Sleep Deprivation Makes Me Feel Better

[spiderhater420]

Does anyone here feel better in terms of brainfog and anxiety when they skip one night of sleep? I usually start to feel better at the end of the day when i am slightly tired. I can focus better, think faster, can keep conversation, everything gets more interesting, anxiety vanishes etc. I get to the same state while hangover from alcohol. Any insights for what it may be?

 

[lampofred]

Sleep deprivation powerfully lowers serotonin and increases thyroid function.

I've been trying for years to find something that will replicate it's effects and the only thing that comes close is tobacco.

 

[Jing]

I use to stay up for over 30 hours many times never would want to go to sleep because it felt good, I heard sleep deprivation raises dopamine.

 

[spiderhater420]

Sleep deprivation powerfully lowers serotonin and increases thyroid function.

I've been trying for years to find something that will replicate it's effects and the only thing that comes close is tobacco.

Interesting, can you colaborate on how it lowers serotonin and increases thyroid function? For me its kratom that is helping me the most, though its nowhere near sleep deprivation.

I use to stay up for over 30 hours many times never would want to go to sleep because it felt good, I heard sleep deprivation raises dopamine.

Same. I used to pull allnighters all the time, they feel so good. I am hearing about it increasing dopamine too.

 

[bromuda]

I can definitely recognize what you're saying. After a long flight travelling through time zones I had the same experience. I usually don't skip sleep but I came to think about this moment when I saw the post. After the flight I went straight to a party with new people and I was chilled out, didn't even drink. I usually get the same effect when I have a hangover too.

 

[spiderhater420]

I can definitely recognize what you're saying. After a long flight travelling through time zones I had the same experience. I usually don't skip sleep but I came to think about this moment when I saw the post. After the flight I went straight to a party with new people and I was chilled out, didn't even drink. I usually get the same effect when I have a hangover too.

You should check out hangovereffect subreddit. Its full of people, mostly diagnosed with ADHD-PI, that are experiencing the same thing.

 

[Tenacity]

Sleep deprivation powerfully lowers serotonin and increases thyroid function.

I've been trying for years to find something that will replicate it's effects and the only thing that comes close is tobacco.

What's the source for this? As far as I remember, sleep deprivation raises free fatty acids and puts the body in a diabetic-like state. Seems the polar opposite of lowering serotonin and increasing thyroid to me.

 

[Cirion]

You guys are the only ones. Sleep deprivation makes me feel awful. I love sleep. You're probably running off of cortisol, not dopamine. I bet most of the people in this thread running off of sleep deprivation are in their 20s or teens. I used to be sleep deprivated most of my life until I got closer to 30 and realized that I had been running off of cortisol.

 

[Collden]

Sleep deprivation does strongly increase dopamine, however that doesn't make it good or sustainable. Dopamine is a stress hormone same as cortisol or adrenaline and it taxes the body in similar or even worse ways if abused.

 

[spiderhater420]

You guys are the only ones. Sleep deprivation makes me feel awful. I love sleep. You're probably running off of cortisol, not dopamine. I bet most of the people in this thread running off of sleep deprivation are in their 20s or teens. I used to be sleep deprivated most of my life until I got closer to 30 and realized that I had been running off of cortisol.

Sleep deprivation does strongly increase dopamine, however that doesn't make it good or sustainable. Dopamine is a stress hormone same as cortisol or adrenaline and it taxes the body in similar or even worse ways if abused.

Assuming by the replies, i dont think anybody here is putting themselves to sleep deprived state on purpose anymore. I think most people that experience this are aware of its longterm bad consequences and are using it as hint to find more sustainable solution. For me, it relieves so many of my mental issues, i dont think its simply running off of cortisol.

 

[redsun]

What's the source for this? As far as I remember, sleep deprivation raises free fatty acids and puts the body in a diabetic-like state. Seems the polar opposite of lowering serotonin and increasing thyroid to me.

I believe its a compensatory effect but it also could be because many people sleep too much due to depression and other related emotional issues. I remember seeing a study on sleep deprivation being a possible treatment for depression. In my experience it does feel like dopamine raising but this is temporary and this short term boost is just that, short term. Sleep deprivation does raise stress hormones as well and is damaging if done chronically. Once in awhile especially if one has been sleeping in for a while is a nice chance and somehow makes you feel good.

