March 4, 2022
One of the most effective treatments for depressive symptoms is sleep deprivation. In fact, if one could take sleep deprivation in pill form, it would likely be rated higher than most SSRIs. To be honest, I did not believe this information when I first read it; it seems improbable that such an easy solution exists. There are obviously drawbacks to not sleeping: reduced cognitive capacity, exhaustion, inability to operate large vehicles, eventual psychosis, and death. That being said, it seems that there could be some uncommon\maladjusted sleeping pattern that may stave off the symptoms of depression, though I am not qualified enough to say what shape it may take.
However, I am qualified on my own mental state to the extent that any person is qualified to speak on their own mental state and have just completed a 36-hour sleep deprivation experiment, consisting of 33 hours of wakefulness and 3 hours of sleep. This was done from 6 A.M. on March 4th to 6 P.M. on March 5th, this post being a log of my experience.
6-9 AM – Just woke up, showered, and got ready for the day. Drank a cup of coffee around 8 and decided to skip my first class at 9 so that I could make chocolate chip pancakes. 10 AM – Went to my first class, Ethics and Medicine.
11 AM – 1 PM – Drank a second cup of coffee in the Chemical Engineering Lounge brought to you by Phillips 66, finished my homework for the weekend ahead of my eventual crash from not sleeping.
1-2 PM – Went to Ops. 2 recitation.
2-6 PM – Cleaned house, brewed 48oz of coffee ahead of time, met up with a member of one of my orgs.
6 PM-Midnight – Started an event with the org. Drove from Austin to Round Rock, Temple, and Waco Texas, then back to Austin. Drank ~10oz of coffee. No symptoms of exhaustion.
Midnight-1 AM- Ate dinner, ran approximately 3 miles. Still not tired.
1-5 AM – Drove to Gruene, New Braunfels, and San Antonio, then back to Austin, drinking ~35oz of coffee. Stopped at convenience store to get an energy drink after getting sick of the taste of coffee – 200mg of caffeine. Began to get tired around 3 AM, similar to the feeling of having low blood pressure.
5:30 – 8:30 AM – Rested, woke up a little early due to construction outside my window.
8:30-11 AM – Got ready for the day, drank kefir, but couldn’t stomach the thought of coffee after drinking (57/6)=9.5 cups of coffee over the past day.
11AM-1 PM – Hiked 4 miles, went to lunch with my dad.
1-6PM – Went to family member’s house, then bookstore, and finally bought dinner – starting to get tired again.
6PM-5AM – Slept, woke up refreshed.
Nowadays (the past year or so), I rarely experience depressive symptoms, which is why I thought it may be interesting to do this. And overall, my mental state was slightly improved (1-2 points on a 10-point scale) over baseline. There are the caveats of placebo and small sample size, but it seems to have some merit, at least to me.
This does not constitute medical advice! Not sleeping can trigger manic episodes in people with bipolar disorder, among other things. What works for some may not work for all, and keep that in mind before doing things like this. However, I do encourage general experiments with what you consider your normal mental state - it can be very interesting to see what the human body is capable of!
On February 27, 2022, I thought it would be a great idea to create some sort of content - writing, art, coding, etc. - every day of the next month. Luckily, the alliteration worked out. This should be the fifth post in the series.