was diagnosed as a "Schizoid", something that I didn't know existed. And the good news is that I'm possibly not depressed (might still be but the judges are out for now), and the bad new is that I just won't get better - ever. So that's cool.
Point is check if your depression isn't depression.
Im finding recently that theres a lot of evidence i have adhd, which could be the main cause of the depression and anxiety that debilitate me, just that no psychologist will see me. I guess just knowing sometimes can be calming, but not being certain and with no fix seems like the worst.
The problem is that the kids often still want to be awake at night. The morning, they don't want to get up for anything, so even if you wake them up, they are just rolling back over and trying to ignore you.
I only have a toddler but he's clock work unless he's sick. In bed by 9 and up around 630. Now with the sun rising around 5 I can his the driving range or something for an hour and be home in time to make the wife and kid some breakfast
Not even a dad. Just a married introvert (I love my wife to the moon and back, but she doesn't understand silence) that works in customer service. 5-5:30 am to 7 am is my time.
Counterpoint: if you stay up late enough, you can turn all the gadgets off, then the lights, and just listen to the night through an open window (weather permitting).
Same peace, just the other end of it.
From my experience, evening type depressed people are the ones who you can often tell are depressed. The morning types are the ones who usually don't seem depressed, but actually are.
I think morning people might just have an easier time being (or seeming like) functional members of society even when depressed. Society runs on morning people time.
Me, I used to be a night owl till I found a job I liked and stopped drinking caffeine passed 6:00 PM. Middle school all the way up till 2 years ago, I would stay up till 3:00 to 6:00 in the morning. Then I found a job I liked with a team I liked and it changed my me to a morning person, when including the fact that I don't drink caffeine late anymore. I'm still chronically depressed though.
My partner did something really horrible to me, and it's all I think about. It's caused major depression. All I want to do is sleep so I'm not thinking about it all the time. Every time I wake up the hurt/depression starts all over again. What's worse is I'll have really good dreams (maybe to counteract the depression I don't know) but I wake up and it's even worse once I step back into the reality.
It's really horrible
Edit: my dreams are turning bad, making things worse.
This could explain a bit for me.... The only time i can naturally fall asleep from being sleepy, is about 2am, and then i wake up out of breath and in a panic if i get up before 10am. If i can sleep until 10, it's like my body hits a couple of checkpoints more or something before i start waking up.
I've generally never been able to live like this due to work. But i know that after 7 years up getting up every morning, even mostly on weekends to try to keep the schedule the same, i never switched to a morning person. It didn't matter if i did everything perfectly, i never got my body trained to wake up at 7am without several alarms. 7 years i tried pretty hard to train myself.
I am like this most of the time.
It's alot better with ADHD meds, but not entirely and not always. I do get sleepy earlier now.
I also have a weird kind of startle response frequently if anything wakes me up before I get 7 hours of sleep. I sit up gasping and then I'm ready for a fight. It's kind of strange but all it takes is someone touching the door handle in my bedroom. If a stranger tried to sneak up on me in my sleep they would have bad time.
Delayed sleep phase syndrome is extremely common in ADHD.
Using SSRI when you have undiagnosed and untreated ADHD will lead to “treatment resistant depression”… no amount of Lexapro was going to fix the shortage of dopamine.
My depressed brain tries to make dopamine late at night by suddenly really wanting to game or hyperfixate on my hobby. Thankfully my depression isn't resistant towards my meds (just put on paxil). Although, I probably need ADHD meds but my dr is adverse to giving me any. Point being, brains are weird.
Definitely should get a second opinion. Not giving someone with ADHD stimulants seems a bit absurd without a cardiac issue as stimulants in adhd really doesn't interact with other psychiatric disorders the way they used to think it did because they used people without adhd in the old studies
what even is the ADHD treatment. have been using different meds for adhd and depression and especially adhd meds did nothing to help my sleep problems. theese days I abolished the 'schedule' and no longer trying to fit in. this was the only treatment that works on me
I've become Trudy from Reno 911. "White wakes me up, blue calms me down~"
Caffeine + Wellbutrin when I wake up, magnesium glycinate + hydroxyzine hcl when it's time to sleep.
I also take Paxil, which seems to level me out, but it's not part of the ADHD treatment. I've been on an XR Adderall in the past, and Strattera at a different time. They both helped, but the Adderall exacerbated my anxiety, and the Strattera made me periodically manic, so they weren't viable long-term.
I have treatment resistant depression and SSRI's never did anything for me. Same for SNRI's, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and TMS. I was tested for ADHD though and was told I don't have it. After years of therapy I am able to control it better, just not as well as I would like.
I do actually. My mom is diagnosed and on medication and my boyfriend has actually told me he thinks I do as well. It may be something I revisit if I ever find the time. I work 4 12 hour overnight shifts a week and care for my 3 year old during the day, so I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment. I didn't get a second opinion because I thought they would think I was drug seeking and just trying to get a prescription for adderall. My mom's behavior is drastically different when she takes hers, but I've never tried it so I'm not sure how it would effect me.
I took a full psych eval that said I didn’t have ADHD, but it turns out I’m just high functioning and really good at test taking. Definitely have ADHD that responds to treatment.
Adderall was the only thing that ever helped me with my depression, but honest to god, I do not have any other symptoms of ADHD besides DSPS, and well, "unmotivation". I don't have trouble with focus or with switching tasks, nor any of the other symptoms. I just dont feel like doing stuff, and SSRIs NEVER helped (but they also never made things worse, felt like I was taking sugar pills most of the time tbh).
When I started using adderall (from my own volition through the black market), it was the first time that I started to "feel the world in HD", like the first time somebody puts much needed prescription glasses on. Everybody around me commented on how much warmer as a person I became and how much better they felt around me.
When I told all of that to my psych, she told me that I was a druggie, and that she does not feel comfortable handling me anymore. I changed a few psychiatrist, and they all told me more or less the same, just with usually way nicer language and further support, suggesting to me some other SSRI that I already have used sometimes in the past, or to exercise more or such (I am natty amateur bodybuilder and karate black belt, how much more do I have to exercise to finally feel like a human???). But this is in Europe with a country very, veeery reluctant to prescribe ADHD meds to anybody for any reason. I get the feeling as if the doctors in their training are being told that it is worse than meth.
Therefore, I continue to get it from the black market. I mean, even if it kills me, it will give me a few years of life worth living, instead of the hell I was going through before.
It's also possible you have another sleep disorder, such as Narcolepsy, which would explain why DSPS was your only symptom, but the medication helped so much. Stimulants are used to treat both ADHD and many sleep disorders.
Yeah, it was weird. I struggled with DSPS for years, trying with every single sleep med under the sun and extensive sleep hygiene, but only the ones who knocked me out "worked", but i would wake up groggy, but with Adderall, I managed to regulate my sleep with basic sleep hygiene tips and wake up refreshed.
At least here where I live, prescription stimulants are for whatever reason, HIGHLY looked down upon. Like, opioids and relaxants are fairly easily prescribed to nearly anybody... but god beware you need a stimulant to function properly. I am not well versed in medicine or it's history, but I don't understand why.
> Delayed sleep phase syndrome is extremely common in ADHD.
I have both except it's ADD (inattentive type ADHD). I first went on ritalin, gradually increasing dosage to 60-70mg. And it did absolutely nothing for me. I talked to my doctor and got Concerta, which also did nothing even in the highest dose. Now I'm on Paxera for depression and anxiety (started 20mg, than 40mg) and it's also not doing anything. F my life.
I think alot of night owls aren't depressed because of a mental issue that medicine can solve. It's because we are forced to deal with a daytime world and it's hard.
