Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › When everything feels flat
If a medicine leaves you wired, restless or with a pulse that will not settle, report it rather than tolerating it quietly.
The antidepressants that act on noradrenaline as well as serotonin can raise blood pressure and put nerves on edge, and with some of them that grows as the dose does. Having your blood pressure checked after an increase is a small ask. Feeling jittery is not proof the drug is wrong for you, since some of it settles in the first weeks, but it is information the prescriber needs while there is still room to adjust.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Truly it is in the remembrance of God that hearts find peace (Quran 13:28). When a body is running hot, remembrance is somewhere to settle that costs nothing and takes nothing away from the treatment.
ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ وَتَطۡمَئِنُّ قُلُوبُهُم بِذِكۡرِ ٱللَّهِۗ أَلَا بِذِكۡرِ ٱللَّهِ تَطۡمَئِنُّ ٱلۡقُلُوبُ
those who have faith and whose hearts find peace in the remembrance of God- truly it is in the remembrance of God that hearts find peace
Qur’an 13:28read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
One reason to report broken sleep in particular is that sleep is not a passive symptom. A review of sleep and circadian function in mood disorders sets out the evidence that disturbed sleep contributes to episodes, to relapse and to poorer emotional control, rather than only following on from low mood. Left alone it works against the treatment.
Harvey AG. (2011). Sleep and circadian functioning: critical mechanisms in the mood disorders?. Annual review of clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
The same action that lifts energy can tighten the body, and both arrive together.
When not to
Chest pain, a very high reading, or a pounding heart that will not settle is a same day matter and not a note for the next appointment.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Put something in before you take something out. Removing the only way a person has of coping leaves them with nothing, which is not safer.
Serotonin syndrome comes from stacking, and the second agent is usually something nobody thought to mention: a migraine tablet, a cough medicine, a herbal remedy for low mood.
When someone tells you they have been hurting themselves, keep your face steady and stay curious. Alarm closes the conversation, and you need it open.