How long can a person go without sleep?

Sleeping is not only a pleasure but also a necessity. Both the act of falling asleep and dreaming have been enigmatic for human beings for as long as we have known. None of our functions stop when we sleep, except those of full consciousness. For the rest, the whole body remains active and so does the mind.

It is true that there is a common way to sleep: eight hours overnight. However, it is also true that many people do not respond to that scheme. There are those who only rest four hours or less and with that they feel like new. There are also those who need more than 9 hours to feel like they are truly rested.

The number of hours we sleep changes with age, with habits and with the characteristics of the person himself. When we are born, we need many hours of sleep. As we get older, we get used to short, intermittent dreams. There are no fixed schemes in this.

There are questions They still don’t have a definitive answer. One of them is how long can a person go without sleep? The little data that exists in this regard has been extracted from voluntary experiences. It would be unethical to subject someone to no sleep for an extended period of time, just to find out where the limits are.

What is sleep for?

It wouldn’t occur to most of us never ask ourselves why or why we should sleep. It is obvious to us that the body gets tired during the daily work and therefore needs rest. The most natural way to get that rest is sleep.

However, if you think about it, this is not so obvious. In reality, not even the body nor the brain “deactivate”, so to speak, when we go to sleep. It is true that we reduce our external mobility to a minimum and that our muscles reach a state of relaxation that they hardly reach in any other state. We lie down and barely move to get comfortable or look for a better position. But at the same time, all the organs continue to function.

The brain also has great activity while we sleep. On the one hand, we dream. Our mind constructs scenarios and situations that involve thoughts and emotions, sometimes very intense. There are also those who talk or walk in their sleep. Plus, a part of that brain is still awake. If there is a loud noise or danger occurs, an area of ​​our brain alerts us to wake up.

So finally, when we go to bed, the only thing we get a break from is moving around and maintaining a base level of attention. Science has not yet been able to determine exactly why we sleep. It is known that sleep influences the production of myelin, the formation of new neuronal connections and the elimination of brain waste. However, so far there is no comprehensive and conclusive answer about its exact role.

What happens when you don’t sleep

We have all gone through the experience of not getting enough sleep. We know that Sensations of fatigue, unreality and sometimes headache, dizziness and nausea arise.. Mental activity also slows down and concentration is easily lost.

When waking time becomes too long, other symptoms appear. These include: blurred vision, muscle pain, weakened immune system, tremors in hands and legs, increased cholesterol levels, anxiety, depression, migraine, increased blood pressure, irritability and memory problems. In even more severe cases, hallucinations and psychotic behaviors are common.

There is some evidence that not sleeping could cause brain damage. This conclusion, not definitive, was reached in an investigation carried out in Sweden. 15 adult male volunteers, of average weight, were asked to spend a sleepless night. This group was monitored after the sleep-deprived night and after another night in which they slept eight hours. The aim was to detect what type of changes were generated.

The researchers found a high concentration of two molecules associated with the brain in the blood of the individuals studied. This finding led them to think that a deterioration had occurred in the brain tissue. After a night’s sleep, the blood composition was normal. The experiment did not allow long-term changes to be observed.

The time limit without sleep

No exact answer can be given to the question of how long a person can go without sleep. Officially, The record for the most hours without sleep is held by a high school student named Randy Gardner.. In 1965 she spent 264 hours awake, that is, 11 days. She was doing a job for the science fair. The case was documented by psychiatrist J. Christian Gillin, professor of psychiatry at the University of California.

The student was 17 years old and those who observed him said that during the time he was awake he developed several symptoms. He presented cognitive deficiencies, speech and vision problems and even hallucinations.. There are versions according to which there are people who have gone longer without sleep. There is talk, for example, of a British woman who stayed awake for 18 days to win a competition. However, these data have not been corroborated.

It is also known that There are about 40 families in the world that suffer from a strange disease called Fatal Familial Insomnia.. It is a genetic disease that alters the nervous system and generates a type of holes within the neuronal tissue. Those who suffer from this problem reach a point where they cannot sleep. After a few weeks they behave like sleepwalkers, weaken and finally die.

Can lack of sleep lead to death?

People who suffer from Fatal Familial Insomnia die after a period of not sleeping, but not because of lack of sleep. What causes his death is widespread brain damage. Not being able to sleep is one of the manifestations of this condition, but not its central axis.

In the 1980s, an experiment was carried out in the Allan Rachtschaffen Sleep Laboratory at the University of Chicago. In this study, the consequences generated by the inability to sleep in a group of rats were observed. They were prevented from falling asleep by applying an electric current every time they tried to sleep. The result was that After a period of between 11 and 32 days, most of the animals had died or were dying..

Scientists agree that lack of sleep makes people go a little “crazy.” It is clear that normal brain functions are altered. People become stressed, very irritable, begin to exhibit erratic behavior and even hallucinate. Sometimes they end up saying incoherencies. All that happens. However, it is also clear that When the person resumes their normal sleeping pattern, all these symptoms disappear and there are no sequelae. visible.

Despite this, It’s not unreasonable to think that extreme lack of sleep could lead to death.. Severe damage to the nervous system would be potentially harmful to different organs in the body. A chain would begin that could eventually have a fatal outcome. You can also think that there is a point at which materially no person could stand to remain awake. Even against her will, she would fall asleep.

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