Wake up!
Are you late again?
Sometimes we wish we never had to deal with this morning struggle...
But what if you just never went to bed?
What if you figured out how to keep yourself awake forever?
This is WHAT IF,
and here's what would happen
if you stopped sleeping.
How often have you needed just a few more hours to finish a project,
get ready for a date, or...
enjoy your day off?
If you took sleep out of your daily routine,
you'd have all 24 hours of the day to do everything you never had time for.
What's a few yawns and some minor tiredness
if it meant you never had to waste any more time
lying in bed for no good reason?
Turns out, there are plenty of good reasons to sleep.
The average person spends one third of their life lying in bed,
eyes shut, snoring away.
eyes shut, snoring away. Sounds like a waste of valuable time.
Sounds like a waste of valuable time.
But not for your body.
While you sleep, your body releases hormones and repairs tissues,
replacing your old cells with new ones.
If you worked out that day, you need a good sleep
to let your muscles grow and your fat burn.
So what happens if you don't sleep?
Not much at first.
After just 24 hours you'd feel completely fine.
In fact, you'd feel better than "fine".
That's because sleeplessness stimulates the mesolimbic pathway in your brain.
This pathway would release dopamine - and you'd feel happy and full of energy.
But don't be fooled by all that happiness - it's not going to last long.
Soon after reaching the 24-hour mark, all your reactions would slow down.
Your brain would start to forget what you were doing.
Outwardly, you'd appear to be drunk.
Wait, where were we?
Right,
now what about two days without sleep?
At that point your body would start shutting down.
It would stop metabolizing glucose properly,
leaving you with no energy supply.
You'd start looking very pale - like a character from the Middle Ages.
Your eyes would turn red,
and then more bad news -
your wrinkles would become more visible.
On day three, that's when the real fun begins.
Starved of REM sleep, your brain would bring all your dreams...
and nightmares to life.
At around the 72-hour mark you'd start breaking down your own protein.
So say goodbye to all that muscle mass you worked so hard to build up.
Your body would keep using up all the energy sources it could find.
After about two weeks, your immune system would be so weak,
you could die from the common flu.
Eventually, three weeks after your last sleep,
you'd probably die of a heart attack.
If you've got a little extra muscle or fat on your body,
you could stay alive just a little bit longer.
But we don't recommend that anyone try this at home anyway.
So grab yourself a pillow, and take a siesta.
If it seems like you're always tired,
make sure you're getting the prescribed 6-8 hours of sleep per night.