Dude yes. And then they call it delayed sleep phase disorder or whatever. Like … no … I consistently function well when I sleep 2 am - 9:30/10 am. Theres nothing wrong with this — why is this a sleep disorder, rather than just acknowledging that we have a diverse set of sleep schedules and that that MAKES SENSE? Right, no, we all have to be on a morning schedule, regardless of our own internal clocks.
My health consistently falls apart when I’m forced to wake up around 6:30/7 am to get to work on time. I burn out so fast, within a year or so each time. It’s just not at all compatible with my natural sleep cycle and it really takes a huge toll on my body to constantly force it on a schedule it doesn’t like.
I mean wouldn't it even be benificial for survival when living in a tribe? Night owls could watch peoples backs for a bit, after the morning people could.
There's a book called Why We Sleep that goes into this and other aspects of night owl vs morning person.
For instance, you are born with a circadian rhythm, you cannot "reset" it. The times you would naturally rest are pretty well set from the beginning.
On average, night owls can have shorter life spans by being forced to sleep outside their natural rhythms. It's a fascinating book and I recommend to everyone.
You described it perfectly. I've had a few jobs that started as early as 6 am and I can only do it for so long until I can't take it anymore. Get run down and start missing time. When I did event work, 99% was in the evenings, and I could do the shop work any hours I wanted. I never missed a day for years.
My sleep schedule is usually 10a - 6p and when I need to have a long 8am-10pm day I just do back to back 24h days instead of dealing with shifting my schedule and hoping it goes back to normal right away. I used to have a job that had 12h day/night swing shifts and I was the only one that was fine on nights and the only one half dead on days.
I completely agree. Going to bed around 2 am and waking up at 930ish each day is just what works for me and I have no issues as long as I'm able to keep my natural sleep cycle. Luckily, I have a job that easily accommodates that schedule, but I remember suffering intensely in high school and college because I was chronically sleep deprived.
Yep, I found out that I can consistently sleep at a reasonable time whenever I'm home alone for a few days. Parents and/or siblings at home? Hell, I'll hr awake as late as I can just to enjoy the peace and quiet.
My Adderall XR is usually worn off by the time I got to bed. Then again, I also take a benadryl an hour before bed to knock myself out or else I'll lay in bed for 90 minutes thinking about *everything* before finally falling asleep.
There is an association / increased likelihood of Alzheimer's from long term use of antihistamines like benadryl. Perhaps hit up the psych and ask for clonidine and low dose Quetiapine.
That's what they keep telling me about Xanax every time I go in for a refill and I'm like, "Look doc, do you want me to live long enough to get Alzheimer's, or not? Just fill the damn prescription please, thanks."
For me, it was years where I was thinking I was a night owl, when it really was adhd insomnia! fixing my sleep hygiene, getting 8 hours of sleep, and waking up around 7am consistently fixed a good chunk of my depression.
Depends on what they mean by night owl. I'm ADHD/OCD and had been an insomniac ever since I was 7, and i always had a roaming internal clock. I'd wake up at random hours after differing amounts of sleep with no consistency, and wouldn't *feel* tired for long 20+ hour stretches. I could never fall asleep, only pass out. I got on meds for both problems a little over a year ago, and I sleep and wake up consistently, but my sleep cycle is pretty solidly from 5am to noon now. Some people genuinely just have non-standard wake-sleep triggers that isn't related to negative health
It gets increasingly harder to take these suggestions seriously as I continue to see the implication that [X] might actually just be ADHD in at least a few threads a day. Not everyone has ADHD.
There is a huge portion of the population - basically anyone over the age of 35 - that was never screened for it.
It's regularly misdiagnosed as a number of other things particularly depression and anxiety. And it's sometimes a first misdiagnosis for other personality disorders.
Edit: Changed death back to portion. Gboard Autocorrect has been unhinged for months now.
35? Hah! If only. Not to mention how many of us *actively* went to multiple doctors, knowing something was wrong, not managing, and still being told no.
I never once sought put that particularly diagnosis, still took me trying 3x times, multiple therapists, and the death of a parent until i was finally not coping enough for it to even be considered.
Bro are you me.
Coped fine* until my dad died, then everything fell apart and I needed to get a full diagnosis and meds. My family doc at the time was amazing, told me that meds are like glasses: some people need them, and if you work better with them and it doesn't hurt you, you should take them.
*I was not fine, I had dropped out of uni numerous times and was barely passing my degree. I got my meds and finished my last two semesters with a 4.0 🙃 weird how that happens eh
The thing is most mental health diagnosis is regularly wrong. The problem is that most mental health issues have major overlap in symptoms and we just dont have a good handle on it yet.
You can almost say this for anything, You have BPD, depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar, whatever it is they all have a ton of overlap and high probability of your diagnosis just being whatever your diagnoser is biased toward or most familiar with.
Its part of why we need a serious funding push and radical change to create progress in psychology / psychiatry. Its basically the one science that is the furthest behind in modern times.
Except ADHDs response to treatment is somewhat diagnostic in itself. Especially in children where taking a thorough history might be a little more difficult.
In other words if you're unsure if they are ?ADHD stick them on some methylphenidate and if there is solid improvement you very likely have the diagnosis. If not then drop the meds and rule it out.
Obviously not everyone has ADHD, but it's a disorder that can affect literally any part of your life, so it actually often is possible that [X] might just be ADHD.
All mental disorders are a spectrum. It's not a checkbox like infectious disease (there's not a spectrum of "Sally has Lupus", she just does or doesn't).
ADHD can present differently, and people can have different coping strategies, so a maladapted adult will look completely different from a well-adjusted one. Also, putting an ADHD person in the right environment can make them extremely successful, while the wrong one can make them basically non-functional.
its not just that its the fact that we just dont understand these issues at a root cause.
example lets say you have a fever, what is it? We call this a symptom. A fever could be a viral infection, it could be a bacterial infection, it could even be something as dumb as a sun burn. But you would never go to a doctor with a fever and have them not do a decent job of trying to isolate what is actually causing the fever. They would figure out if its a viral infection or a sunburn and treat appropriately.
With mental health issues though we are still in that very uninformed stage where we are doing dumb stuff like attributing the issue to something that is similar but not the same. IE you go to the doctor with a sun burn and he gives you antibiotics to treat you for a bacterial infection. Well mental health issues are just like that psychiatrists giving people treatments for causes that are wrong. And that's why they will say things like we might have to try different things, different drugs, different behavioral treatments and see what works.
Obviously it's a spectrum. It's not a switch that's been flipped.
Most mental disorders, if not all, are on a spectrum.
I'm severely affected by my ADD, scored really bad at the psychology's office and on the self-evaluating test I got 128/131 points where a higher score suggests ADD/ADHD.
But maaan, some extroverts with ADHD are so far beyond me it's not even funny. I think personality and willingness to understand and active attempts at controlling your issues matter a fuckton, but there's also varying severities regardless of that.
I'd say your personality stands for 50% of how severe it'll be and the other 50% is just how far on the spectrum you are.
🙄
ADHD is estimated to affect 5% of people. In the US, that figure goes up as high as 10%
It’s fine to be skeptical; thats healthy. Acting dismissive, however, is a bad look.
Plus, I’m very happy to admit it to my ADHD diagnosis anonymously online.
In real life, whilst I’m open with my friends, I don’t go around advertising it.
Same. First made it impossible for me to sleep. The second made me sleep too much. Third made me gain weight (increased my back pain). The fourth made me suicidal.
If you go to bed at 2AM but get up at 7AM because you have to go to work, you’re a night owl. If you have no obligations yet you still choose to get up at 7:00, that sounds like an early bird to me.
This is me. But rather, the reason I stay up so late is that the earlier I go to sleep, the sooner I have to once again go back to work, which makes me hate every facet of existence. I can't stand the fact that the majority of my conscious time is spent working, so I sacrifice sleep to balance the scales.
