When it comes to depriving yourself of sleep, there are a plethora of problems you can encounter if you go too long without a trip to dreamland. But my question is, could you die from a lack of sleep? We’re talking about the effects of prolonged sleep deprivation, and two men who, against their better judgement, decided to shirk their biological necessities and push themselves to the limits of human capability. And with that out of the way, Peter Tripp, a New York City DJ, decided to embark on a 200 hour sleepless journey to raise money for March of Dimes, a US based NGO intent on alleviating birth defects and infant mortality in 1959. Before he started his wake-a-thon, the two psychologists who would monitor him through his ordeal initially attempted to talk him out of it, as any sane medical professional would, but he would not be dissuaded. At the beginning of his ordeal, he looked happy, alert, and excited for his stunt. After a few days however, his sly grin was replaced with a scowl, which was replaced with a haggard, semi-crazed facade as his adventure continued. A New York Times article notes that “while Tripp somehow managed to keep it together during broadcasts, off the air he was experiencing wild hallucinations”. These included seeing mice and kittens scuttling around his studio, he believed his shoes were filled with spiders, he saw fire spewing out of his desk, and when a man in a dark overcoat arrived to watch his show, Tripp thought he was an undertaker there to embalm him, so he bolted into the street in fear. As we all would. Tripp was given stimulants throughout his marathon, and at first people believed that was behind his mind’s unravelling, however that’s unlikely, as many others who had gone more than 4 days without sleep exhibited similar experiences. Tripp ended up staying up for 201 hours, or just over 8 days, so it seems obvious in retrospect that he would encounter some issues. So sleep is really important, but to determine the effects of sleep deprivation, we first need to know how much sleep is enough sleep. We can’t always make it through a whole night without an unplanned trip to the bathroom, or waking up from a nightmare the subject of which has kept me up for the last decade, every time I close my eyes, I see them, taunting me with their Eldritch forms, dancing in wyrd light of the beyond... AH! Chill! Yeah I’m good… Sleep scientists usually determine healthy versus unhealthy sleep by duration. Which makes sense, as it’s the easiest to measure, and insufficient duration of sleep is the primary affliction affecting North American sleep health. So how much rest should we realistically get night in, night out? According to the United States National Sleep Foundation, the duration of sleep necessary to constitute a healthy sleep schedule decreases throughout a child’s development. For example, newborns and infants up to a year old require anywhere between 12-17 hours of sleep per day, and teenagers need around 8-10 hours to operate at full capacity. It is only in adulthood that the typical 7-9 hour sleep schedule becomes the norm. Of course there is such a thing as too much sleep, but determining whether or not oversleeping is a symptom or a cause of health issues is tricky. For example, there is a correlation between oversleeping and an increase in fatigue, irritability and lethargy, but at the same time, persistent depression, which also causes fatigue, irritability and lethargy, has also been seen to cause oversleeping. Multiple studies have found relationships between sleep duration and several health issues, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The same health issues were seen to be associated with both undersleeping and oversleeping. Something scientists call a U-shaped association. When it comes to sleep deprivation, you’re going to feel some effects right away. After 24 hours awake you’re going to experience daytime sleepiness, fogginess, crankiness, and trouble hearing and seeing. A study from 2010 found that staying up for 20-25 hours at a time has the same effects on your body as a blood alcohol content of .10%. To be considered legally drunk, one must have a BAC of .08%, so you might want to consider Ubering to work or taking the bus. Coming up on 36 hours awake your body will start producing more and more cortisol, a hormone associated with stress, and fight or flight functions. Your short term memory will start to fade, energy levels will decrease, your decision making skills will be impaired along with having trouble speaking and formulating thoughts. Verging on 48 hours without sleep you might find yourself increasingly detached with what’s going on around you, and your immune systems would begin to operate less efficiently. At this point, you’d find it difficult to think of anything aside from sleeping, and chances are you’d begin experiencing microsleeps, which are brief losses of consciousness that can last from anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. After 3 days of depriving yourself of the sweet bliss of a good night’s sleep, your heart rate will rapidly increase, and your ability to regulate your emotions will be seriously impaired. At this point, things are also gonna get weird. You’d start hallucinating, having a hard time distinguishing truth, you might feel a sharp sense of