The Science Behind Morning Depression (And What to Do About It)

0:00 Why do symptoms of depression seem to be at their very worst first thing in the morning? If this happens to you, you should know two things: Number one, this is really common. Number two, it's not just in your head. It's not just laziness or a lack of motivation. There are these massive hormonal shifts that have to do with your circadian rhythm that might be causing morning depression symptoms. So let's talk about five surprising biological causes of morning depression and then I'll give you five things you can do about it. [Music] Okay. Amethyst Amanda said, "I didn't know morning depression was so common. I dread getting out of bed and getting the day started. Once I'm up and moving my day usually gets better, but then at night it's a tossup. Some nights are fine; some are a one-way ticket to existential dread." What amethyst Amanda is describing is

0:50 called diurnal variation, which basically means that certain feelings are influenced by hormones which fluctuate and spike throughout the day. Here's another comment, sent in by viewer @theEagle906: "In the morning I always get this weird feeling in my body, like a weight on my forehead, like I'm choking up and I just want to scream." Okay. So a lot of people feel like their depression symptoms are worst in the morning. Uh here's some other common ways people feel it. You may struggle to get out of bed. You may have no energy or feel exhausted. You might feel hopeless and overwhelmed about the upcoming day. Maybe you can't get yourself motivated or can't think clearly, like you have brain fog or you can't concentrate. Maybe you feel irritable, frustrated, or cranky, or perhaps you struggle to do simple tasks, like getting dressed or brushing your teeth. And some people

1:40 even feel empty or numb. Okay. So what causes this? Why do so many people with depression experience their worst symptoms right when they wake up? Well, it helps to understand the body's internal clock, which is called the circadian rhythm. And by the way, here's my win for the day: I finally learned how to spell rhythm. Okay. So like I said, circadian rhythm is your body's internal clock. Not only does it help us fall asleep and wake up, but it also regulates our heart rate, our body temperature, our energy, our alertness, and our mood. Without us thinking about it, our body releases certain hormones throughout the day to help us regulate our biological processes and our activity levels. At night your brain begins to release melatonin, your body temperature decreases, and this helps us get ready to sleep. In the morning it releases a dump-truck load of cortisol,

2:30 the stress hormone. And this is probably supposed to help us get moving and take action for our day. So what does this have to do with symptoms of depression? There's at least three things going on here. So cortisol levels are typically at their absolute highest right after waking up, and it's pretty common for people to feel a spike in their anxiety first thing in the morning. So why would this make some people feel depressed? Here's my theory on this: Cortisol spikes paired with a depressed inaction lead to a trapped, frozen stress response in the body. So imagine it like this: You wake up with a ton of racing thoughts and a ton of buzzing energy paired with this chronic feeling of like, "Why try? This is hopeless. There's nothing I can do that's going to make my life better." And then on top of that, cortisol makes it hard to think clearly, which makes

3:19 catastrophizing much more likely. So your nervous system might move right past activation into a shutdown mode, which is called the hypoarousal response. This is when your nervous nervous system flips the switch from "let's try hard" to "this is pointless. Let's conserve energy," and it shuts down. This is a subconscious survival response. Your body is trying to protect you from more pain, and it triggers that leaden feeling. It's dissociation, right? It makes it hard to move. It makes you feel numb. And this is the morning depression people are talking about, because moving is pointless. It would just lead to more pain. Okay. So I talk about this hypoarousal state in a bunch of other videos. Let's talk about the second thing that can cause morning depression. Studies have shown that

4:05 people with depression and bipolar disorder have measurable differences in the RORA gene, the RORA gene, which is connected to the circadian rhythm. So this means that their body clock isn't aligned with when they're supposed to wake up. A higher percentage of people who are night owls develop depression, and many depressed people have a disorder called delayed sleep phase, which makes you want to wake up a little bit later and later each day. It's like each night your bed flew to a time zone that's an hour earlier, and it just feels impossible to catch up on sleep. And guess what? More than 60% of people with delayed sleep phase also have depression. Now, recent research is also showing that the hypothalamus could be a culprit of morning depression. So the hypothalamus

4:56 is this little gland deep in your brain, and its job is to regulate hormone timing, also known as your circadian rhythm. And a recent study found that people who experience morning depression may have an inflamed hypothalamus. And in fact, the larger the hypothalamus gland, the more severe the depression. Okay. So what does this have to do with morning depression? Let me let me just step back just a minute. Don't hate me for this, but I'm totally a morning person. I am a lark. If I have a spike in negative feelings, it's usually at bedtime. When it comes to diurnal mood variation, the low mood period of the day tends to overlap with when the body temperature is the lowest, which is typically during sleep. We are built to sleep through the hours that mood and energy are