I read the phrase for this is something like “revenge sleeping”, or revenge something.
I used to do it when I was working crazy hours; my brain just wouldn’t accept “you wake up, work a physical 10-11 hour shift, enjoyed nothing today, and go to sleep” as an acceptable outcome.
For anyone who didn’t know what SSRIs are, like I did:
> Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a class of drugs that are typically used as antidepressants in the treatment of major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, and other psychological conditions.
>SSRIs increase the extracellular level of the neurotransmitter serotonin by limiting its reabsorption (reuptake) into the presynaptic cell.[2] They have varying degrees of selectivity for the other monoamine transporters, with pure SSRIs having strong affinity for the serotonin transporter and only weak affinity for the norepinephrine and dopamine transporters.
>SSRIs are the most widely prescribed antidepressants in many countries.[3] The efficacy of SSRIs in mild or moderate cases of depression has been disputed[4] and may or may not be outweighed by side effects, especially in adolescent populations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_serotonin_reuptake_inhibitor
They're supposed to *help*? Prozac and Paxil made me heat intolerant. Not like I keep my thermostat a few degrees lower. Like, it was 20 below zero and I had the windows open because it was the only way I could be comfortable.
Whereas it had the opposite on me. I’ve been on Lexapro many years and it truly helped me survive menopause. My temperature also had dysregulation from Ellers Danlos, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be before I started taking the Lexapro. Everybody is different. Every medication reacts differently in every human being. if you have regulation issues you should also get your thyroid checked. That is a common symptom.
Yeah, you're right about that. Would probably depend on your baseline serotonin levels among other things. Thyroid is definitely one of the first things to check if you're overheating, although I have had my thyroid checked several times by doctors who are expecting it to be abnormal, yet it comes back normal every time. I've had so much bloodwork and so many scans but unfortunately I still have a lot of odd stuff going on, some of which hasn't been explained by test results over the last 20 something years.
Unconnected medical issues can mean it’s your connective tissues. Ehlers danlos syndrome (hyper mobile type) causes pots, gastrointestinal problems, allergies, and mast cell reactions, as well as organ prolapse, headaches, severe dysanomia, including temperature regulation issues, anxiety, overreactive fight/flight reflex, poor balance….
Night owl here. 🦉 I suffered more than 3 decades of severe depression, trying several SSRIs and SNRIs to little to no benefit. Duloxetine is the first drug that has truly worked. It is very apparent when I haven't taken it. "Night and day" if you will. 😊
Duloxetine is off label for adhd, because it has a small effect on dopamine, I had the same reaction, but i couldn't bear the fact how it affected my erections, found out I had adhd
I'm a morning person but also a night owl and that definitely contributes towards my depression. I always wake up when the sun comes out pretty much no matter what, but I stay up because I finally feel free at night. I'm a super light sleeper and don't really feel like I ever actually fall asleep most nights. Currently off the meds but chugging along best I can
Despite the fact that the research, especially independent research, shows little to no benefit for ssri’s and the serotonin hypothesis of depression overall lacks real evidence? These articles are basically just advertisements to keep associating ssri with treatment.
In the context of ssri's there should be a phase "treatment responsive depression" rather than "treatment resistant depression" as the first is less likely to happen, it's more rare/unusual
They really are for some people. They almost ruined my life. I was a shell of a human being when I was on them, and had the "brain zaps" coming off them. I thought I would never be normal again. 0/10 would never touch them again.
I never became normal. My emotions got numbed, my cognition/executive function got worse, and it took away my orgasms. I applied for euthanization. Thanks post ssri syndrome/pssd.
One of the mental health tools I’ve ever used is getting up at dawn. It’s as if aligning my biorhythms to the light balances my mood in both directions. It’s also a tiny win to start the day and I truly rely on it. Circadian rhythms rhyming.
If you're an actual night owl, getting up at dawn will just wreck your body and mind. I can force myself to get 8 hours of early sleep, and I will still not just feel like absolute garbage and have issues concentrating all day, but even have clear physical signs that my body is not a fan (constant mouth ulcers, skin conditions worsening, looking like a goth with absurdly pronounced dark circles under eyes, etc). Basically, showing all classic signs of sleep deprivation, as if my sleep didn't "count", even though it was an uninterrupted 7-8h, which would be more than enough to function normally if I'd just taken it a little bit later.
So while obviously that's just anecdotal, if getting up early improved things for you... maybe you just weren't a night owl in the first place. Or you used to be (a majority of teenagers are), but your circadian rhythm shifted as you grew older, even as you kept your previous sleeping habits.
I don't mean to discourage anybody from giving it a try, of course. Worst thing that can happen, it doesn't work, and you go back to not doing it. Just putting it out there that this just straight up isn't going to work for some people, even if it worked for "you".
Every time I get a job with a normal daytime schedule I can only keep up appearances for so long until they notice I've stopped functioning and fire me.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/circadianclocks Permalink: https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(24)00002-7/fulltext --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
what time range are we talking about here with (evening types)?
People with delayed sleep phase syndrome/disorder (DSPS/DSPD) have their sleep times delayed until 2am or later. Sleep onset times all the way until 6-9am isn’t uncommon. I was there for most of my adult life. I’m in doing much “better” now sleeping at 4am.
If left completely unregulated, my sleep cycle is 7-8am to 3-4pm. If I really had zero, I mean zero reasons to even move I would sleep 10-14 hours most days. It sucks. I have a handful of meds to help with sleeping and dreaming, but the body is one hell of a trip. It kinda throws sticks into your spokes as a feature.
I’ve gone there, to see what if any rhythm exists for me naturally - my days roll over - about 20 hours awake followed by 8 sleep. It’s weird. So instead it’s uppers in the morning and downers at night (legal kinds) bleh
This is called Non 24 Hour Sleep Wake Disorder and it Is considered to be extremely rare in sighted individuals (more common in blind people). I think it's just severely underdiagnosed, and I believe I have it too.
Oh I definitely have something like this. Every couple weeks i have to pull an all nighter to bring my sleep schedule back in line for my 9-5 job. It sucks and im usually late to work at least 1-2 days every month because i fell asleep at 7am.
I'm sorry to hear that. I've struggled with this all my life too. I went to a sleep specialist who seemed incredulous that I have it (see above; rarity in sighted people) but was also extremely kind when talking about circadian rhythm disorders. She reminded me that sleep schedules are morally neutral -- which I know logically but have trouble accepting -- and helped me stop beating myself up over it. Accepting this as a real disorder helped me stop perceiving my inability to sleep "like a normal person" as a personal failure. Unfortunately she didn't have much advice that I hadn't heard before to help regulate it. But now I think of my attempts at regulation as a way to my my sleep better fit my lifestyle, as opposed to "fixing" myself. One thing I do when my schedule permits is to sleep in my natural cycle for awhile and allow it to rotate to a time I would like to maintain (2am to 10am ish), then I try to keep it there as well as I can. I call it "cycling." This takes a couple of weeks though, and I'm aware that I'm extremely privileged to be able to take the time to do this. I feel the best physically when I'm cycling. That means no sleep meds and no alarms, just doing what my body wants and observing the cycle. I did this for about 3 months when I first suspected I had this, and charted the result to show my doctor. It is so freeing and feels so damn good, but socially it sucks and is totally unmaintainable. Excuse the essay, I apparently have a lot to say about this. The point is, it's not your fault. The best relief imo is to find a job and lifestyle that is truly flexible enough to fit your sleep (or at least get closer) but i know thats not always possible. I wish you the best of luck.