 

[Cirion]

I believe its a compensatory effect but it also could be because many people sleep too much due to depression and other related emotional issues. I remember seeing a study on sleep deprivation being a possible treatment for depression. In my experience it does feel like dopamine raising but this is temporary and this short term boost is just that, short term. Sleep deprivation does raise stress hormones as well and is damaging if done chronically. Once in awhile especially if one has been sleeping in for a while is a nice chance and somehow makes you feel good.

Sleep deprivation supposedly helping depression is just another misguided "treatment" for a "disease" just like taking drugs for high BP, high cholesterol, water retention, diabetes, insomnia, and more. People "sleep too long" not because of depression, not because of emotional issues. Depression and emotional issues are just more symptoms with the same root cause. Why do they sleep too long then? Excess serotonin and more specifically energy deficit/dysfunction. The solution? Fixing energy dysfunction. More specifically - more carbohydrates/ calories and less fats especially less pufa's.

 

[lampofred]

What's the source for this? As far as I remember, sleep deprivation raises free fatty acids and puts the body in a diabetic-like state. Seems the polar opposite of lowering serotonin and increasing thyroid to me.

Several sources such as personal experience, yogic texts, and most explicitly Dr. Peat's newsletter "Thought and Energy, Mood and Metabolism" which says "These two different reactions to stress, viz., torpor or tension, depression or hyper-alertness, are often seen as reactions to over-sleeping, or under-sleeping. On a Sunday, when a person sleeps an extra hour or two, it's common to feel lethargic for the rest of the day. And when a person has to get up several hours too early, there is often the feeling of being over-stimulated. Many years ago, someone noticed that depressed people who missed a night's sleep, or who were wakened several hours earlier than normal, came out of their depression, until they caught up on their sleep. Sleep deprivation has become a recognized treatment for depression. Manic-depressive ("bipolar") people typically seem to need very little sleep during their manic periods.In depression, there is excessive influence of serotonin, in mania, excessive influence of adrenaline. These chemicals are links between energy metabolism and many specific adaptive physiological processes. One pattern of nerve activity, corresponding to these metabolic patterns, inclines a person to see the impossibility or futility of everything, the other causes an inclination to overlook impediments and undesirable consequences. In either state, important parts of reality are excluded."

(btw there was a thread a while ago with a massive compilation of Dr. Peat's old newsletters, that's where I got this from)

Sleep deprivation doesn't reduce stress, it just shifts the stress hormone balance from serotonin to adrenaline. Like @Cirion mentioned the underlying energy deficit still needs to be fixed. I myself am trying to sleep less because I think I would prefer to be in an adrenalinized state than the serotonin-dominant torpor I am in right now but sleep deprivation is definitely not for everyone. Best definitely route is to massively increase CO2 and get to the GABA dominant state where you have neither adrenaline nor serotonin.

 

[redsun]

Sleep deprivation supposedly helping depression is just another misguided "treatment" for a "disease" just like taking drugs for high BP, high cholesterol, water retention, diabetes, insomnia, and more. People "sleep too long" not because of depression, not because of emotional issues. Depression and emotional issues are just more symptoms with the same root cause. Why do they sleep too long then? Excess serotonin and more specifically energy deficit/dysfunction. The solution? Fixing energy dysfunction. More specifically - more carbohydrates/ calories and less fats especially less pufa's.

Energy deficit/imbalance doesnt necessarily need to be caused by a bad diet. All it takes is one horrible bad day, someone's life turns for the worse. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. happen and this has a very real effect on our health. Diet is not the final answer to everything. If only it were that easy. If someone is dealing with hating where they are in life for example, no amount of healthy diet will fix them up for good. They would have to change their life into something they love not hate. A healthier diet ironically treats their "symptoms" but if someone hates their life but is too afraid to change it, no perfect diet will fix that. That is an energy problem metaphysically speaking, and that emotional energy a person like that carries in their head has a very real physical effect on their physical health. Mental stress is just like any stress, increases energy requirements, increases serotonin and cortisol, increases catabolism, damages the body as well as our psyche, etc...

Dont get me wrong, I dont think sleep deprivation is a good idea, I only mentioned the study on sleep deprivation possibly treating depression to make a point. If anything the results would indicate even more the importance neurotransmitters like dopamine have on our health, mental or physical. Im not suggesting that we should all sleep less.

