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The Anticult
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Another activity at Modern Magick is something called “Dreamers and Dreamed”. Participants were put on silence and not allowed to talk to anyone and then had to wander around to different “stations”. At these “stations” the participants were supposed to hold their arms out in front of their face and look at their palms. They would then flip their hands to look at the back and say something like “Is this real or is this a dream?” after they had done this at the different stations they would go back to the classroom and lay down on their mat. They would rest for a bit and then they were supposed to get up and do the exact same thing, over and over again. This went on for about two hours, maybe longer. It was stressed to participants how important it was to do the exact same routine without variation.
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How Light Affects the Brain
You know about rods and cones, right? Those are the two kinds of receptors in your eyeball, on your retina, for light. But you didn't know that there is another receptor for light in the eye (I'm guessing you don't know, because until I came across this research, I didn't know either, and no one I've talked to about this has heard about it yet either).

Whereas the rods and cones send information to the visual cortex (the "occipital cortex", at the back of your head), this other light receptor sends its information to your biological clock center. The nerve cables from these receptors don't even go to the vision center at all. They go straight to the middle of your brain, to a region of the hypothalamus called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is very well known to be the location of the biological clock for us humans. (That's an oversimplification but the general idea is correct. For the minute details, light researchers would prefer an overview and series of articles in Nature 2005).

You know about this clock, right? Everybody has one: it's the gizmo that is setting your biological rhythms every day -- when you feel like eating, when you feel like sleeping, when you feel like getting up in the morning. It's the gizmo that gets confused by east-west travel, causing "jet lag". It regulates hundreds of chemical reactions all timed to match the natural cycle of days and nights in our environment.

Or what used to be our environment.

Nowadays we've altered that environment in many ways, of course* (Nature is getting ready to get back at us, big time; but hey, that's our kids' worry, not ours, right?). Ahem, back to the main idea here: we've altered our Light Environment more than anything except CO2 (sorry, digressed again, I don't know why I keep doing that). Okay, so we've got electric light now, right? We can have LIGHT when we used to have DARKNESS.

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Clock Molecule's Sensitivity To Lithium Sheds Light On Bipolar Disorder
ScienceDaily (Feb. 21, 2006) — Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discovered that a key receptor protein is a critical component of the internal molecular clock in mammals. What's more, this molecule -- called Rev-erb -- is sensitive to lithium and may help shed light on circadian rhythm disorders, including bipolar disorder. The findings, which also provide insight into clock-controlled aspects of metabolism, are reported in this week's issue of Science.


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"We're interested in the internal control of metabolism because feeding behavior is on a daily cycle, and hormonal activities that regulate this are circadian," says senior author Mitch Lazar, MD, PhD, Director of the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism at Penn. "Many studies, including those here at Penn, suggest a relationship between the human circadian clock and metabolism. Proteins are the gears of the clock, and not much is known about what regulates protein levels within the cell."

Rev-erb was known to be a key component of the clock that exists in most cells of the body. Rev-erb inhibits clock genes called bmal and clock, but within a normal 24-hour circadian cycle the Rev-erb protein is destroyed within the cell, allowing bmal and other clock proteins to increase. Among other actions, these clock genes cause Rev-erb to increase, which again inhibits bmal and clock. "The time it takes for that to happen determines the length of the cycle -- roughly 24 hours -- and keeps the clock going," explains Lazar.

Penn colleague and coauthor Peter Klein, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, discovered a few years ago that the drug lithium, used to treat biopolar illness, inhibits GSK3, an enzyme known to regulate circadian rhythm in several animal species. In the present study, the researchers showed that the destruction of Rev-erb, a receptor shown previously by Lazar and others to play a role in maintaining normal metabolism, is prevented by GSK3 in mouse and human cells. "It's like pulling a pin out of the gears of the clock, to allow them to turn in a synchronized manner," says Lazar.

Lithium blocks this action of GSK3, tagging Rev-erb for destruction, which leads to activation of clock genes such as bmal1. "We suggest that just as our cells in the incubator need to have their internal clocks reset, maybe this is what happens in some people with circadian disorders," says Lazar. "One effect of lithium may be to reset clocks that become stuck when Rev-erb levels build up."