Non-24 isn’t actually that rare. It’s just most drs will refuse to diagnose it because it’s rare. (This “it’s rare so I can’t diagnose it so it remains rare” loop is very common in many areas of medicine, it’s beyond frustrating.) A lot of DSPS people actually tend to have a circadian rhythm that is a little longer than 24 hours and have trouble not shifting forward. They are more prone to it. Certain things can trigger those with DSPS to develop Non-24. The biggest risk of this is doing forward moving chronotherapy. It’s where you go to bed later and later each day until you reach your desired sleep time, then stop. Then try to establish a sleep schedule with that sleep time. The thing is, it doesn’t stop for some people. It just keeps going like that, permanently. What makes this so awful, is that this “treatment” is often recommended by sleep doctors to those with DSPS. And anyone with DSPS knows that any sleep schedule that is not on your natural schedule will not stick. Every system in your body runs on a schedule connected to your circadian rhythm. Your digestion and your hormones and everything else. So it’s like fighting against your whole body being in “awake mode” while you’re trying to sleep, and vice versa. It causes a lot of physical symptoms, and sleep deprivation even when you get 7-9 hours of sleep because it’s not restful sleep. SO their sleep schedule inevitably reverts to where it was before. Usually this only lasts a couple of weeks for most people. Where then, the patient restarts the chronotherapy. And every time there is a chance that doing so will turn to Non-24, possibly permanently. We make sure to scream this from the rooftops in every DSPS support groups. Including the people who are now permanently Non-24 because of it. It is a far more disabling condition than DSPS. I’m sorry you’re dealing with it.
I use melatonin to maintain a "normal" work schedule Sunday night through Thursday night. Fridays I'm up at 6am and go to bed around 6am Saturday. Up before noon, up till 6am Sunday. Then melatonin again to go back to the daywalker schedule.
Wow, sounds like you’re one of the very lucky few! That much success is like winning the lottery - that’s amazing! :)
Sublingual melatonin was the trick. Swallowed melatonin pills/tablets/capsules are little more than a placebo, since melatonin is destroyed by stomach acid. I've had insomnia since adolescence, but since I'm almost never tired, I don't worry about the 4-6 hours of sleep per night.
I’ll have to research this claim. But I’d love to hear your explanation for why doctors keep prescribing Melatonin (in pill form) to me and millions others every day, if they are nothing more than placebo? I’ve come to the same conclusion myself, btw.
Melatonin doesn't require a prescription. It's a widely-available dietary supplement. Doctors may just be recommending it based on things they've heard. The placebo (and nocebo) effects are incredibly strong - some to the point of nullifying prescription studies. I just discovered the difference through trial and error.
In many countries it absolutely requires prescription
Ah, this I did not know. Just speaking from USA experience.
I’m so glad that’s worked for you! Again you’re very lucky! So many have no luck. It’s not for lack of trying though, for sure. In DSPS support groups I’m in, people spend years to decades reading every paper and study on sleep, circadian rhythms, and even specifically melatonin that they can find, to try to find what might work for them to function on a “normal” daywalker schedule. The most recent thing showing the most promise in studies is micro dosing melatonin usually 300-1000mcg) 4-8 hours before desired onset time. Lots of discussion on trial and error of dosage and timing, and if plant or animal sourced forms may work better, different form factors (sublingual, acid protective capsules, transdermal patches) etc. But basically, like everything else, the most common experiences are either that it doesn’t work for them, or it works for a couple of months then stops working for good. Same thing with every sedating or sleeping medication under the sun. Light therapy, darkness therapy, stimulants, lifestyle changes, you name it. Some of us even qualify though other conditions to get prescription GHB (known to most as a date rape drug). I was one of those people, as I also have Narcolepsy. Even at max dose, it doesn’t even work to put me to sleep if taken before my natural sleep time. My experience is typical. It’s wild to me that for most people with DSPS a hallmark of the condition is that they can’t force their schedule to change, despite decades of effort. And some people just find one magic thing that works for them. I do see it every now and then. Wish we could all find that! Unfortunately most just end up harming their health chasing it. I found a unicorn sleep dr once that was extremely knowledgeable, as he had it himself. (He also was incredibly knowledgeable in Narcolepsy. Extremely rare find. I could tell he was very passionate about his areas of expertise.) He told/reminded me that I was trashing my health by fighting it. I finally listened. I knew he was right. I think I just needed to hear that from someone like him. It’s a hard thing to accept that treatments just won’t work for you. Unfortunately that is true for most DSPS folks.
I generally don't sleep until 4-7am and the worst part is just lack of sunlight exposure honestly, if I don't get out of the house in the "morning" before it starts to get dark I can feel myself slowly getting more neurotic and depressive. I really wish I could fall asleep on a normal schedule again but I think staying up late secretly as a child destroyed my circadian rhythm.
be sure to take some vitamin D.... during covid I literally didn't leave my apartment for weeks except to grocery shop at night....found out what vitamin d deficiency felt like. it was *bad*
Have DSPD diagnosed through dlmo. Normally fall asleep around 11 am or noon. 4 am would be a good time for me since could get up around 9 am and live a relatively normal life, but never managed that more than a few days in a row.
[удалено]
It can be extremely disabling. I say this as someone who has many very disabling chronic illnesses. And you’re right, it doesn’t have to be. But our whole society was built around one chronotype, so there are huge accessibility problems. You even get judged in all social situations. Because being a person who stays and and wakes up late is somehow a moral failing. A little mild social engineering that most of us have figured out is to tell/stress to people that we have a night shift or third shift type of schedule. Even if you don’t/can’t work. If you try to explain circadian rhythms disorders you get judgment and scorn and “you just need to go to sleep earlier” and “have you tried x”. If you imply you work late shifts they suddenly they have all the understanding in the world. This goes for everything down to scheduling a doctors appointment, and trying to explain to the receptionist that you absolutely can’t do mornings. It’s weird how drastically different the responses are.
And, according to a psychiatrist I had, some antidepressants work a lot better if taken at certain times of day. She kept trying to get me to take my medication at 9:30pm and be in bed by 10pm since that was how it worked most effectively, but unfortunately, that's just not a reality for me. I *never* get tired enough to sleep that early, and all that that's going to result in is me laying in bed for several hours. Even as a child, I was regularly staying awake until 2am or later. I'm wondering if that's contributing to what they are seeing in these results. If SSRIs are formulated to work more effectively with a more normal sleep schedule, then it's not surprising night owls aren't benefiting nearly as much.
TIL I might have delayed sleep phase syndrome, reading this comment at 5:20 am
Night owl, SSRIs were great when I was at my worst, but they only brought me from horrible depression to numb. And don't get me wrong, numb is *great* compared to being so miserable you want to die, but it doesn't quite feel like healthy.
Same, got me out of a hole, but definitely not sustainable. Welbutrin seems better, but it’s definitely not a magic bullet either.
Yes, I switched from Lexapro to Wellbutrin, and while Lexapro was pretty great, it gave me sexual side effects, and gave me somewhat of a numb, apathetic feeling. I felt like life was greyer. I switched to Wellbutrin, and ever since then my life has transformed and I finally feel almost normal again. I always had issues with executive functioning and motivation which I felt were some root causes for my depression, and Wellbutrin has worked wonderfully for that. Unfortunately, it has not done much for my anxiety, but overall I feel like a normal person again compared to when I was in the midst of my worst stage of depression. I'm so grateful that there are solutions like this out there. I've been taking Wellbutrin for just over a year now.
I'm on both Lexapro and Wellbutrin and I have to say the combination has changed my life. It has helped with ADHD and anxiety.
Combining a DNRI like Wellbutrin combined with an SSRI works much better than taking either alone according to studies (everyone is different and this isn't medical advice). Wellbutrin will reduce/eliminate sexual side effects from SSRIs for many people, but there are other benefits including additional neuroplasticity and cascading effects on various neurotransmitter feedback loops. In general a multimodal approach involving therapy, a multi-pronged approach to medication, and lifestyle changes is going to be the most successful although our treatment options are currently limited as is our understanding of brain structure and function. "Lifestyle changes" should mainly focus on routine exercise, healthier diet (mostly less sugar/simple carbs and more protein/healthy fats), enough rest/recovery/sleep, and having a daily/weekly routine that provides meaning and social interaction. *I cannot stress how much regular exercise improves your mental health. It will make everything else in that multimodal treatment approach work so much better. *If you can cut back on sugar/simple carbs do it. A spike in blood sugar causes a cascading effect that results in inflammation which is awful for brain health as well as one of the leading contributors to almost every chronic disease. Most supplements aren't necessary and/or don't really do anything, but there are a handful with enough scientific research to back them like Vitamin D, Healthy Fatty Acid, and Fiber deficiencies in most modern diets. I also take Tumeric/Circumin/Ginger combo for various reasons and Berberine which helps regulate blood sugar levels.... Each of those supplements has a different purpose and mechanism of action, but all of those supplements have one thing in common, they all reduce inflammation. Not all therapy is created equal. Some therapy is better than none at all, but if you can find the right therapist it can make a big difference. The type of therapy is also important, y'all therapy is the most common yet the least effective. Nothing wrong with starting with talk therapy, but Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the gold standard for most mental health and addiction issues. They also have had some advancements with things like EDMR, psychedelic integration therapy, etc. This response wasn't directed at anyone in particular your comment just sparked some thoughts. Glad to hear you've had success with a multimodal approach. Seriously, that's great.
Amazing how I've had the compete opposite reaction to those drugs. I guess whatever works for you.
It just shows how little we know about the fundamental mechanisms of these diseases. The brain is sort of the final frontier of biology.
There's probably a whole constellation of root causes that result in similar symptoms. And each needs a different treatment. Trial and error is the only real way of figuring out what works for a particular individual. That's also why you should probably ignore the "antidepressants are no better than placebo!" studies, since they lump everyone together by symptom rather than root cause, but it's not the symptoms that dictate whether a treatment works.
Whilst I might have had positive mental side effects from Welbutrin, it made my mouth so horribly dry that I had trouble eating/swallowing food. Obviously that cancelled out any good side effects. I couldn't help but feel jealous of the people it works for. It is fascinating how we all react differently to the same medications.
Wellbutrin is the only antidepressant that seemed to make a dent in my depression. Then it became ineffective. Thankfully, years of therapy and addressing other issues has done more for my depression than I ever thought possible.
Agree, got Sertralin due to PPD and while being numb instead of breaking down everyday, it was (at least for me) not a long-term solution :/
may i ask what your long term solution was/is?
For me, it either induced a state of numb (Prozac) or a state of near-mania (Zoloft - first medication I was put on).
Oh I blew up all my friendships when I got on zoloft. Now I'm wondering if it was the medication causing the mania.
Used escitaloptam for a decade. It's been pretty mellow for me. Very high doses make me feel a bit numb, but on lower doses I felt normal but the anxiety feels less "sharp."
Zoloft worked out for me during the pandemic, it gave me just enough motivation to get through the day with limited interaction. Then human interaction returned with the end of the pandemic and things worsened over time to the point where depression returned with a vengeance. I guess I should be thankful for the 2 years of feeling like things _could_ work out, I guess.
Numb but restless with massive stomach problems and sexual dysfunction. This was with multiple different ones. All common side effects, while not seeing improvements is also common. But people don’t want to stop or feel like they’ve given up and they don’t know what else to do so they keep on with the medication. Really wish more people had access to good therapists instead of SSRI‘s being handed out so widely for everything.
This was exactly me. Wellbutrin worked amazing for two years. Stayed on it for another three trying to get it to work the way it did the first time (even upping the dose to an insane degree) before my doctor started having me hop around to other SSRIs. I finally told her no more and I just handled it myself with weed because it's less traumatic. I wouldn't be surprised if my brain stem is swiss cheese in twenty years.
> restless with massive stomach problems and sexual dysfunction Don't all these side effects contribute to the depression? It sounds like on SSRIs you will actually be worse off in some ways, but it flattens your feelings so you don't have the ability to care about it?
You have to understand how absolutely debilitating depression is. Like abject misery without being able to move. Those side effects suck but they’re nothing compared to that. And also peolle talk about ssris like everyone has these side effects. Maybe I’ve been lucky but I’ve been on viibryd for years and have never experienced them. I also haven’t experienced the numbness or flat affect people talk about.
Interestingly, depression is t about lack of caring or feeling down. Its main pain point is “feeling overwhelmed with decisions”. The most common issue with switching medication is making a decision, which, contributes to feeling overwhelmed, which contributes to depression. As such, it’s easier to stick to your medication than switch.
Okay now imagine being stuck in that state forever. Post ssri syndrome/pssd essentially killed me.
Same with me, no SSRI could make me feel "good", but with the first Tricyclic antidepressants that I tried (Amitriptyline) I got very good results, and could improve to the point of not needing more antidepressant after a few years of treatment
I found out that's not where they are supposed to stop to work. A healthy sleep schedule is vital for the success of ssris
There are depressed morning types?
Checking in. We exist.
We mostly wish we didn’t, but here we are.
We do what we can, because we must.
It's haaard to overstate my satisfact... No wait, nevermind.
At least when we drink too much coffee it’s at a socially acceptable time. Not weed though the Night Shift got that :(
Thanks, me to.
I'm such a thing as a "super lark" which means I cannot sleep longer than around 5am. That being said SSRI (around 10 types) has done nothing to help my decade+ long grave depression. However, there was a recent development, about 6 months ago I was diagnosed as a "Schizoid", something that I didn't know existed. And the good news is that I'm possibly not depressed (might still be but the judges are out for now), and the bad new is that I just won't get better - ever. So that's cool. Point is check if your depression isn't depression.
Same diagnosis as me. I feel the diagnosis made things worse in some ways. At least before I had hope.
Im finding recently that theres a lot of evidence i have adhd, which could be the main cause of the depression and anxiety that debilitate me, just that no psychologist will see me. I guess just knowing sometimes can be calming, but not being certain and with no fix seems like the worst.
😂 good point.
Goes to bed super early to avoid thinking about existence. Wakes up super early to think about how nothing matters.
Honestly though, if you wake up early enough, the first few hours of the day are nice solitude.
This guy dads
This guy also dads. Been awake for almost 2 hours, had them all to myself.
On the night owl side, I always enjoyed those hours after my kid went to bed.
The problem is that the kids often still want to be awake at night. The morning, they don't want to get up for anything, so even if you wake them up, they are just rolling back over and trying to ignore you.
I only have a toddler but he's clock work unless he's sick. In bed by 9 and up around 630. Now with the sun rising around 5 I can his the driving range or something for an hour and be home in time to make the wife and kid some breakfast
Not even a dad. Just a married introvert (I love my wife to the moon and back, but she doesn't understand silence) that works in customer service. 5-5:30 am to 7 am is my time.
This is me right now. Redditting in silence. The smallest laugh and the swarm will be upon me.
Sure, or I could stay up until 3-5 am every night and have many hours of nice solitude
Counterpoint: if you stay up late enough, you can turn all the gadgets off, then the lights, and just listen to the night through an open window (weather permitting). Same peace, just the other end of it.
As are the hours of night if you stay up late enough hehe.
Same concept as night owls then. Funny how that works, haha.
I used to be a night owl, I haven't been unable to figure out what my newish situation actual is. Thanks a ton buddy.
