How depression made me a morning person and a new approach to sleep turned me into a superman

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Entrepreneur Alicia Liu talked about her experience with depression and the unexpected consequences of sleep restriction.

Background

For the past six months, I have woken up around 6:30, including on weekends and holidays. Of course, it's not that early compared to those who get up at five in the morning. But for me, this is a huge change. I literally became a different person. Now I wake up to the alarm and start the day enthusiastically. Before breakfast I have a whole set of things to do: I meditate, do yoga, ride a bike, read, write, cook oatmeal. It may seem that I am obsessed with my health, but I myself do not quite understand how I came to this.

Since childhood, I was an incorrigible owl, I loved to read until late at night. Before the invention of tablets and e-books, I took a desk lamp to bed and covered myself with a blanket so that my parents would not notice that I was not sleeping. Around 11 p.m. I usually have a surge of creative energy - this persisted even after turning to. Most of my articles and projects in recent years have been done after midnight.

I work in tech startups, and they seem to be specifically for owls. Nobody will look at you askance if you come to work after 10 or even after 11. Therefore, although I went to bed at one or two in the morning, I managed to get 7-8 hours of sleep.

Of course, I knew about the benefits of getting up early. But it never entered my head to try.

Until I changed jobs. I got a job at a company that improves public services. Because of this, I had to travel every month from San Francisco to the firm's headquarters in Washington. Frequent jet lag and increased job responsibilities in a fast-growing startup have led to stress and insomnia. And then depression crept imperceptibly.

How I knew I was depressed

This is not the first time I have encountered her. In addition, I have been meditating for a long time, so it would seem that I should have recognized in advance. But no. The brain is great at masking problems with rational explanations.

I linked my pessimistic moods with a realistic outlook on life. I convinced myself that optimists are simply deceived. Moreover, the world as I knew it was disintegrating before my eyes. Optimizing government services is incredibly difficult, especially when the President and Congress are actively trying to destroy everything you do. At first, I took on this job with enthusiasm, but my motivation declined sharply. It doesn't sound like me at all.

I thought how nice it would be to quit and be relieved of my job responsibilities. I could hardly wait for the end of the working day, already on Tuesday dreamed of a weekend and with fear thought about work on Sunday evening.

I didn't have the strength to do anything after work. Gradually, I stopped meeting friends and interested in entertainment. I convinced myself that everything that used to give me joy - traveling, dining, photography, writing articles - were just mindless pursuits.

Even worse, I gave up training because I was constantly tired. And this despite the fact that during the year I have already participated in two sprint triathlons. I began to have thoughts that it doesn't really matter if I live or not. Then I finally realized that my brain seemed to be malfunctioning.

A common misconception is that depression is a state of being very sad. In fact, you just don't care. Sadness implies that you don't give a damn about yourself after all. During depression, it's hard to force yourself to work, do your hobbies, go somewhere, see people, because you don't care about all this.

How depression is related to sleep and how I dealt with it

I went to the doctor and to the psychotherapist. At the appointment, it became clear to me that I had insomnia. This is a sleep disorder in which it is difficult to fall asleep or not wake up after several days. The symptoms of depression and insomnia are mutually reinforcing.

By then, I had been having trouble sleeping for weeks. Although I went to bed very early, I did not fall asleep for a long time. I was tormented by anxious thoughts about work. I constantly felt tired, and this only aggravated the depression.

I knew I had to do something, but I didn't want to drink sleeping pills. After sedatives, the next day you feel like a zombie. At one time, I worked with a company researching the effects of medical marijuana on various diseases, including insomnia. She does not have such side effects as sleeping pills. I took advantage of the fact that I live in California and went to the doctor to get permission to buy medical marijuana.

In the United States, it is classified as a prohibited substance, so there is very little reliable information about its properties. I had to experiment to figure out how much I need to fall asleep. This is not at all as pleasant as it sounds. I do not smoke, and the preparation of tinctures seemed too difficult to me. Therefore, I settled on food with the addition of marijuana. Their effect takes only a few hours, so it is very difficult to choose the right time and dose. Other food eaten also affects the effect. Nevertheless, it became to me. Only insomnia has not gone away.

I still woke up around 4-5 o'clock in the morning and, due to disturbing thoughts, could no longer sleep. Sometimes I managed to fall asleep again, but in the morning I still felt sluggish and tired.

Marijuana suppresses REM sleep, which is essential for memory and other important brain functions. It works as a temporary solution, but does not provide sleep that truly restores the body. I knew that I needed to learn to sleep naturally. It was around this time that I came across information about cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-B).

How cognitive behavioral therapy works for insomnia

The body has a natural need for sleep. He himself knows how to sleep. Small children and animals do not suffer from insomnia. Adults start having trouble sleeping because they think too much.

According to CBT-B, our thoughts are the main cause of depression and anxiety. And if you replace negative, illogical thoughts with positive and realistic ones, your mental health will improve. And in order to change your thoughts, you need to.

Before that, I thought, like most: since I don't get enough sleep, then I need to sleep more. I went to bed earlier and stayed in bed longer. CBT-B offers the opposite approach: to get enough sleep, you need to sleep less.

Sleep time and just time in bed are not the same thing. The ratio of these two numbers reflects your sleep efficiency.

I went to bed at 23, and got up at 8, but slept only 5-6 hours. That is, my sleep efficiency was only 5/9 or 55%, and ideally more than 90% is needed. No wonder I was so tired.

To change a habit, you first need to observe it. This also applies to sleep. Specialists in CBT-B advise two weeks before the start of therapy and keep a special journal. In this case, you should not take sleeping pills. I didn't want to suffer without sleep for another two weeks, so I started therapy right away. And I monitored my sleep using the Apple Watch app. This method is not as reliable as handwriting, but it was enough for me.