These results point to Rev-erb as a lithium-sensitive component of the human clock and therefore a possible target for developing new circadian-disorder drugs. Some patients taking lithium have developed kidney toxicity and other problems. Lazar surmises that new treatments that lead to the destruction of Rev-erb would have the potential of providing another point of entry into the circadian pathway.

Noting that Rev-erb is present in metabolically active tissues, Lazar and his team at the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism are also interested in the relationship between the control of the circadian clock and metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. "There is a dynamic interplay between circadian rhythms and metabolism," Lazar says. "You don't eat while you are sleeping, and the body needs to take this into account."

Study co-authors are Lei Yin and Jing Wang, both from Penn. The research was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases and the National Institute of Mental Health

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Treatment Implications

There are two aspects of this story with major implications for treatment of bipolar disorder: first, sleep and rhythm; and then, darkness and light (particularly one kind of light).

The author strongly advises, even pleads that sleep hygeine is greatly supported by avoiding light from TV and computer screens 2 hours before your scheduled bed time.

This is in line with advice from other sources on sleep hygiene.

Sleep and Rhythm

This one's pretty simple. Everybody needs sleep. But people with bipolar disorder need to protect it. Sleep deprivation is associated with having manic symptoms. But perhaps even more important than sleep, or at least as important, is rhythm: the sleep needs to happen at the same time every day to keep your clock organized (Corboys italics)). Move it around too much and you may be setting yourself up for cycling, perhaps even the harder to treat version, "rapid cycling".

Thus most people with bipolar disorder will not be able to do "shift work", where the work day is rotating around the clock. That's probably about the worst kind of job schedule you could arrange. A close second worst is might be an international job like pilot or flight attendant, changing time zones over and over again. Third worst would be graveyard shift work, unless you were extremely attentive to keeping your light exposure limited to your "day", and avoiding real daylight during your "night" (heavy blinds and a sleep mask, for example). Even then we might wonder if there's something about "real" daylight that's important to synchronize with your internal clock.

So, the treatment bottom line: have regular sleep hours -- even on weekends. I know, it's going to feel really stupid to be getting up at 6 am on a Saturday. You'll probably have to conduct some personal tests to find out if this is really worth it. I'll admit: even if it's theoretically a good idea for the long run, you'll probably never be able to keep it up unless you discover some shorter-term benefit as well. So keep some mood/energy/sleep records (several charts are linked from my home page; bottom bullet in the Bipolar II section) and see what you think.

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But...anyone running that short on sleep is according to that young physicians study, impaired, as if DUI.

Its probably unlikely that someone with bipolar would last long term as a LEC volunteer or paid employee, because they'd be so likely to get destabilized by the long hours that they'd go manic and be unable to behave in the controlled precise way required by program protocol.

But any subject paying to do the course who has biochemical predisposition to bipolar...that's someone who might well be at risk.

No, I dont have info on whether insomniacs would be more vulnerable to brainwashing.

Under enough pressure, most of us become vulnerable. But, someone already running low on sleep probably would be at some additional risk.

For this we need imput from a professional--these are my educated guesses.

The problem is, our whole culture devalues sleep.

A real human potential project would ensure that every darned one of us got 8 hours at least of quality snooze each night, every night.

Most of us have little idea how much better we would feel if that were the case.

Sleep as a human right.

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corboy
Apologies if this has drifted off course from the topic at hand. But sleep deprivation is of the utmost importance in supporting thought and brain function...and is endangered in the typical LGAT setting.

Many persons in this culture are sleep deprived. Imagine their vulnerability if put in a 'workshop' situation, even if they're not genetically loaded for depression or bipolar.

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It’s estimated that 60-80 million Americans nearly 40% of women and 30% of men suffer from an inability to fall asleep or stay asleep when they want to. Only 32% of Americans get the recommended eight hours of sleep.

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buffman
Notably, in his CD program "Get the Edge," Tony Robbins claims that people get "far too much sleep" and says all most people need is 5 or 6 hours a night. He claims that he gets that or less, and that if you exercise more you won't need as much sleep. In other words, he's explicitly encouraging increased sleep deprivation, despite all the evidence that indicates we need more sleep.

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corboy
Apologies if this has drifted off course from the topic at hand. But sleep deprivation is of the utmost importance in supporting thought and brain function...and is endangered in the typical LGAT setting.

Many persons in this culture are sleep deprived. Imagine their vulnerability if put in a 'workshop' situation, even if they're not genetically loaded for depression or bipolar.