Have you ever suffered from insomnia?
Twisting and turning between the sheets, until you see the light peeking through the curtains
and you think, damn, today is not gonna be easy.
For most people who go without sleep for just one night, the next day everything seems a
bit out-of-whack.
Imagine that lasted another day, and another day.
That’s what we are going to discuss in this episode of the Infographics Show, What if
you never fell asleep again?
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Let’s start with day one of no sleep, what exactly happens to you?
According to one study that tested volunteer’s brain patterns after a sleepless night, the
deprivation led to what is called “fractional anisotropy”.
In laymen’s terms, this means sleeplessness affects neural functions, and in the short-term
can affect your emotions as well as your ability to think straight.
One sleep expert, Dr. Fred Mercola, says going without just one night’s sleep can affect
the brain the same way alcohol does, by creating mental confusion.
He also says that going just 24 hours without sleep can result in hallucinations, paranoia,
and even sleep deprivation psychosis.
The Journal of Neuroscience says this can feel like suffering from schizophrenia for
some people, while others deal with a 24-hour wake-binge much better.
If one night can be that bad, what about two nights?
Most scientists that study sleep deprivation say you lose 25 percent of brain performance
for every 24 hours you don’t sleep.
If after 24 hours you feel muddled and a little off-kilter, a report by the US National Institute
of Health says that after 39 hours your heart rate and blood pressure will be affected.
At this point you may have all the symptoms above, but according to research there is
a good chance you’ll have trouble remembering some people’s faces.
After 48 hours the body’s immune system starts to falter due to a decrease in your
body’s Natural Killer cells, aka NK cells.
These are the cells that fight off disease.
The study abstract concludes not surprisingly that “sleep restriction produces physiological
consequences that may be unhealthy.”
Nitrogen was also found in the urine of the test patients, which also usually means your
body is undergoing some kind of stress.
It’s also proven that your hormones will be affected, so there’s a chance you might
get all emotional or just fly off the handle.
Your hearing as well as hand eye coordination will be affected, and so will your ability
to judge situations.
According to the International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health,
don’t drive a car at this point or start doing some metal work.
You may just start using a kind of auto-pilot, too, meaning you get from A to B and don’t
remember what happened in between.
As for the mind, on one particular web forum a high school student says he went to school
after 48 hours of no sleep and ended up sitting down on a bench and chatting with another
boy.
When he noticed a concerned teacher looking at him, he then realized there was no boy
there.
He had been hallucinating.
In an article by Everyday Health, it states at 48 hours you will also start having “microsleeps”.
These can last between half a second to half a minute and you won’t even know you’ve
had them.
Other research says that you are not actually hallucinating, but dreaming during wakefulness.
This is something that has been called sleep insanity.
At 72 hours things get really weird.
When interviewed, one soldier who experienced days without sleep said even just talking
to someone can be really hard.
He also said he’d see things in the trees, such as people approaching his camp.
It’s interesting to note here that during Navy Seal training there is something called
Hell Week, wherein trainees have to stay awake for as long as they can and actually do things.
According to the Navy Seals website, only 25 percent of people get through Hell Week,
but it does seem they can catch at least a couple of Zzzzs now
and again.
The record for not sleeping without the use of stimulants is held by Randy Gardner, and
he managed 11 days, 25 minutes in 1964.
He suffered from concentration problems, short term memory loss, paranoia, and hallucinations.
Claims have been made for longer sleeps, but none have been scientifically verified.
If you are unfortunate enough to suffer from the disease ‘Fatal familial insomnia’,
you will not sleep, and as the name suggests, you will die within months…but not before
you go crazy.
No one has ever just stayed awake as it is thought to be simply impossible, you will
just start having microsleeps.
We don’t know what would happen to someone who never sleeps again, because the body,
thank goodness, just won’t let that happen.
So, what’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleeping?
How did you feel?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called North Koreans vs South Koreans!
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See you next time!