Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Sleep Deprivation & Depression

One of the symptoms of depression is not wanting to get out of bed. This is partly due to a desire to have no contact with the world. But it may also be an attempt to make up for lost sleep. ~Rob Bryant~

One of the first signs of depression is a change in sleep habits. Either the person sleeps way too much hypersomnia or displays insomnia, lack of sleep. The longer these conditions exist the more pronounced the symptoms of depression become. ~Sue Wiles~

I read a very interesting article about sleep and depression which claims that not only is sleep and depression related but they are intertwined. The study disproves the three current thoughts on the causes of depression being 1. a chemical imbalance, 2. caused by negative thoughts, 3. a traumatic event.
Depression comes with tiredness and the study suggests that the reason depressed people are over-tired is because they over-dream. They claim that a depressed persons state of r.e.m. is increased because of emotional arousal. If a person spends to long dreaming and not enough time in deep sleep, they will wake up tired no matter what. Tiredness leads to depressed thought patterns which leads to emotional arousal which leads to over dreaming which leads to tiredness, and so on and so forth. This means that a depressed person gets stuck in a never ending loop. ~ Elizabeth Handyside~

All of the above are what I am going through. I just feel so tired and weak. I feel so down as if my mind and brain are crowded with so many things that I want to scream. I just feel that I wanna e left alone. The idea of being with people just sickens me! Why am I feeling this way?!!