I have noticed that a lot of people with depression stay up late at night. I have never understood it, but I feel better at night. During the day I feel much worse. I was wondering if it was because at night I know nothing is expected of me, so I relax a little more, or if there is some other reason. I don't have insomnia. Has anyone else noticed they do this?

Best Wishes to All,
Whisper

YES! I'm not sure why, but, for the life of me, I cannot get to bed before one or two in the morning. I sometimes envy early birds who seem to get so much more done. Sleeping later just adds to the self loathing, I think. So, yes, nightime is more peaceful for us, I think. Could it be that this habit of staying up late is actually making us feel worse, physically and mentally?

I have noticed that a lot of people with depression stay up late at night. I have never understood it, but I feel better at night. During the day I feel much worse. I was wondering if it was because at night I know nothing is expected of me, so I relax a little more, or if there is some other reason. I don't have insomnia. Has anyone else noticed they do this?

Best Wishes to All,
Whisper

I, too, feel worse during the day and a little better at night. Not sure why.

yeah i notice that to, i dont go to bed at like 1-2am, i just.. find im not bothered as much, and i have time to myself..

You make a good point, nik. There's less stress at night - no demands from anyone. During the day, I feel like I have to be doing something all the time and answering to everyone.

my sleeping schedule is from 3am to 3pm give or take half an hour

take care
trg247

wow... i thought i was the only one that feel this way... during the day i feel worse and at night i feel so much better...

Hi all,

This is kinda interesting. I used to think I was happier at night than during the day, then I realised it wasn't as simple as that. I was only happier because I no longer had to face the rest of the day/world and it would only be a matter of time before I would be asleep, but at the same time my actual depression was actually worse (you know, all those thoughts and so on). So from a "normal person's" perspective I was happier at night, but clinically I was actually feeling worse. These days though my depression gets worse at nights still, but I now I'm thinking of the next day when I wake up again and have to start it all over again!

Some time ago my psych gave me a test to do to determine how bad my depresion is. It was one of those tests with multiple answers and you have to tick the box that most applies to you. Anyway, one of the questions seemed quite irrelevant --- "At which part of the day do you feel your depression is at it's worst?" I took a note of the test name and when I got home looked it up on the internet to do some investigation. Anyway, it turned out the test regards people who answer "night" move further along the depression scale. I don't know how much faith I have in that question myself, so I tried to find it again for you to have a look at yourself. Right now I just can't remember its name, though I came across again it by accident the other day while researching VNS, if I can remember it's name I'll update you.

:cool: Try, try, and try again and finally you will succeed! It's the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) which refers to "diurnal variation" (glad it didn't use that phrase on my test paper!!) during the day. I just thought it was interesting that what we're talking about here is considered note-worthy. Take care!

Forever rambling on and on,
Charme
:bouncing:

WOW, I got far more replies than I thought. All are deeply appreciated. I think I fall into the "no responsibilities until morning. Tonight is mine" group. I even fight sleep sometimes. I will feel like I'm drifting off and I get up and walk around to wake back up.

I truly envy day time people, but for now, it brings me a little window of not feeling as bad as I do during the day. I think it boils down to guilt. I am spending time awake while everyone is sleeping, then in the morning I'm just going to sleep when everyone else is waking up. Days are much faster paced.

This was interesting and it seems a lot of us found out we weren't alone.

Thanks to all and take care....
Whisper :wave:

I also agree with you. Most nights I don't go to sleep until about 3 am. I don't do much but sit around during that time, but I do seem to feel better. Somedays I still get up early, but some days I'll sleep until 1 or 2. I do kind of feel bad when I sleep all day like that. But I do seem better at night for some reason. Hmm, I wonder why.

I think it has to be a form of serenity. In my house my wife and son are asleep, the phone does not ring and no appointments/deadlines are pending. My doctor is not too happy I sleep twelve hours a night/day but what can I do.

very true, when at night noones expecting you to DO ANYTHING lol so its tiem to chill back, and me suffering depression on and off i dotn go to bed till like 4 everynight it sucks, i wish i can for once go to bed at like 12

trg, why would your doctor not be happy that you sleep that much? Doesn't he know that it's the drugs that are causing that? Even one can have that effect. I'm surprised that you only sleep 12 hours, to be honest.

Wow, it's nice to see I'm not the only one! I'm much better late at night. If I had my way, I'd stay up until 2-3 am and wake up around 2-3 pm.

Thank you for bringing up this interesting subject.

Salty

My doctor cut back my Trazodone from 200mg to 125mg because in his words "sleeping the day away". It obviously didn't help as I still sleep twelve hours a day. Odd thing is I can not fall asleep til at least 3am even if I take my meds at midnight.

take care
trg247

When I take my meds I fall asleep fast. I just like the night time. At bed time I take 200mg of amiltriptyline, 1mg of xanax, 25mg of librium. I sleep about six hours but it's good sleep. When I wake up I take a xanax and librium first thing.

I also take potassium because my body bottoms out of it. It's the nastiest tasting pill in the world. They make them so they start to disolve as soon as you put them in your mouth. Yuck!!

Best Wishes to all,
Whisper

Here I am and it's 3:16 a.m. so I honestly do like the peace and quiet. Hubby is snoring, nothing I have to do until morning. No pressure. I used to read a lot at night. That was seven years ago before I had a computer. lol I still enjoy it now, too.

Sometimes I wait for him to get up to go to work before I go to bed. That doesn't go over well, but he's adjusting. I was thinking about this sleep thing, and when we take the grandkids and go camping, I still sit up by the fire way into the night. Everyone goes to bed early when they're camping...well, almost everyone.

I think it's time now. I have fallen asleep more than once at this desk. It's not pretty when you wake up with the keyboard imprint on your face.

Everyone have a good night,
Whisper~~~ :yawn: