sleep and depression

[Humodour]

The problem is that therapy costs way to goddamn much. So I am doing it myself by kicking a couple of bad habits of mine, starting with pop. At my worse I was a 12 pack a day pop drinker. It has been 4 days since going cold turkey. By doing this I have drastically dropped my caffiene intake as will all those sugars and corn syrup. I feel weird and have a bit of a headache.

 

Cutting back on caffeine intake causes headaches because a caffeine addiction causes more blood vessels to grow in your brain. Both the increase and decrease in blood flow are harmless (except for the headaches) and your brain will adjust soon.

 

What you are doing (cutting those things back or out) is a very smart and healthy move.

[Killian Kalthorne]

That is what I have been told. Once the withdrawal ends I plan on starting to exercise, but one step at a time. By years end I like to lose about 100 or so pounds.

[Starwars]

Whenever I have time off from work or school, like now over Christmas, I have a really hard time to stop myself from slipping into a schedule where I go to sleep late and sleep the morning away. But this time around, I must say that I've really noticed the difference and how much more "sluggish" I feel all-together.

 

I remember when I worked at the hospital. I gotta say I had trouble adjusting to those schedules where you work until 0930PM, then take about 45 minutes to get home, and then have to go up in the morning to start work at 0630AM. I mean, there is just no way that I can instantly fall asleep when I get home. I have to have some time to unwind myself and relax before heading to bed. It was a lotta fun working there, but the healthcare schedules really kill me sometimes.

[Hurlshort]

That is what I have been told. Once the withdrawal ends I plan on starting to exercise, but one step at a time. By years end I like to lose about 100 or so pounds.

 

Good luck, I know most of us here are rooting for you.

[Blank]

That is what I have been told. Once the withdrawal ends I plan on starting to exercise, but one step at a time. By years end I like to lose about 100 or so pounds.

Sounds like a healthy plan. You have my support too, in the limited form it takes from this forum. I'm sure things will feel a lot better as you progress with your plan.

[theslug]

That's quite a goal killian. As much as I hope the best for you if your not committed to start exercising now becuase your on some stupid soda withdrawal I'm very suspicious of exactly how you will actually attain your goal. You should be exercising as soon as possible, if your too big to run: swim, cycle, and power walk. If you have a workout routine that you stick to it will force you to eat better and live healthier becuase your going to feel your diet/sleep pound you in the gym if its not sufficient.

 

There's just no point in waiting except the fact that you don't actually want to do it. Which I can understand, the gym can be a mysterious and scary place where hot chicks walk around in tight form fitting pants and sometimes dudes too. talk about scary.

 

As for Wals's theory it definitely has some merit imo at least from an anecdotal perspective, when I committed myself to a healthy lifestyle I felt the change in my mood and was able to stay relatively sane for a long time. I've started it up again and I've gotten better but depression is different for people. Sometimes its their brain chemistry/physiology, their thought processes/behavior, and stuffs like that where working out and eating/sleeping better can only do so much to mask the problem.

[Walsingham]

I agree that it's not that you get depressed purely because of bad sleep, eating etc. But as I say I think it would be worthwhile trying to leverage those factors to combat depression.

 

Case in point: I'm sleeping well, eating relatively well, and exercising, but I realised today that my new girl is hiding something from me. This makes me sad. Doing pushups won't fix that.

[theslug]

I agree that it's not that you get depressed purely because of bad sleep, eating etc. But as I say I think it would be worthwhile trying to leverage those factors to combat depression.

 

Case in point: I'm sleeping well, eating relatively well, and exercising, but I realised today that my new girl is hiding something from me. This makes me sad. Doing pushups won't fix that.

Well if you do push ups ontop of another woman it might! amritie wals amirite lol im jk but seriously im sorry :'( i have women troubles as well

[Killian Kalthorne]

Slug, you might be right on that, but I don't have the money to join a gym and it is way to cold to do it outside. I'll figure something out.

[Moose]

Spend 20 bucks on a pair of dumbbells and that's all you need for a complete workout. If you're like me and don't care for body building but just actual real athletic strength then you'll get plenty of proper exercise from them, particularly if you focus on the weaker muscles (for me the deltoids). Really gets you puffing. The great thing about arm exercises is you can be reading whilst doing them, cos god knows any non sporty exercise is boring as a sermon in latin.

Edited January 4, 2010 by Moose

[Blarghagh]

You can go through withdrawal for soda?

 

Well, ****. I better stop drinking so much of it.

[Killian Kalthorne]

Spend 20 bucks on a pair of dumbbells and that's all you need for a complete workout. If you're like me and don't care for body building but just actual real athletic strength then you'll get plenty of proper exercise from them, particularly if you focus on the weaker muscles (for me the deltoids). Really gets you puffing. The great thing about arm exercises is you can be reading whilst doing them, cos god knows any non sporty exercise is boring as a sermon in latin.

 

For now I am using 2 liter bottles as weights and speed walking around the aisles at work. Add to the fact that I have also cut my food intake by more than half I am hoping that if I continue that I will see some results in the next few months.

[LadyCrimson]

I get plenty of sleep in terms of hours per day average...but it's not on a regulated daily schedule. That's what happens when you don't have to work a 'normal' job.

 

(ps...and sleep patterns have never helped me at all, unfortunately...exercise and mental activity somewhat)

Edited January 5, 2010 by LadyCrimson

[Tigranes]

Project for myself this year is to sleep before midnight. Not doing well so far, averaging 1am-2am, but I really do need to scale it back. It sucks, because on odd days when I do get up at something crazy like 7am I really feel how great it is.

[Starwars]

When I was on summer holiday this last summer, I went up at 6AM two days a week to go jogging a bit. I live by the ocean and man was that nice and peaceful. The temperature was nice, not much people out and about. And then got home a bit after 7AM, took a shower and ate a nice, light breakfast. That really made me feel good, had a lot of energy for the remainder of the day.

 

Tried keeping it up through the autumn but it didn't seem as appealing when the temperatures dropped.

 

It's the first time in my adult life that I started excercising somewhat regularly. My weight is almost dead-on for what it should be in reference to my height (whatever that value is), but my belly has grown and I really needed to air out the muscles. Doing it outside, especially since the environment around this place where I live is so nice, felt completely right. I also can't muster the willpower to head over to the gym or whatever.

 

Hopefully I can start somewhat early in the spring this time around. It was so weird the way it happened when I started last summer. I literally just woke up early one morning and thought to myself "I'm gonna go jogging", and then did it.

[taks]

Correlation doesn't equal causation. It's equally likely that some other influence is causing both the depression and the difficulty sleeping.

or the depression is causing the difficulty sleeping.

 

i don't sleep much, nor well when i do, and to my knowledge, i've never been clinically depressed.

 

taks

[Walsingham]

I did some benching of very light weights just to keep the muscles in shape - haven't had a chance to discuss matters with a PTI - and noticed that I am actually beginning to look a proper man shape, rather than outsized hobbit shape.

 

Anyway, off to bed now. See how I feel tomorrow when I have to wake up at 0800.

[Humodour]

So I really need to get more sleep because my boss has warned me that high-ups will be cracking down on lateness soon and I'm always 5 minutes late. Sigh.