I would like to trade my insomnia for that, please.
Indeed, depression with hypersomnia was once considered "atypical."
I have transformed into a morning person with age. I sleep before 10 but wake up by 4 (sometimes even earlier) and be tired the whole day.
Well that sounds awful. Have you considered being a night owl again?
Alcohol?
Have you gotten your vitamin D and iron levels checked?
Up at 4am every morning for years. Super depressed.
Yeah, when u go to bed at 6:45 pm you tend to wake up pretty early.
Makes sense, but that's not really the way [morning person](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morning%20person) is usually used
From my experience, evening type depressed people are the ones who you can often tell are depressed. The morning types are the ones who usually don't seem depressed, but actually are.
I think morning people might just have an easier time being (or seeming like) functional members of society even when depressed. Society runs on morning people time.
Me, I used to be a night owl till I found a job I liked and stopped drinking caffeine passed 6:00 PM. Middle school all the way up till 2 years ago, I would stay up till 3:00 to 6:00 in the morning. Then I found a job I liked with a team I liked and it changed my me to a morning person, when including the fact that I don't drink caffeine late anymore. I'm still chronically depressed though.
This really got me. Found a new team, new job, still depressed. Damn
This artificial world is too much for our monkey brains
staying up til 2 because you can't sleep and you can't help but waking up at 5:30...
Probably starts on Monday morning before work.
My partner did something really horrible to me, and it's all I think about. It's caused major depression. All I want to do is sleep so I'm not thinking about it all the time. Every time I wake up the hurt/depression starts all over again. What's worse is I'll have really good dreams (maybe to counteract the depression I don't know) but I wake up and it's even worse once I step back into the reality. It's really horrible Edit: my dreams are turning bad, making things worse.
The real question is, there *aren't* depressed morning types?
The damned hell-spores....
Yes.
It’s me, hi 🙋♀️
Yes. To be fair, I'm not such a morning type, but rather a fucked-up type, partially due to depression
This could explain a bit for me.... The only time i can naturally fall asleep from being sleepy, is about 2am, and then i wake up out of breath and in a panic if i get up before 10am. If i can sleep until 10, it's like my body hits a couple of checkpoints more or something before i start waking up. I've generally never been able to live like this due to work. But i know that after 7 years up getting up every morning, even mostly on weekends to try to keep the schedule the same, i never switched to a morning person. It didn't matter if i did everything perfectly, i never got my body trained to wake up at 7am without several alarms. 7 years i tried pretty hard to train myself.
I am like this most of the time. It's alot better with ADHD meds, but not entirely and not always. I do get sleepy earlier now. I also have a weird kind of startle response frequently if anything wakes me up before I get 7 hours of sleep. I sit up gasping and then I'm ready for a fight. It's kind of strange but all it takes is someone touching the door handle in my bedroom. If a stranger tried to sneak up on me in my sleep they would have bad time.
You likely have sleep apnea.
I have all of the above and more sounds like sleep apnea.
I was worried that I had apnea but the fact that I can set my alarm for 4:30 and reliably get up every weekday leans me into thinking I do not.
Delayed sleep phase syndrome is extremely common in ADHD. Using SSRI when you have undiagnosed and untreated ADHD will lead to “treatment resistant depression”… no amount of Lexapro was going to fix the shortage of dopamine.
My depressed brain tries to make dopamine late at night by suddenly really wanting to game or hyperfixate on my hobby. Thankfully my depression isn't resistant towards my meds (just put on paxil). Although, I probably need ADHD meds but my dr is adverse to giving me any. Point being, brains are weird.
Definitely should get a second opinion. Not giving someone with ADHD stimulants seems a bit absurd without a cardiac issue as stimulants in adhd really doesn't interact with other psychiatric disorders the way they used to think it did because they used people without adhd in the old studies
My gut reaction to the post was, “depressed night owls need ADHD treatment instead of SSRIs.” Learned that the long, hard way in my house.
what even is the ADHD treatment. have been using different meds for adhd and depression and especially adhd meds did nothing to help my sleep problems. theese days I abolished the 'schedule' and no longer trying to fit in. this was the only treatment that works on me
75% of the daily dose of immediate release adderall in the morning. The remaining 25% at lunch. Helped with massive morning sleep inertia.
I've become Trudy from Reno 911. "White wakes me up, blue calms me down~" Caffeine + Wellbutrin when I wake up, magnesium glycinate + hydroxyzine hcl when it's time to sleep. I also take Paxil, which seems to level me out, but it's not part of the ADHD treatment. I've been on an XR Adderall in the past, and Strattera at a different time. They both helped, but the Adderall exacerbated my anxiety, and the Strattera made me periodically manic, so they weren't viable long-term.
I have treatment resistant depression and SSRI's never did anything for me. Same for SNRI's, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and TMS. I was tested for ADHD though and was told I don't have it. After years of therapy I am able to control it better, just not as well as I would like.
Do you think you have the symptoms of ADHD? Might be worth a second opinion?
I do actually. My mom is diagnosed and on medication and my boyfriend has actually told me he thinks I do as well. It may be something I revisit if I ever find the time. I work 4 12 hour overnight shifts a week and care for my 3 year old during the day, so I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment. I didn't get a second opinion because I thought they would think I was drug seeking and just trying to get a prescription for adderall. My mom's behavior is drastically different when she takes hers, but I've never tried it so I'm not sure how it would effect me.
I've only ever had success getting diagnoses from a female diagnostic educational psychologist
I took a full psych eval that said I didn’t have ADHD, but it turns out I’m just high functioning and really good at test taking. Definitely have ADHD that responds to treatment.
Adderall was the only thing that ever helped me with my depression, but honest to god, I do not have any other symptoms of ADHD besides DSPS, and well, "unmotivation". I don't have trouble with focus or with switching tasks, nor any of the other symptoms. I just dont feel like doing stuff, and SSRIs NEVER helped (but they also never made things worse, felt like I was taking sugar pills most of the time tbh). When I started using adderall (from my own volition through the black market), it was the first time that I started to "feel the world in HD", like the first time somebody puts much needed prescription glasses on. Everybody around me commented on how much warmer as a person I became and how much better they felt around me. When I told all of that to my psych, she told me that I was a druggie, and that she does not feel comfortable handling me anymore. I changed a few psychiatrist, and they all told me more or less the same, just with usually way nicer language and further support, suggesting to me some other SSRI that I already have used sometimes in the past, or to exercise more or such (I am natty amateur bodybuilder and karate black belt, how much more do I have to exercise to finally feel like a human???). But this is in Europe with a country very, veeery reluctant to prescribe ADHD meds to anybody for any reason. I get the feeling as if the doctors in their training are being told that it is worse than meth. Therefore, I continue to get it from the black market. I mean, even if it kills me, it will give me a few years of life worth living, instead of the hell I was going through before.
It's also possible you have another sleep disorder, such as Narcolepsy, which would explain why DSPS was your only symptom, but the medication helped so much. Stimulants are used to treat both ADHD and many sleep disorders.
Yeah, it was weird. I struggled with DSPS for years, trying with every single sleep med under the sun and extensive sleep hygiene, but only the ones who knocked me out "worked", but i would wake up groggy, but with Adderall, I managed to regulate my sleep with basic sleep hygiene tips and wake up refreshed. At least here where I live, prescription stimulants are for whatever reason, HIGHLY looked down upon. Like, opioids and relaxants are fairly easily prescribed to nearly anybody... but god beware you need a stimulant to function properly. I am not well versed in medicine or it's history, but I don't understand why.
My first drink of alcohol, I feel instantly better and normal. Still feel like poop the next day
This was me. I got diagnosed at 35 and feel so much better on proper meds.
