Experts from Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan's academic medical center, found that having a lie-in on the weekend when the body is used to waking up early on weekdays increases the risk of having depression and significantly affects the mood.
They used the data from 2,100 US medical interns that were taken for over a year. They found that an irregular sleep schedule has a similar effect to getting fewer hours of sleep or staying up late regularly. It increases the risk of suffering symptoms of depression, MailOnline reported.
For instance, if you walk up late on a Sunday, it can affect your mood on Monday, making you feel grumpy. That is the same as staying up late on Sunday night. Researchers conducted a further study and found that this could happen to anyone with an irregular sleep schedule.
The Impact of Irregular Sleep on the Mind
The new study explores the effect of an unusual mixture of broken and irregular sleep patterns on the mind. The study participants are medical interns that are in their first year of training in medical residency.
During this stage, medical interns are experiencing long, intense workdays and irregular schedules, which is why they do not have a real sleeping structure. Their sleep patterns and mood were tracked using wrist devices and smartphones.
Their study showed that those who had variable sleep patterns were more likely to score high on the measures of depression, ad have lower daily mood ratings. Similar results are also found in those who regularly sleep late or got the fewest hours of sleep.
The findings, published in the journal npj Digital Medicine, add to the existing data about the association of sleep, daily mood, and long-term risk of depression. Study lead author Yu Fang said that the advanced wearable device helps them study mental health's behavioral and physiological factors, like sleep.
Furthermore, the authors noted that the findings highlight sleep consistency as an under-appreciated factor that targets depression and welfare. Also, they emphasized that the relatively young participants in the study who holds both college and medical degrees do not represent the broader population. They were tapped in the experiment because they share similar workloads and schedules and a good group to test hypotheses.
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Morning Depression: Definition, Causes, Treatment
People who suffer from major depressive disorder also experience morning depression. Symptoms may be severe during the morning than in the afternoon or evening. Morning depression is mainly caused by the disruption in circadian rhythms, according to a 2013 study.
Healthline reported that when the circadian rhythms are disrupted, the body will start making hormones at the wrong time that adversely affects the person's physical health and emotional well-being.
For example, when the body makes melatonin during the day, it makes the body feel tired and irritable. That explains the mood swings when a person does not get enough sleeping hours or has an irregular sleep pattern.
Morning depression treatments include talk therapy, medication, light therapy, and Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). But changing one's sleep patterns could significantly help.
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