Squaring the Circadian

WARNING: I am not a health professional, these are just my own theories and thoughts. Please speak to your health professional before acting on any of my posts if you suffer from serious mental illness.

It’s 4am here and I’ve had some caffeine and a vitamin D3 supplement (I’m testing my own theory on myself and it seems to be working, at least since taking D3 the tremors seem to have gone, it’s too early to form a conclusion).

But expanding on my earlier posts and theories on the importance of the right diet and natural light in serious mental illness I started wondering whether people with bipolar disorder particularly could benefit from spending the day indoors with the curtains closed if they sense a manic episode coming but otherwise live normally during this time.

This got me on to thinking about the circadian rhythm and what percentage of the population has bipolar disorder and what percentage of the population has a naturally reversed circadian rhythm and this is what I found.

Incidence and prevalence | Background information | Bipolar disorder | CKS | NICE

Around 2% to 3.5% of the population are believed to be bipolar.

And then the circadian rhythm:

Circadian Rhythm Disorders: Symptoms, Treatment & Types

Once again the prevelance is about 3%.

And this leads me on to a further argument; are people with bipolar disorder and possibly schizophrenia not inherently mentally ill, they’re just adapted to sleeping during the day and being awake at night? Guarding the cave, the camp, the sheep from wolves, the nightwatchmen.

This would suggest it’s in the genes but not a disorder, just an evolutionary adaptation.

It may be that these people could live well without medication just by reversing their sleep/wake cycle; looking for a night job and resting during the day.

Robert David Jackson