Tony Cunningham

hi! I'm the author of that essay. I'm down to engage in a scientific discussion of debatable points. Let me know if I got anything wrong in my essay, I will correct it.

I'll start with sleep deprivation does cause death as made evident by animal models (obviously can't test this experimentally in humans) Everson, C. A., Bergmann, B. M., & Rechtschaffen, A. (1989). Sleep deprivation in the rat: III. Total sleep deprivation. Sleep, 12(1), 13-21.

If I get a chance I'll try to take a look back through and highlight other things, but as a sleep researcher and clinical psychologist, I would say TSD is last resort, not a first line treatment. We don't know how it works, so we don't know what it does long term. Obviously, some

sleep researchers and clinicians might disagree with me on that one, hence the debate.

genuinely curious if you have you ever prescribed sleep deprivation and whether it worked / what were the side effects

Nope, the only instance in which I'd potentially consider it is with someone acutely suicidal, but suicidality is actually a pretty acute state and I'd suggest a night of sleep first. I do think it's a great area for further exploration (read an article where TSD + light therapy

extended the antidepressant effects), but again my genuine concern is we have no idea what it's actually doing. Your point about showing ppl they can feel better is a good one, my concern is people will start self-prescribing it, and we DEFINITELY need more research b4 that type

my impression was that we don't know what many antidepressants are doing, to the point of where we thought they were acting on one type of receptors but then it turned out they were doing something else completely (can't find a link right now, lmk if this is wrong)