There is a usual complaint both by the patient and the people around that my loved one just wants to sleep. They want to lie down. They don’t have the energy to go with the day! 

Why does this happen?

There are many reasons for it, some biological and some psychological and emotional. We are sharing some key reasons here Oversleeping is more common in atypical depression. Here the person feels happy when a small positive event happens but soon slips back to the same pain or depression cycle. 

1. Nothing to look forward to: Depression paints a very painful picture of a person’s life. A person may have also lost many things, may have life where there is active pain, where they feel let down and not enough accomplished. So they sleep and continue sleeping as a form of escape. They feel puzzled, and don’t know anymore what to do, to bring about change in their life, and thus to avoid this reality, they keep sleeping! 

2. Disruption of circadian rhythm: Another factor that could cause oversleeping in a depressed individual is an interruption to a person’s circadian rhythm, a disruption to their body’s internal clock. Sometimes it’s not oversleeping so much as they’re simply sleeping on a delayed sleep phase. The wake-sleep cycle gets disrupted due to depression making the person have difficulty sleeping in the night due to feelings of having not accomplished much during the day, feeling guilty or other reasons. And thereby having difficulty waking up early and feeling tired and low on energy! 

3. Avoiding people: Sleeping sometimes becomes a way to avoid people that the person with depression may feel disconnected to, or not wanting to engage with due to a variety of reasons of either being let down, hurt or troubled. So to avoid the anger, hurt, frustration sadness that comes with being around concerned people, the person prefers sleeping away to avoid more agony and hurt. 

4. Tiredness and lethargy: Depression, its thoughts, lack or motivation, the lack of happy emotions, and bodily changes lead to extreme tiredness, pain, lethargy in a person struggling with depression. They feel so sapped of energy and in pain, that they cannot get up. 

The way to overcome over sleepiness, or the tiredness, or the sad experience a person with depression is having in life, is to fix depressive symptoms itself. The way is to fix depression. 

Therapy at IWill helps a person to see their life differently. Therapy helps a person in bringing change in their life with systematic emotional and behavioral changes.

Oversleeping, pain, and lack of happiness are all symptoms of depression together! Seeking help,  overcoming depression helps overcome the painful pattern of lack of activity and oversleeping too.