5:42 at their lowest. But a lot of us have a literal alarm clock that fights our circadian clock. Your schedule might force you to be awake during the lowest time of your circadian rhythm, and you have to get up and get moving when your body is saying like, "Wait a minute. I'm not ready for this. I hate everything." So long story short, for many people with depression, the time that they're supposed to be waking up is right when their body clock is right in the middle of low energy, low mood state of their circadian rhythm, and that's what makes them physically feel leaden, groggy, and down. It's not just laziness or a lack of motivation; it's a biological misalignment of their internal clock with the world's schedule. On to the third biological reason: Research has found that many

6:30 people with depression may have higher levels of an inflammatory marker called interleukin-6. This inflammation-causing chemical rises and falls at different times for different people, but it most commonly peaks when? Guess! In the early morning, which may contribute to depressive symptoms. Research is still new in this area, but chronic inflammation may play a role here. Luckily, there is something you can do about inflammation: exercise, staying hydrated, a healthy diet, anti-inflammatory drugs, and stress-reduction techniques might also help reduce depression by lowering IL-6 levels or improving brain health. Okay. So those are the first three biological reasons why your depression symptoms might spike in the morning. They're all related to your circadian rhythm, the cortisol awakening response, a misalignment of your body clock and your alarm clock, and inflammation.

7:22 Okay. So hang tight here because we're going to talk about how to do a circadian rhythm reset in just a minute. But first we have to talk about sleep disorders and sleep deprivation. There's a reason why I have a long playlist of videos about sleep. Depression is very closely related to sleep disorders, and sleep disorders impact mood and energy levels. Sleep phase disorders, like I mentioned above, like a delayed sleep phase or an advanced sleep phase and other disorders, like sleep apnea, seasonal affective disorder, parasomnia, insomnia, struggling to fall asleep, struggling to stay asleep - all of these can aggravate depression, and depression can aggravate them. It's a vicious cycle. And one study found that for people with both depression and insomnia, when their insomnia

8:08 was treated 87% of them saw their depression go away. And even if you don't have a sleep disorder, simply not getting enough sleep can absolutely be a contributing factor to depression in general, leaving you feeling exhausted and unmotivated in the morning. So this sounds too simple, like don't hate me, but have you tried getting more sleep? Okay. I know that's too complicated. Some people with depression sleep too much. Some people just can't get enough sleep. Sleep is a struggle. You can learn to improve your sleep. Okay. No shame here. Just like, this is an option. Okay. All right. Let's move on. That takes us to our next point: Being depressed makes you exhausted, but being exhausted can make you depressed. So when we're treating depression we have to explore whether your low energy is from a physical illness that's not being treated. So maybe it's low thyroid or anemia

8:56 or low vitamin D or a hundred other disorders that make people feel exhausted or low energy. So it's usually a good idea to work with a doctor to rule these things out. Okay. So there's five biological causes for morning depression. Now, let's talk about five really good treatments that you can do for it. The first treatment is counterintuitive. Would you believe that sleep deprivation can treat your depression? Researchers have found that if you combine light therapy with missing two nights of sleep in a week, you can reset your circadian rhythm, and this can be an effective treatment for depression. Dr. Tracey Marks made a video. She's a psychiatrist. She made a video on how to implement this, so I'll link that video below. There are some other ways to reset your circadian rhythm

9:42 that aren't as extreme. Light therapy is one of my favorite treatments for depression because it's so easy and effective. Light exposure is one of the biggest factors that your brain uses to set your circadian rhythm to know when to wake up, when to release cortisol, when to release melatonin. And multiple studies have shown that light therapy is effective for up to 60% of people with depression. You can use sunlight or a light therapy box to get morning light exposure. And usually it's for like 15 to 30 minutes. It's pretty easy to do, pretty inexpensive. You can also micro-dose melatonin at night to help reset your circadian rhythm. So most tablets are 3 to 5 milligrams. To micro-dose you take a half milligram starting much earlier in the evening, like 5:00 p.m. And this can help

10:27 reset your circadian rhythm. But to do this you have to be able to source quality melatonin. And Tracey Marks describes in her video how this works. But most melatonin supplements are not, they're not regulated. They have a varying amount of melatonin. So you really have to get a good melatonin supply if you want to get that micro-dose earlier in the evening and reset your circadian rhythm. Another thing that can help is if you time your medication. So if your medication makes you sleepy, take it at night. If your medication wakes you up, take it in the morning. The times of day that we eat, exercise, and sleep all impact our circadian rhythm. So don't do exciting things like eating or exercising right before bedtime. Doing those things earlier in the day will help you get tired at night and feel rested and awake in the morning. Okay. Let's address the big one for morning depression, which

