"A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching!" – William Shakespeare Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1.
Disrupted sleep such as jetlag can really aggravate bipolar, and likewise, changes in our moods can affect our sleep in so many ways. It can become a very vicious cycle.
There are plenty good practical references out there on the subject (for example on WebMD).
But how do circadian rhythms and sleep actually work? What causes us to go to sleep? How do these change in people with bipolar? What are the causes and what treatments are available?
The fascinating and complex answers to those questions, where they are known, were answered by University of Edinburgh's expert Amber Roguski, PhD.
Amber joined us for a great presentation which you can read here:
HELIOS-BD
We then had a quick update on how the current Helios-BD research programme is doing. The researchers are still looking to recruit more trial participants, whether you have bipolar or not (great if you have a partner or friend as you can attend together!).
Several of the audience are enrolled on the trial and they reported that it was not an intrusive experience at all, as well as being very generously reimbursed at about £600 per participant:
AMBIENT-BD
Finally, we were also joined by Dr. Raahat Manrai who described another research trial called AMBIENT-BD which should begin in March-April 2025.
This distinct research trial hopes to really monitor people with bipolar over 18 months to learn more about the relationships between sleep, circadian rhythms and how we are doing in our moods and overall functioning and wellbeing.
It hopes to answer some important questions to allow early intervention (using sleep as an early warning system) and to make better clinical practice and personalised medicines possible.
You can read Raahat's presentation here:
Thank you Amber and Raahat for a very interesting evening and good luck with the trials!
Let's hope more of our group will find out more about them as these trials are super important in reducing the burdens of bipolar in the future.