Swinburne University of Technology recently distributed a press release entitled “Body clock changes can predict bipolar relapse ,” announcing that one of its researchers, Dr. Greg Murray, would be discussing his research in a segment on the body clock on the ABC program Catalyst on ABC1 Thursday 4 September at 8.00 pm.
I didn’t catch the show, but from the press release, Murray’s research sounds interesting. Murray has studied the body clock (circadian rhythms) in great depth and has found that these rhythms “can have profound effects on human mood.”
According to Murray, “If you take seriously this idea that the body clock is part of a causal pathway to mood disorders, then a natural deduction is that monitoring clock function might provide early warning of relapse in vulnerable people.”
In his current study, Murray and his PhD student Ben Bullock fitted twelve volunteers diagnosed as having bipolar disorder with wrist-worn devices designed to monitor their circadian system by measuring their physical activity throughout the day and night. Murray and Bullock collected data over the course of 12 months. During that time, one participant experienced a relapse and was hospitalized.
“For our purpose, it was very interesting that circadian activity data really did show a marked signal of deterioration in the days and even weeks before the relapse.” Instead of his activity patterns operating on a 24-hour cycle, the participant shifted to a 48-hour cycle of wakefulness and broken, disturbed rest.
In the next stage of research, the team wants to see if signals of rhythm disruption in patients can be used as markers of vulnerability to bipolar disorder in the general population.
I know from experience that changes in my wife’s sleep patterns are a HUGE predictor of when she is cycling into mania. Normally, she sleeps 8 to 10 hours a day (from 10 pm to 6 am, longer on weekends) and takes a 1 hour nap in the late afternoon. Prior to a manic episode, the sleep cycle continues to diminish from 10 hours to 8 to 6 to 4 to 2, until she’s ultimately functioning on no sleep. She can usually interrupt the cycle by taking sleep aids and focusing on going to bed right at 10 pm… assuming we catch it early enough.
Changes in sleep patterns are a key early-warning sign for us.
In Bipolar Disorder For Dummies, we include a couple sections on circadian rhythms, including a section entitled, “Resetting your circadian clock through interpersonal and social rhythm therapy.”
I have a relative with this disorder. She too has issues with sleep and often does naps in the middle of the day to cope. One thing we’ve talked about is the type of mattress she is using. I’ve suggested she try looking for a mattress with a pressure relieving material perhaps if the innerspring she’s using is actually waking her up from her light sleep when she tosses or turns. We all deserve at least 8 hours of sleep and it’s concerning to know that there are folks out there who have to deal with this disorder.
My sleep patterns have been changing. I would stay up late and get up early. Now sometimes I don’t even go to sleep. This ruins the whole next day because I’m exhausted so of course I’ll have to lay done and sleep which just throughs everything off again . I know my med. needs to change but I’ve been on the same med. for yrs. and I don’t Have the knowledge about the med.now.and don’t trust med. people in my area.I’m getting confused and discouraged.
I had bipolar disorder several years ago and I cured it with light therapy and a high salt diet (isotonic). The light therapy has an obvious connection to the circadian clock – it lengthens daylight. But it took me a while to find how salt was connected. I discovered that in the evening my urine sodium level rose dramatically. This implies that my sodium blood level falls at this time, probably in preparation for sleep. When my sodium level goes below a certain level it causes a condition called hyponatremia which includes mental symptoms. The high salt diet prevents me from going below that critical level and the extra evening light therapy slows down the loss of sodium during the evening hours. Incidentally, this is also a better explanation than polydipsia for the high frequency (10x) of hyponatremia among psychiatric hospital admissions when compared to all other admissions. From my experience, I believe that if sodium levels could be tested in a 24 hour period prior to admission, the frequency would be even higher.