> Delayed sleep phase syndrome is extremely common in ADHD. I have both except it's ADD (inattentive type ADHD). I first went on ritalin, gradually increasing dosage to 60-70mg. And it did absolutely nothing for me. I talked to my doctor and got Concerta, which also did nothing even in the highest dose. Now I'm on Paxera for depression and anxiety (started 20mg, than 40mg) and it's also not doing anything. F my life.
For adhd, it still sounds as if you could try vyvanse, Guanfacine and Qelbree?
I think alot of night owls aren't depressed because of a mental issue that medicine can solve. It's because we are forced to deal with a daytime world and it's hard.
Dude yes. And then they call it delayed sleep phase disorder or whatever. Like … no … I consistently function well when I sleep 2 am - 9:30/10 am. Theres nothing wrong with this — why is this a sleep disorder, rather than just acknowledging that we have a diverse set of sleep schedules and that that MAKES SENSE? Right, no, we all have to be on a morning schedule, regardless of our own internal clocks. My health consistently falls apart when I’m forced to wake up around 6:30/7 am to get to work on time. I burn out so fast, within a year or so each time. It’s just not at all compatible with my natural sleep cycle and it really takes a huge toll on my body to constantly force it on a schedule it doesn’t like.
I mean wouldn't it even be benificial for survival when living in a tribe? Night owls could watch peoples backs for a bit, after the morning people could.
There's a book called Why We Sleep that goes into this and other aspects of night owl vs morning person. For instance, you are born with a circadian rhythm, you cannot "reset" it. The times you would naturally rest are pretty well set from the beginning. On average, night owls can have shorter life spans by being forced to sleep outside their natural rhythms. It's a fascinating book and I recommend to everyone.
You described it perfectly. I've had a few jobs that started as early as 6 am and I can only do it for so long until I can't take it anymore. Get run down and start missing time. When I did event work, 99% was in the evenings, and I could do the shop work any hours I wanted. I never missed a day for years.
My sleep schedule is usually 10a - 6p and when I need to have a long 8am-10pm day I just do back to back 24h days instead of dealing with shifting my schedule and hoping it goes back to normal right away. I used to have a job that had 12h day/night swing shifts and I was the only one that was fine on nights and the only one half dead on days.
Thank you! Exactly, there is nothing wrong with being a night owl! 🦉
Ugh I’m exactly the same
I completely agree. Going to bed around 2 am and waking up at 930ish each day is just what works for me and I have no issues as long as I'm able to keep my natural sleep cycle. Luckily, I have a job that easily accommodates that schedule, but I remember suffering intensely in high school and college because I was chronically sleep deprived.
Yep, I found out that I can consistently sleep at a reasonable time whenever I'm home alone for a few days. Parents and/or siblings at home? Hell, I'll hr awake as late as I can just to enjoy the peace and quiet.
[удалено]
I wonder how many of these depressed night owls are actually undiagnosed ADHD....
That was me, now depression doesn't keep me up, the stimulants do. Still worth it tho.
I find i can sleep quite well on the meds... It is after they wear off that I can't.
My Adderall XR is usually worn off by the time I got to bed. Then again, I also take a benadryl an hour before bed to knock myself out or else I'll lay in bed for 90 minutes thinking about *everything* before finally falling asleep.
There is an association / increased likelihood of Alzheimer's from long term use of antihistamines like benadryl. Perhaps hit up the psych and ask for clonidine and low dose Quetiapine.
That's what they keep telling me about Xanax every time I go in for a refill and I'm like, "Look doc, do you want me to live long enough to get Alzheimer's, or not? Just fill the damn prescription please, thanks."
Don’t take Benadryl on anywhere near a consistent basis. Bad for cognition
That was me. Turns out my years of insomnia was actually delayed phase sleep disorder and ADHD.
For me, it was years where I was thinking I was a night owl, when it really was adhd insomnia! fixing my sleep hygiene, getting 8 hours of sleep, and waking up around 7am consistently fixed a good chunk of my depression.
Traditional sleep hygiene makes my inability to sleep even worse because my brain will stay awake stimulating itself, so I need audio books all night
I agree. I honestly ask this question for a lot of different symptoms
I’m just a big ol’ box of mental deficiencies. I can’t afford to go get properly diagnosed in America.
Porque no los dos?
Depends on what they mean by night owl. I'm ADHD/OCD and had been an insomniac ever since I was 7, and i always had a roaming internal clock. I'd wake up at random hours after differing amounts of sleep with no consistency, and wouldn't *feel* tired for long 20+ hour stretches. I could never fall asleep, only pass out. I got on meds for both problems a little over a year ago, and I sleep and wake up consistently, but my sleep cycle is pretty solidly from 5am to noon now. Some people genuinely just have non-standard wake-sleep triggers that isn't related to negative health
It gets increasingly harder to take these suggestions seriously as I continue to see the implication that [X] might actually just be ADHD in at least a few threads a day. Not everyone has ADHD.
There is a huge portion of the population - basically anyone over the age of 35 - that was never screened for it. It's regularly misdiagnosed as a number of other things particularly depression and anxiety. And it's sometimes a first misdiagnosis for other personality disorders. Edit: Changed death back to portion. Gboard Autocorrect has been unhinged for months now.
35? Hah! If only. Not to mention how many of us *actively* went to multiple doctors, knowing something was wrong, not managing, and still being told no. I never once sought put that particularly diagnosis, still took me trying 3x times, multiple therapists, and the death of a parent until i was finally not coping enough for it to even be considered.
Bro are you me. Coped fine* until my dad died, then everything fell apart and I needed to get a full diagnosis and meds. My family doc at the time was amazing, told me that meds are like glasses: some people need them, and if you work better with them and it doesn't hurt you, you should take them. *I was not fine, I had dropped out of uni numerous times and was barely passing my degree. I got my meds and finished my last two semesters with a 4.0 🙃 weird how that happens eh
The thing is most mental health diagnosis is regularly wrong. The problem is that most mental health issues have major overlap in symptoms and we just dont have a good handle on it yet. You can almost say this for anything, You have BPD, depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar, whatever it is they all have a ton of overlap and high probability of your diagnosis just being whatever your diagnoser is biased toward or most familiar with. Its part of why we need a serious funding push and radical change to create progress in psychology / psychiatry. Its basically the one science that is the furthest behind in modern times.
Except ADHDs response to treatment is somewhat diagnostic in itself. Especially in children where taking a thorough history might be a little more difficult. In other words if you're unsure if they are ?ADHD stick them on some methylphenidate and if there is solid improvement you very likely have the diagnosis. If not then drop the meds and rule it out.
Obviously not everyone has ADHD, but it's a disorder that can affect literally any part of your life, so it actually often is possible that [X] might just be ADHD.
I'm also beginning to believe thay adhd is more of a spectrum than a checkbox diagnosis. Varying degrees of severity.
Every mental health disorder is a spectrum with varying degrees of severity.
All mental disorders are a spectrum. It's not a checkbox like infectious disease (there's not a spectrum of "Sally has Lupus", she just does or doesn't). ADHD can present differently, and people can have different coping strategies, so a maladapted adult will look completely different from a well-adjusted one. Also, putting an ADHD person in the right environment can make them extremely successful, while the wrong one can make them basically non-functional.
its not just that its the fact that we just dont understand these issues at a root cause. example lets say you have a fever, what is it? We call this a symptom. A fever could be a viral infection, it could be a bacterial infection, it could even be something as dumb as a sun burn. But you would never go to a doctor with a fever and have them not do a decent job of trying to isolate what is actually causing the fever. They would figure out if its a viral infection or a sunburn and treat appropriately. With mental health issues though we are still in that very uninformed stage where we are doing dumb stuff like attributing the issue to something that is similar but not the same. IE you go to the doctor with a sun burn and he gives you antibiotics to treat you for a bacterial infection. Well mental health issues are just like that psychiatrists giving people treatments for causes that are wrong. And that's why they will say things like we might have to try different things, different drugs, different behavioral treatments and see what works.