CBT-B includes improving sleep hygiene and getting rid of negative thoughts about it. It is based on two behavioral strategies: stimulus control and sleep restriction. They can be used individually or combined. I decided to combine. The downside is that you need to sleep even less. For almost a month I was very, very tired. This is extremely unpleasant, but you get the result faster.

Stimulus control

He teaches us to associate bed only with sleep. For this:

• Go to bed only when you feel sleepy. Not just when you are tired, but when your eyes stick together, your head bows and you start nodding off.
• If after 15–20 minutes you are still awake, get up and go to another room until you feel sleepy again.
• Do not do other things in bed: do not read, do not work, do not text, do not watch TV. The only exception is sex.

Restricted sleep

This strategy assumes that you need to spend exactly as much time in bed as the body is able to sleep. For this:

• Determine how much time you sleep using your sleep observations. When I started practicing this method, I got about five hours of sleep per night. This exercise helps us see that we usually sleep longer than we think.
• Calculate what time you need to go to bed. It all depends on how much you sleep and when you need to get up. I wanted to get up at 6:30, it turns out, I had to go to bed only after 1 am. A little time should be left to fall asleep. No matter how tired you are, go to bed only at the calculated time. You should aim for 90 percent efficiency, which means that most of your time in bed should be spent sleeping.
• When sleep efficiency exceeds 90% during the week, increase the time in bed by 30 minutes. If your sleep time also increases next week, go to bed another half hour earlier, and so on. But if sleep efficiency begins to decline, cut back on your time in bed.

Sleep only in bed and nowhere else. Do not take a nap and consume. Most importantly, get up at the same time every day, even on weekends. At first it was very difficult: I always liked to lie a little longer on non-working days. But since I still didn't get enough sleep, I decided to give it a try. I am sure that as a result it helped me to improve the quality of my sleep.

results

The most amazing and important thing that I learned during the therapy was not at all how to get more sleep. My sleep time increased to six and a half hours. But sometimes there were still nights when I slept for 5-6 hours, which is much less than the recommended 7-8. At the same time, I helped myself in every possible way:

• I did yoga poses, lit scented candles, took a hot bath to relax before bed.
• I bought nice cotton sheets, a duvet and linen bedding to make my sleep more comfortable.
• I sewed thick curtains myself, because the ones that are ready for our window are too narrow.
• After consulting a doctor, I bought a special phototherapy lamp that regulates the production of melatonin. I didn't notice the effect on myself. If you have insomnia, do not start treating the lamp yourself: misuse can only worsen the symptoms.
• I started an anxiety diary to organize the thoughts that kept me awake. Every morning for 10 minutes I wrote down everything that worried me. You need to write until the time runs out. Try it if you have anxiety.
• I bought glasses with yellow lenses that protect from the blue light of the screens. I put them on every night at about nine.
• And the most useful thing is that I started to train regularly again. I signed up for a triathlon with a friend, it gave me motivation. Exercise itself is effective in treating insomnia and depression.

Even though I've been doing this for six months now, I still sleep less than seven hours. And I feel great! Because, in addition to a change in habits, I also experienced a change in thinking.

I thought I needed about eight hours of sleep to feel good the next day, be productive and energetic - but that's not true.

When I gave up this belief, I began to enjoy life much more. As soon as my anxiety about not sleeping stopped, the depression also disappeared. This was the first week of therapy. As I later found out, sleep reduction is used to treat depression along with antidepressants.

Personal conclusions

As you can imagine, during this therapy, you start to behave a little strange. If you wake up in the middle of the night, you need to crawl out from under the covers and do something boring until you feel sleepy again. But when I realized that the body itself will fall asleep as soon as it is ready, I accepted these oddities. During my night wake-ups, I listened to podcasts and audiobooks, did household chores, and played with my cats. In order not to suffer so much, getting out of a warm bed, I put on a cozy sweater and slippers.

Sleep difficulties and insomnia arise not from not getting enough sleep, but from anxiety that you will not get enough sleep.

Since I went to bed late to limit sleep to the necessary hours, I had additional free time. I've watched a lot of TV shows and read a bunch of management books. Both pleasure and benefit!

If you are not sleeping alone, additional difficulties arise. My husband practically stopped seeing me in bed. I lie down when he is already sound asleep, and I get up much earlier than him. Be sure to discuss how the new sleep pattern will affect your relationship. Hopefully, your partner will notice that you are becoming happier and more energetic, and will treat the change with understanding. Replace falling asleep together with some other activity that strengthens your bond.

The most noticeable effect of the therapy was my mood. Of course, there are still nights when I wake up too early and can't sleep anymore. But now I don't indulge in anxious thoughts, but benefit from the extra free time.

Ever since I started CBT for insomnia, I feel almost superhuman.

I began to see meaning in my work again and became much more productive. This year I speak at two conferences, although recently I thought that I would not be able to speak in front of an audience.

I became hyper-communicative and learned to be energized by interacting with people. I began to value more time with friends and. I turned into a real triathlete and train almost ten hours a week. I took eighth place in my age category in sprint triathlon and now I'm preparing for the Olympic distance. If earlier I was frightened by the thought that I need to swim 1.5 kilometers, ride a bike 40 and run another 10, now I am overwhelmed with enthusiasm.

I started writing articles again after a two year break. I don’t know what to do with the burst of creative energy. Sometimes she even interferes with my sleep. Only now, when I do not get enough sleep, it does not affect my mood. Yes, the next day I feel more tired, but I still do what I planned. And most importantly, this does not prevent me from sleeping peacefully the next night.