For some reason, I tend to experience sleepiness and sadness as very similar feelings, to the point where I frequently have a sensation that I can’t clearly identify as either one. Is this unusual, or does it match the experience of other people here?
Lack of sleep makes my mood extremely unstable, mainly in the downward direction. When sleep deprived, pretty much any negative stimulus will affect me many times more than if the same thing happened when I was well rested. When I’m tired, I feel “blah”: fuzzy-brained, slow, and stupid. Is this the feeling that to you feels like sadness? (To me, sadness has a “clarity” that sleepiness doesn’t, and feeling sad tends to make my thinking sharper, albeit negative). I need about 8 to 9 hours of sleep per night; 2 nights in a row of sub-7 hour sleep, and my moods become completely unpredictable.
I have no memory of ever having a sensation that might be sadness, might be sleepiness, but cannot be identified as either one, Doug. One of the most salient differences between the two states for me is that (unless circumstances demand I stay awake) I enjoy being sleepy: for me to say to myself, “Oh, goodie, time for some sleep,” would be an entirely typical response to my discovering I am sleepy. In contrast, when I am sad, I am almost certainly unable to think of anything to look forward to in the immediate future (not anything as nice as some sleep when I am sleepy at least), and if I were to discover something as nice as sleep to look forward to in the immediate future, then more likely than not my sadness would immediately lift.
Do you find it hard to get enough sleep to optimize your mental state?
Do you find it hard to get to sleep even when you know sleep will help?
Perhaps more precisely, I seem to have three distinct but somewhat related mental states: normal sadness, normal my-brain-needs-sleep sleepiness, and this strange hybrid between the two that doesn’t seem to have any specific cause and I can’t get rid of by either trying to sleep or trying to cheer myself up.
And I almost never actually look forward to sleep—the only time I actually want to be asleep is when I’ve just woken up and am feeling this strange “fake sleepiness” in which I’m just lying in bed with my head in a fog, having no particular reason to get up but not actually sleeping either, conscious but not actually thinking about anything much. (It’s kind of hard to describe these things.)
I’m also taking a medication (Effexor) that seems to have some effect on my sleep; if I miss a pill, I have withdrawal symptoms related to sleepiness and sadness.
According to http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/cycle-of-depression-diagram/, depression is a cycle of cause-and-effect, and one of the steps in the cycle is a sleep disorder. The list multiple places to break the cycle. I’ve had some luck with this—Pennebaker’s confession technique seems to get rid of rumination pretty well. (Specifically, sit and write about the issue daily for maybe 30 minutes per session, until it gets boring and you don’t want to think about it any more. The eventual goal of the writing is to create a coherent narrative that explains both the facts and how you feel about them, but the essential part of the writing process is that you must keep writing; don’t edit.)
I have felt that way. Though the state dependent nature of memory is making it hard to recall details. But yeah, I can remember feeling tired/sad, logging on to surf the web, and getting sadder at how stupid the world is.
For some reason, I tend to experience sleepiness and sadness as very similar feelings, to the point where I frequently have a sensation that I can’t clearly identify as either one. Is this unusual, or does it match the experience of other people here?
Lack of sleep makes my mood extremely unstable, mainly in the downward direction. When sleep deprived, pretty much any negative stimulus will affect me many times more than if the same thing happened when I was well rested. When I’m tired, I feel “blah”: fuzzy-brained, slow, and stupid. Is this the feeling that to you feels like sadness? (To me, sadness has a “clarity” that sleepiness doesn’t, and feeling sad tends to make my thinking sharper, albeit negative). I need about 8 to 9 hours of sleep per night; 2 nights in a row of sub-7 hour sleep, and my moods become completely unpredictable.
I have no memory of ever having a sensation that might be sadness, might be sleepiness, but cannot be identified as either one, Doug. One of the most salient differences between the two states for me is that (unless circumstances demand I stay awake) I enjoy being sleepy: for me to say to myself, “Oh, goodie, time for some sleep,” would be an entirely typical response to my discovering I am sleepy. In contrast, when I am sad, I am almost certainly unable to think of anything to look forward to in the immediate future (not anything as nice as some sleep when I am sleepy at least), and if I were to discover something as nice as sleep to look forward to in the immediate future, then more likely than not my sadness would immediately lift.
Do you find it hard to get enough sleep to optimize your mental state?
Do you find it hard to get to sleep even when you know sleep will help?
Perhaps more precisely, I seem to have three distinct but somewhat related mental states: normal sadness, normal my-brain-needs-sleep sleepiness, and this strange hybrid between the two that doesn’t seem to have any specific cause and I can’t get rid of by either trying to sleep or trying to cheer myself up.
And I almost never actually look forward to sleep—the only time I actually want to be asleep is when I’ve just woken up and am feeling this strange “fake sleepiness” in which I’m just lying in bed with my head in a fog, having no particular reason to get up but not actually sleeping either, conscious but not actually thinking about anything much. (It’s kind of hard to describe these things.)
Is there any chance that sometimes you make yourself feel sleepy in order not to feel sadness?
I don’t know.
I’m also taking a medication (Effexor) that seems to have some effect on my sleep; if I miss a pill, I have withdrawal symptoms related to sleepiness and sadness.
According to http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/cycle-of-depression-diagram/, depression is a cycle of cause-and-effect, and one of the steps in the cycle is a sleep disorder. The list multiple places to break the cycle. I’ve had some luck with this—Pennebaker’s confession technique seems to get rid of rumination pretty well. (Specifically, sit and write about the issue daily for maybe 30 minutes per session, until it gets boring and you don’t want to think about it any more. The eventual goal of the writing is to create a coherent narrative that explains both the facts and how you feel about them, but the essential part of the writing process is that you must keep writing; don’t edit.)
I’m pretty sure that doesn’t match me. Can’t imagine them feeling the same.
I have felt that way. Though the state dependent nature of memory is making it hard to recall details. But yeah, I can remember feeling tired/sad, logging on to surf the web, and getting sadder at how stupid the world is.