The antidepressant effect of sleep deprivation
How very odd for me to find this on HN this evening. I&#x27;m on &quot;day 2&quot; of my once a week sleep fast, which means things are a bit surreal to begin with.<p>For each of the last seven weeks, I stay awake from Thursday morning until my &quot;regular&quot; bedtime hour Friday evening.<p>I do this because it actually seems to be an effective way to avoid falling into a hole of anhedonia and &quot;stuck-ness.&quot; I am hip to many of the cognitive tricks of depression, and can deal, kind of--I am utterly unable to deal with the physical listlessness and absence of drive that comes with it.<p>Skipping sleep on a set schedule seems to work for me. At first I didn&#x27;t think I could keep it up, and I was concerned by potential safety hazards. My concerns are justified, as I am pretty loopy by Friday afternoon, or around the 32 hour mark.<p>Of all the esoteric treatments for my mood, this is perhaps the only real success except for Yoga (BKS-style Ashtanga).<p>I have a feeling I might receive some benefit from ascetic practices in general; and will experiment with caloric restriction, e.g. in future months.<p>I have no idea if I should expect the effects of this practice to remain pronounced, and my experience seems to differ somewhat from that described in the article.<p>I sure hope I continue to benefit, because I don&#x27;t respond well to any of the usual methodologies. Also, I don&#x27;t feel comfortable enough in the onions to do a proper Ketamine trial.<p>&#x2F;&#x2F; I don&#x27;t mean to sound breezy. I only include that last note to emphasize how unendurable my world was becoming.<p>If this makes sense to you, I feel for you. One foot in front of the other...<p>The downside: I am totally sober, but I know my executive function is not working very well, and I may very well regret commenting.<p>edit: some glaring issues with words