11:17 is managing the cortisol awakening response. So when you feel frozen by the morning cortisol flooding your system, just start with one simple step. Literally put your feet on the floor and take a step. Movement is the best way to counteract depression's freeze response and to channel all that energy into a helpful place. Don't wait until you feel better to take action. Movement is going to help you burn off that cortisol, and you'll feel more proud of yourself for getting up and going. Did you catch yourself shutting down that idea right away? That is depression talking. It's it's tough to plan a morning routine. And so to get yourself to take this action when you don't feel good, when you don't feel motivated, you might need to brainstorm with a friend or find something that you'll look forward to in the morning. Now, I know this can be really tough. So let's let's talk about

12:06 how to line some things up that might help. Uh one of the things that I've seen has been effective is to have someone call or text you to check in. So in the morning they call you at 8:00 and be like, "Hey, how are you doing? What are you looking forward today? Oh, yeah? What clothes are you going to wear today?" And they kind of talk you through your morning routine. Another thing that's maybe a little bit more extreme but might be helpful is to get a dog who wants to go on a walk. They're not going to let you get out of that. Um for some people having someone who's relying on you can help you get motivated. So if you have to get up and get breakfast for your kids or if you have a coworker that you have to drive to work. that might help you feel motivated enough to get moving. There's a couple other things that can help you get moving when you're having a hard time. And one of them is just focus on just one task at a time. So put your feet on the floor, stand up, brush your teeth. Don't

12:55 do all three at once; just do one at a time. Feed your pet. Right? And just focus on one task. Do one task. And it can also help to count down to it. So you go 5 4 3 2 1, and you take that step out of bed. Another thing that's really important is to always congratulate yourself. So the depressed mind is going to like harass you. It's going to say, "Oh, wow, you got out of bed. Any idiot can get out of bed." That is depression sucking away your energy. So instead, give yourself grace, even if it feels corny. I'll say like, "Oh, great job, Emma. You got yourself moving. That was hard for you." Whenever I do a hard task I try to be like, "Okay, good job, Emma" and like literally like verbally give myself a pat on the back. Okay. Another thing that's helpful is to have like something positive in your morning routine to

13:43 look forward to. So this might be like reading something happy; practicing gratitude; avoiding scary news and social media; wearing something funny, like wearing funny socks; or reminding yourself that during the day you often get feeling better. You could also make a little extra time in your morning routine so that you're not so rushed and stressed. So if you give yourself a little extra time, maybe if you finish getting ready you can watch your watch a little show that you enjoy or listen to some music or do a quick stretch or a little bit of yoga in the morning, something that feels good to you. And then another thing that I think is helpful is during the afternoons or whenever you have a little bit more energy, plan something to look forward to. So if you plan something later in the week that you look forward to, that can help you get moving each day. Or if you plan something tomorrow afternoon to look forward to, that can help you get out of bed in the morning.

14:31 Another thing that's going to help you get out of bed, clearly, is if you get enough sleep. And sleep hygiene can help you improve the quality of your sleep. And I made a video on this if you want to learn more about it. But it's like decreasing caffeine, alcohol, heavy food, drugs, nicotine, screen time - anything that improves your sleep can help improve your depression. Okay. Talk therapy can also help you build a life that you look forward to instead of dreading. So it can help you. Therapy can help you break down the overwhelming parts of your life into manageable problems that you can solve one at a time. You can learn to take care of yourself, set reasonable goals, and feel empowered in your own life. So when you have some hope that you can take action today to make your life better, suddenly it doesn't all seem so dreary. Okay. Medication can also be an effective treatment

15:20 for morning depression, and some of the recent research suggests that the most common type of anti-depressants, SSRIs like Lexapro or Prozac, may not be as helpful for morning depression as SNRIs. So you could ask your doctor about that. Mornings can be hard, especially when you have depression, and I think it's good to acknowledge that it's not just in your head. There are things you can do with your biology that can help. Get the help of your doctor and your therapist. And find one part of this video that resonates with you, and find a way to implement that in tiny steps. If you'd like some extra support you could check out my membership. I've got eight courses on there, and I do a monthly call with my members where I answer your questions and provide a little bit of support. So you can check that out if you'd like to learn more ways to implement these tiny changes that

16:07 we're talking about. I feel really passionate about this because I really have seen that when people make these small changes a little at a time, your depression can get much better. It can get - it can go from being overwhelming to feeling manageable, and then eventually being like not that big of a deal or even resolved. So I hope that's really helpful for you. If any part of this video has been helpful for you, I would really appreciate it if you give it the thumbs up or leave a comment below. Or if you can think of someone who could benefit from this video, it would help them, then go ahead and share it with them because that tells the algorithm that people are benefiting from my content, and that helps helps the algorithm show it to more people, and they can learn the things that'll help them. So really appreciate it. Thank you for being here, and take care.