If I have SAD, why do I feel better at night?

People with clinical depression tend to favour the night.
But many SAD peeps also feel wide awake at night due to their circadian rhythm being out of sorts.
I tend to feel drugged, but not in the happy disco biscuit way, more like horse tranquilizer sort of vibe!
In January/Feburary if I stay still for more than 10 mins .....ZZZZZZZ i'm out like a light!
But can't complain, I think I'd far rather fall asleep at inappropriate times as piss my pants!
Anyway I'll have to go tend to my knee that I split open as I was racing down the stairs to answer the phone only to find it was the bloody bank with a poxy curteousy call!
Good luck with everything OBE :wink:

Okay, so I'm not sure I have SAD. It's an ongoing discussion with my doctor to sort out a diagnosis. But one question I have is, if I DO have SAD, why would I feel better AFTER the sun goes down. In the Winter, my symptoms improve dramatically after 6 pm. I generally feel happier, more energized and have less pain.

Does this make sense?

tall penguin

Hello Tall Penguin,
I don't know if you have SAD, but will assume for the sake of my reply that this makes no difference. SAD causes a de-synchronisation of the body clock. There are three cycles that our bodies follow. These are circadian, infradian and ultradian. Circadian cycle is the 24 hour cycle and controls the sleep wake cycle amongst other things. Infradian cycles are monthly cycles and as an example of such you could think of a ladies monthly menstrual cycle. Ultradian cycles are cycles which are less than twenty hours. For example rem sleep is an ultradian cycle.

SAD has a tendency to cause a shifting of the circadian cycle. Most SAD's are DSPS ( delayed sleep phase syndrome ). Effectively this means that the onset of sleep doesn't occur until about 2am in the morning. Proper wakefulness doesn't follow until 8-10 hours later between 10-12am.

There is a small part of the brain called the SCN ( suprachiasmatic nuclei ) which along with another part of the brain which remains more elusie is responsible for controlling the circadian sleep wake cycle. It's a bit like the pips for synchronising the bodies clocks. There are about 100 "smaller" clocks spread throughout the body responsible for various organs. If the main clock is broken the smaller clocks are unable to reset themselves to keep synchronised time. In such cases for example your arms and legs can be sleeping while your head is awake. Chaos.

In trying to deal with SAD the art is to try and reset the body clocks daily so that the entire show is running together.

I'd try a dawn simulator. I swear by mine. I purchased it from this site (I've no connection with this site otherwise). They are on a sale or return basis and you therefore, don't have to spend money on something you don't need.

Darrell, that's a really useful post, thank you.

Tall Penguin, I'd recommend a dawn simulator rather than using your lightbox on a timer. The simulator brings you round gradually thus avoiding the feeling of being dragged into conciousness. I used to be very headachy in the mornings because I felt that I was always being woken from a deep sleep, the simulator has made a vast difference to me this winter. I still don't like waking up or getting up, it still takes me a while to achieve both BUT I am no longer at risk of murdering my partner at the point the alarm clock goes off!!

People with clinical depression tend to favour the night.
....Good luck with everything OBE :wink:

I believe, Tall Penguin, that OBE here was actually saying that depressives have their best time of day in the evening when their symptoms subside somewhat. In your response to OBE you said that you hadn't realised that depressives were worse at the end of the day! I know for sure that I am greatly improved as evening/night arrives.

People with clinical depression tend to favour the night.
....Good luck with everything OBE :wink:

I believe, Tall Penguin, that OBE here was actually saying that depressives have their best time of day in the evening when their symptoms subside somewhat. In your response to OBE you said that you hadn't realised that depressives were worse at the end of the day! I know for sure that I am greatly improved as evening/night arrives.

Thanks for the correction Julie. I actually registered what OBE said correctly but somehow I transposed it when I posted. Crazy brain!

Thanks all for the recommendation on the dawn simulator. I will consider one in the future.

I was doing some research on SAD and came across this site,

Center for Environmental Therapeutics

http://www.cet.org/

It has supposedly has some great self-assessment tools, including a circadian rhythm test which helps you answer: "how much of a lark or owl are you, compared with other people? When does your internal clock think you should be going to sleep? If you are taking light therapy, what would be the most effective time of day?"

Unfortunately, the links appear to be broken. But from what I can gather from other articles on the net referencing the test and this foundation's work, not everyone has the same optimal bedtime and waking hour. Which makes complete sense to me.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/1201/bright.html

One question about the dawn simulator. When you have a sleeping partner who sleeps in later than you, does the dawn simulator not interfere with their sleep schedule? I'm not sure my boyfriend would appreciate being woken up at 8 am.

Thanks again everyone for your help.

tall penguin

There's a lot of me that in response to your question wants to say "tough, 8am is fine to wake your bf up" and "if it helps you then surely it's worth him tolerating". I appreciate that maybe they aren't the answers you're looking for though!

LOL!! Yes, I can understand. But my bf works until 2 or 3 am and doesn't get up until about 10. And I'm the one with the sleep problems! Genetics sucks!

tall penguin