paranoia, and in some cases, sleep deprivation can trigger a psychotic episode. Over time, your brain will be so starved for rest, that you risk organ failure, and in some very rare cases, death. I do have to mention that there are no recorded instances where a human has died from sleep deprivation. It’s also important to note that most human studies have not extended beyond 3 days of sleep deprivation, because of, y’know, human rights. So we can only extrapolate data from animal studies. There was a study on rats done by University of Chicago researcher Allan Rechtschaffen, which deprived them of sleep for 32 days, resulting in all of the rats dying, however the actual cause of death is up to debate. Some interpret the data as pointing to bacterial infection as a result of an impaired immune function, some believe they died from hypothermia, and some argue that increased stress levels led to brain damage in the rats, leading to their untimely passing. So technically, it’s possible to die from sleep deprivation, however you would more likely die from a secondary illness triggered or exacerbated by sleep deprivation. There is also the possibility you’d go through what’s called the “hat phenomenon”. Which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. You hallucinate the feeling of wearing a really heavy hat. Grill: I know what that feels like. I think most of us know what wearing a hat feels like, Grill. No, I mean the hat phenomenon. I know what that specifically feels like. Wait, You do? Yeah! I heard about some kid who broke the world record for longest period awake, so I drank a 2-4 of Yeet and tried to beat him. You wanted to beat Randy f***ing Gardner’s world record? Oh, Grill. That’s such a bad idea. Well I know that now! Randy Gardner is the current Guinness world record holder for longest period gone without sleeping, 11 days, and 25 minutes back in 1963-1964. He came up with a plan with his two best friends Bruce McAllister, and Joe Marciano, and asked them to stay up with him on 12 hour shifts to keep him awake. Randy says in an NPR interview that “If you're on your own, you're going to succumb. You're going to fall asleep”. On the second day of sleeplessness, Gardner experienced a lot of what we talk about earlier. He couldn’t focus his eyes, and he had trouble recognizing objects by touch. By day four he had begun hallucinating. Most notably, he thought that street signs were people walking toward him, a delusion where he believed he was a famous black football player, and sometimes he would see long forest paths extending out of rooms he was standing in. On day nine, he was slurring his words, and his thoughts were fragmented. He would often start sentences, forget what he was trying to say, and simply stop talking. He was also very irritable, he forgot the names of common household objects, and suffered increasingly severe memory lapses. On day ten, he went on a radio show to promote his vigil, but grew more and more paranoid, believing that the host was purposefully attempting to make him seem foolish as he had trouble speaking and formulating thoughts. On day eleven, he appeared almost zombie-like. His expression was emotionless, he wouldn’t talk unless specifically prompted, and his attention span was almost nothing. When given a serial sevens test, a test that asks the participant to count down from 100 by increments of seven, he got to 65, and stopped. When medical professionals asked him why he stopped, he couldn’t remember what they had even asked him to do. At 2 o’clock in the morning on January 8th 1964, Gardner was spirited away to a naval hospital where doctors hooked him up to electrodes to measure his brain waves, and promptly slept for a cool 14 hours straight. When he awoke, he “was groggy, but not any groggier than a normal person”. Gardner continues saying that he didn’t need to sleep any more than normal to feel rested, and felt completely fine afterwards. Gardner emerged from his sleep deprived adventure without any immediate health risks, but did suffer from insomnia years after his stunt. Tripp too described feelings of “emotional instability and recurring headaches” after his attempt. So by all accounts, going for more than 16 hours without at least a decent nap isn’t recommended. Of course, sleep deprivation has been seen to lead to the deaths of rats in animal studies, but doctors and scientists haven’t found any human being who has actually died from just not sleeping. There are recorded incidents of people dying in internet cafes, after spending literal days straight gaming, but their deaths were attributed to exhaustion, not sleep deprivation. That’s probably because after a while, your body will force you into sleep whether you like it or not. Unless someone is actively trying to keep you awake, you’ll end up in dreamland one way or another. There are some long term effects of sleep deprivation, like increases in malignant tumour growth, and increased risk of hypertension, but that’s a topic for another day. Just make sure you get a healthy amount of sleep for your age group, and you’ll know that your body and mind are getting all the rest they need to keep you alert, and curious. Howard: Unhand me flesh boy. Grill: No… No…. NO. HOWARD. Yeesh. These guilt dreams have gotta stop dammit. I have to make amends for what I’ve done.