 

[Cirion]

Energy deficit/imbalance doesnt necessarily need to be caused by a bad diet. All it takes is one horrible bad day, someone's life turns for the worse. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. happen and this has a very real effect on our health. Diet is not the final answer to everything. If only it were that easy. If someone is dealing with hating where they are in life for example, no amount of healthy diet will fix them up for good. They would have to change their life into something they love not hate. A healthier diet ironically treats their "symptoms" but if someone hates their life but is too afraid to change it, no perfect diet will fix that. That is an energy problem metaphysically speaking, and that emotional energy a person like that carries in their head has a very real physical effect on their physical health. Mental stress is just like any stress, increases energy requirements, increases serotonin and cortisol, increases catabolism, damages the body as well as our psyche, etc...

Dont get me wrong, I dont think sleep deprivation is a good idea, I only mentioned the study on sleep deprivation possibly treating depression to make a point. If anything the results would indicate even more the importance neurotransmitters like dopamine have on our health, mental or physical. Im not suggesting that we should all sleep less.

You're not wrong, but perfect diet and a proper environment can dramatically accelerate healing time. For example - I was in a very dark place after breaking up with my ex, Ray peat almost literally saved my life so I have to thank the man for that. I went from horrid depression to literally not even missing my ex in a month or two flat and starting to date other people. I bet if my environment had been perfect (sunny beach, no responsibilities) I would have recovered in a couple of weeks even. Unfortunately, I made some horrible mistakes after I started to get better (decided it'd be a bright idea to cut calories to drop the "Ray Peat Weight Gain", and ruined my metabolism again instead), and reversed a lot of the healing, but now I'm slowly getting back on track. Also, good diet/environment tends to give oneself the motivation to make change. Example--your point of being in bad situation is well noted. I don't hate my job but don't love it either. a 9-5 cubicle life is not for me, and I want to live on a beach. Starting to feel better has motivated me to start reading self improvement books, like "Set for life" and now? I'm looking at cheaper houses as we speak - because once I downsize my house, my mortgage payment is eviscerated entirely (get to live for free) and I can DOUBLE my savings and DRAMATICALLY accelerate my retirement plans. What I am saying is that the diet can actually be sufficient to provide the motivation to make change, as I am proof of. And I haven't even fixed my environment yet (But working on it). Once I fix my environment too? My life will be awesome

 

[redsun]

You're not wrong, but perfect diet and a proper environment can dramatically accelerate healing time. For example - I was in a very dark place after breaking up with my ex, Ray peat almost literally saved my life so I have to thank the man for that. I went from horrid depression to literally not even missing my ex in a month or two flat and starting to date other people. I bet if my environment had been perfect (sunny beach, no responsibilities) I would have recovered in a couple of weeks even. Unfortunately, I made some horrible mistakes after I started to get better (decided it'd be a bright idea to cut calories to drop the "Ray Peat Weight Gain", and ruined my metabolism again instead), and reversed a lot of the healing, but now I'm slowly getting back on track. Also, good diet/environment tends to give oneself the motivation to make change. Example--your point of being in bad situation is well noted. I don't hate my job but don't love it either. a 9-5 cubicle life is not for me, and I want to live on a beach. Starting to feel better has motivated me to start reading self improvement books, like "Set for life" and now? I'm looking at cheaper houses as we speak - because once I downsize my house, my mortgage payment is eviscerated entirely (get to live for free) and I can DOUBLE my savings and DRAMATICALLY accelerate my retirement plans. What I am saying is that the diet can actually be sufficient to provide the motivation to make change, as I am proof of. And I haven't even fixed my environment yet (But working on it).

Yes proper diet can help alleviate learned helplessness and lift the spirit and emotions up enough to help a person conquer their emotional issues or their life issues that I don't disagree. But the final step, like the resolving of an issue entirely that is consciously done in the mind. That is my main point. Many people here were able to deal with their emotional issues or life issues because of Ray Peat's principles giving them a chance to think straight, myself included. Physical health through diet/lifestyle is a large part of the process.

The rest is self-reflection, self-image, and clear goal in life(living on a beach and retiring sooner for example) that someone who lives off microwave food and "heart-healthy!" whole grain bread topped off with seed oil butter will have trouble doing because their food is making them feel like trash on top of their emotional issues.

