Abstract

In psychiatry, the social zeitgeber theory argues that social life provides important social cues that entrain circadian rhythms. Disturbance of these social cues might lead do dis-entrainment of circadian rhythms and evoke somatic symptoms that increase the risk of mood disorders. In preventing and treating patients with bipolar disorders, the Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy (IPSRT) relies on the Social Rhythm Metric (SRM) to (re)establish patients’ social cues and an re-entrain circadian rhythms. Since the SRM quantifies social rhythms that are derived from a patient’s interaction with a social environment, this contribution (a) calculates the SRM of the social environment of a representative healthy population study (n = 1249), (b) evaluates the robustness of the SRM as a quantifier of social rhythms by matching the scores of the pilot study, revealing the near absence of variance across population characteristics and investigation months—circadian rhythms need to be entrained for every month and for everyone—and (c) examines its use in IPSRT by relating high SRM-scores to lower psychological distress (p = 0.004) and low SRM-scores to higher social and emotional dysfunction (p = 0.018).

Highlights

  • Cyclic and repetitive time is essential for the experience of stability and sameness in everyday life [1].This ism is subjacent to psychotherapy known as Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy (IPSRT)targeting the prevention and recovery of depression in patients with bipolar disorder [2,3,4]

  • The IPSRT deals with individual patients and uses the Social Rhythm Metric (SRM) to focus on the recognition andestablishment of their personal daily routines

  • In terms of treatment and outcomes and according to the social zeitgeber hypothesis, theestablishment of daily routines should result in social rhythmicity of everyday life that restores the social zeitgebers that entrain circadian rhythms and divert the risk of relapse

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Summary

Introduction

Cyclic and repetitive time is essential for the experience of stability and sameness in everyday life [1].This ism is subjacent to psychotherapy known as Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy (IPSRT)targeting the prevention and recovery of depression in patients with bipolar disorder [2,3,4]. Many researchers suspect the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the anterior of the hypothalamus to function as the internal pacemaker for these processes and consider light as the main physical zeitgeber that entrains this master clock to keep up with the 24 hours. It follows that the light/dark cycle and the concurring sleep/wake cycle is the most overt manifestation of the human circadian system, of which the association of sleep-disturbance and depression are the most profoundly studied. Therapies for depression include light therapy, ―wake therapy‖, or therapies to increase REM latency (electroconvulsive therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation) [8]

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