Sleep-deprived people accordingly feel anxious and are likelier to come down with an illness. Meanwhile, heart rhythms get out of whack and the immune system falters, says Malhotra. Stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol increase in the blood, in turn elevating blood pressure. Many studies have documented the body's parallel decline during sleep deprivation. When a shadowy apparition appears on the roadway, so the advice goes, it's time to pull the lorry over.) (Long-haul truckers have an evocative term for this hallucinatory phenomenon: "seeing the black dog". "People start to hallucinate and go a bit crazy," says Atul Malhotra, the Director of Sleep Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. We get moody, paranoid, and see things that aren’t really there. If we ignore all these side effects and stay up for days on end, our minds become unhinged. As we continue to fight off sleep, our ability to concentrate and form short-term memories slackens. To avoid those latter outcomes, we are wracked with uncomfortable sensations when we burn the midnight oil: we lack energy, feel groggy, and find that our heavy eyelids press on aching eyes. On the flip side, insufficient slumber has been linked to greater risks of diabetes, heart issues, obesity, depression and other maladies. What’s more, studies have shown that routine, adequate sleep promotes healing, immune function, proper metabolism, and much more – which is maybe why it feels good to arise refreshed after a serious snooze. She adds, however, that there is something about sleep that seems to “reset” systems in our bodies. "The exact function of sleep is still to be elucidated," says Hanlon. "Your brain will just go to sleep, despite all of your conscious efforts to keep it at bay."Įxactly why the urge to sleep is so strong remains a mystery. "The drive to sleep is so strong it will supersede the drive to eat," says Erin Hanlon, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago's Sleep, Metabolism and Health Centre. In an effort to claw back some of that time it’s reasonable to ask: how long can we stay awake – and what are the consequences of going without sleep?Īny healthy individual planning to find out through personal experimentation will find it tough going. Live to 78, and you may have spent around 25 years asleep. Reach your 78th birthday and according to some back-of-the-envelope calculations, you will have spent nine of those years watching television, four years driving a car, 92 days on the toilet, and 48 days having sex.īut when it comes to time-consuming activities, there’s one that sits head and shoulders above them all.
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