 

[Cirion]

I don't even think resolving learned helplessness is even possible without good diet though I guess is what I'm saying, this is why I believe emotional issues are deeply rooted in physical issues. Sure, a trauma like breakup or death of a friend may seem emotional in nature, and maybe I'm heretical to say this, but I think it's actually physical. You see, a big emotional trauma triggers stress/cortisol which is a physical hormone in your body and the implications of extreme cortisol is diabetes, insomnia, depression and more. But then good diet fixes the cortisol which fixes the "trauma". No amount of therapy can fix the trauma. Nathan hatch notes this in his book. I also note this, that I had depression until I was almost 30 yrs old and finally made the diet-emotional problem connection. A bad diet makes recovery from learned helplessness impossible. Not harder, impossible. At least for me. I had eaten a poor diet my whole life and chronic serotonin/estrogen dominance really makes recovery not possible IMO.

The thing is your brain is nothing but a mind F***. It makes you think the problem is something, when that's not the problem. You muse over things like your breakup, your crappy lot in life, but these are not causing the stress even though you think they are. What's causing the stress? Usually serotonin, due to bad diet, lack of sleep, sunlight etc. Eating something bad for your gut can really mess with your head. The brain and gut are quite connected. It's possible what your mind is reflecting on might have *triggered* the stress but for chronic emotional problems, it's not the thing that is causing the chronic emotional problems to *continue*. Does that make sense? You see once your body has been triggered into a chronic situation, it can only be fixed via diet and environmental manipulations. Something like a crappy job for example--if you're healthy, this crappy job won't even bother you and/or you'll be motivated to change it anyway, you won't feel stuck, you'll feel like you have power to change. Take the same crappy job, someone unhealthy, and they'll muse over it as the source of their stress but it's just not. See my previous example. In this case, also fixed by diet. Someone unhealthy rarely has the power or motivation to affect change in their life. You have to bring the power and motivation first by restoring as much health as you can via dietary manipulation. People who are very unhealthy treat just about everything as the source of their woes. They are very negative by nature. Conversely, people who are healthy treat everything as an opportunity for growth. They are very positive by nature, even in a negative situation. Don't trust your brain for anything other than cold, hard logical fact based decisions. It's not reliable for "emotional" reactions or decisions given that your emotions are at the whims of what you ate that day or how much sunlight you got lol.

 

[spiderhater420]

@lampofred Interesting insights. I want to dig deeper on this topic. Can i have link to the article or a thread it has been posted on?
I dont have manic depression, but there was a few times in my life that something stressed me out so much that it threw me to this adrenaline mode for a week, i was sleeping 3 hours a night and felt amazing.
Also when i was going to school, i was getting bad phase of depression on Saturdays after i got 8-10 hours of sleep. Normally i was sleeping barely 7 hours a night.

Sleep deprivation doesn't reduce stress, it just shifts the stress hormone balance from serotonin to adrenaline

This makes lot of sense.

 

[tankasnowgod]

All the times in my life that I skipped a night of sleep, I have felt horrid the next day. Or at least really, really sleepy. I don't think I have ever been awake more than 30 hours straight in my life. Although I have had friends that have stayed up two or three days straight (sometimes with drugs, sometimes without). A coworker of mine said he stayed up two whole weeks once. I was floored. Didn't even think that was possible. Apparently, he was terrified of sleep back in college.

 

[Cirion]

All the times in my life that I skipped a night of sleep, I have felt horrid the next day. Or at least really, really sleepy. I don't think I have ever been awake more than 30 hours straight in my life. Although I have had friends that have stayed up two or three days straight (sometimes with drugs, sometimes without). A coworker of mine said he stayed up two whole weeks once. I was floored. Didn't even think that was possible. Apparently, he was terrified of sleep back in college.

I stayed up 3 days with no more than 15 minutes of sleep (I dozed off in front of my computer while working for a few minutes a couple of times). I had a horrid deadline to meet in grad school, and all my teammates were hounding me to finish. Worst experience of my life. When I finished graduate school, I swore I would never allow myself to get sleep deprived again - at least not that extensively. The ironic part? I was the first person to finish my task on my team, so I stayed up 3 days for nothing, and the people who were hounding me were last to finish... figures. I don't think it's possible to stay up for 2 weeks straight with absolutely zero sleep, after a few days without sleep your body literally shuts down anywhere and anytime whether or not you want it to - sleep no longer becomes optional--eventually your body decides you're going to get sleep, period, even if it means making you fall asleep standing up. And that was after only 3 days without sleep let alone 14 lol. So, I don't think it's possible to die of sleep deprivation at least not without drugs, because at some point... you're gonna just pass out.