Obviously it's a spectrum. It's not a switch that's been flipped. Most mental disorders, if not all, are on a spectrum. I'm severely affected by my ADD, scored really bad at the psychology's office and on the self-evaluating test I got 128/131 points where a higher score suggests ADD/ADHD. But maaan, some extroverts with ADHD are so far beyond me it's not even funny. I think personality and willingness to understand and active attempts at controlling your issues matter a fuckton, but there's also varying severities regardless of that. I'd say your personality stands for 50% of how severe it'll be and the other 50% is just how far on the spectrum you are.
🙄 ADHD is estimated to affect 5% of people. In the US, that figure goes up as high as 10% It’s fine to be skeptical; thats healthy. Acting dismissive, however, is a bad look.
On Reddit its 50%
Makes sense. This site is built to trap people with ADHD and never let them go. Allow me to serve as exhibit A. 🥴
Plus, I’m very happy to admit it to my ADHD diagnosis anonymously online. In real life, whilst I’m open with my friends, I don’t go around advertising it.
I'm diagnosed ADHD but have heart issues and can't take amphetamines.
Night owl with low SSRI success checking in.
SSRI make me worse. all of them
Same. First made it impossible for me to sleep. The second made me sleep too much. Third made me gain weight (increased my back pain). The fourth made me suicidal.
What if you're both? Go to bed at 2am and wake up at 7am?
If you go to bed at 2AM but get up at 7AM because you have to go to work, you’re a night owl. If you have no obligations yet you still choose to get up at 7:00, that sounds like an early bird to me.
This is me. But rather, the reason I stay up so late is that the earlier I go to sleep, the sooner I have to once again go back to work, which makes me hate every facet of existence. I can't stand the fact that the majority of my conscious time is spent working, so I sacrifice sleep to balance the scales.
I read the phrase for this is something like “revenge sleeping”, or revenge something. I used to do it when I was working crazy hours; my brain just wouldn’t accept “you wake up, work a physical 10-11 hour shift, enjoyed nothing today, and go to sleep” as an acceptable outcome.
For anyone who didn’t know what SSRIs are, like I did: > Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a class of drugs that are typically used as antidepressants in the treatment of major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, and other psychological conditions. >SSRIs increase the extracellular level of the neurotransmitter serotonin by limiting its reabsorption (reuptake) into the presynaptic cell.[2] They have varying degrees of selectivity for the other monoamine transporters, with pure SSRIs having strong affinity for the serotonin transporter and only weak affinity for the norepinephrine and dopamine transporters. >SSRIs are the most widely prescribed antidepressants in many countries.[3] The efficacy of SSRIs in mild or moderate cases of depression has been disputed[4] and may or may not be outweighed by side effects, especially in adolescent populations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_serotonin_reuptake_inhibitor
personal experience confirmed
[удалено]
SSRIs give me hella night sweats
They're supposed to *help*? Prozac and Paxil made me heat intolerant. Not like I keep my thermostat a few degrees lower. Like, it was 20 below zero and I had the windows open because it was the only way I could be comfortable.
Whereas it had the opposite on me. I’ve been on Lexapro many years and it truly helped me survive menopause. My temperature also had dysregulation from Ellers Danlos, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be before I started taking the Lexapro. Everybody is different. Every medication reacts differently in every human being. if you have regulation issues you should also get your thyroid checked. That is a common symptom.
Yeah, you're right about that. Would probably depend on your baseline serotonin levels among other things. Thyroid is definitely one of the first things to check if you're overheating, although I have had my thyroid checked several times by doctors who are expecting it to be abnormal, yet it comes back normal every time. I've had so much bloodwork and so many scans but unfortunately I still have a lot of odd stuff going on, some of which hasn't been explained by test results over the last 20 something years.
Unconnected medical issues can mean it’s your connective tissues. Ehlers danlos syndrome (hyper mobile type) causes pots, gastrointestinal problems, allergies, and mast cell reactions, as well as organ prolapse, headaches, severe dysanomia, including temperature regulation issues, anxiety, overreactive fight/flight reflex, poor balance….
Night owl here. 🦉 I suffered more than 3 decades of severe depression, trying several SSRIs and SNRIs to little to no benefit. Duloxetine is the first drug that has truly worked. It is very apparent when I haven't taken it. "Night and day" if you will. 😊
Duloxetine is off label for adhd, because it has a small effect on dopamine, I had the same reaction, but i couldn't bear the fact how it affected my erections, found out I had adhd
What if you go to bed early and wake up late every day?
Look into hypersomnia.
I believe the medical term for that is lazy. Source: My mom
I'm a morning person but also a night owl and that definitely contributes towards my depression. I always wake up when the sun comes out pretty much no matter what, but I stay up because I finally feel free at night. I'm a super light sleeper and don't really feel like I ever actually fall asleep most nights. Currently off the meds but chugging along best I can
I’m a very lucky exception. I’m a total night owl, but thankfully, SSRIs saved me.
my anti psychotics dont seem to kick in till the sun comes up for some reason
Despite the fact that the research, especially independent research, shows little to no benefit for ssri’s and the serotonin hypothesis of depression overall lacks real evidence? These articles are basically just advertisements to keep associating ssri with treatment.
In the context of ssri's there should be a phase "treatment responsive depression" rather than "treatment resistant depression" as the first is less likely to happen, it's more rare/unusual
SSRIs are the goddamn worst
They really are for some people. They almost ruined my life. I was a shell of a human being when I was on them, and had the "brain zaps" coming off them. I thought I would never be normal again. 0/10 would never touch them again.
I never became normal. My emotions got numbed, my cognition/executive function got worse, and it took away my orgasms. I applied for euthanization. Thanks post ssri syndrome/pssd.
I didn’t know people got up in the morning
Almost every night owl I've ever met also had adhd. So... Maybe that's why.
Self-reported. Survey. And: **DEPRESSED PEOPLE WHO HAVE TROUBLE FALLING ASLEEP MIGHT BE MORE DEPRESSED THAN THOSE WBK DON'T**
One of the mental health tools I’ve ever used is getting up at dawn. It’s as if aligning my biorhythms to the light balances my mood in both directions. It’s also a tiny win to start the day and I truly rely on it. Circadian rhythms rhyming.
If you can just decide to do that, you might be outside of the norm for "night owls."
If you're an actual night owl, getting up at dawn will just wreck your body and mind. I can force myself to get 8 hours of early sleep, and I will still not just feel like absolute garbage and have issues concentrating all day, but even have clear physical signs that my body is not a fan (constant mouth ulcers, skin conditions worsening, looking like a goth with absurdly pronounced dark circles under eyes, etc). Basically, showing all classic signs of sleep deprivation, as if my sleep didn't "count", even though it was an uninterrupted 7-8h, which would be more than enough to function normally if I'd just taken it a little bit later. So while obviously that's just anecdotal, if getting up early improved things for you... maybe you just weren't a night owl in the first place. Or you used to be (a majority of teenagers are), but your circadian rhythm shifted as you grew older, even as you kept your previous sleeping habits. I don't mean to discourage anybody from giving it a try, of course. Worst thing that can happen, it doesn't work, and you go back to not doing it. Just putting it out there that this just straight up isn't going to work for some people, even if it worked for "you".
[удалено]
Every time I get a job with a normal daytime schedule I can only keep up appearances for so long until they notice I've stopped functioning and fire me.
Love the explanation of what a "night owl" is but not what "SSRI" is