Good question, how long can you go without sleep?
We all know that we need rest and sleep, but hardly anyone
knows how long you can go without sleep.
Sleep is a stage of total relaxation and recuperation for
the body and mind. Sleep deprivation, on the other hand, can cause a state of
confusion. This means people may exhibit a decreased perception of reality and
a low cognitive capacity when deprived of sleep.
You may have had a point in your life when you had to forgo
sleep or had a difficult time getting to sleep. Do you remember how you felt
the next day? You may have felt irritable, confused and light headed, and that's
just after one night that you can’t sleep. So how long can you go without sleep
if you know that only one night of being awake can have such an impact?!
Researchers have seen sleeplessness in animals, which have
resulted in devastating effects. Sleep deprivation experiments on rats showed
these animals died after two weeks of continuous experimentation. The rats were
made to live on a rotating disc to check how long they could survive without
sleep. The cause of death was hypothesized as deteriorating metabolism.
Humans, on the other hand, tell a different story. A group
of students remained awake for a period of eight to ten days. Not one
experienced serious physiological illnesses but all of the subjects showed
extreme deficiency in coordination, concentration and perception. Thankfully,
all of them were able to recover after one to two nights of peaceful sleep.
The world record for the most hours awake belongs to Randy
Gardner, a 17-year old high school student who was awake for 264 hours or 11
days. He experienced no physiologic problems.
How long can you go without sleep may be a frustrating
question for people with chronic insomnia. A 27-year old man from France had a
physiologic disorder that had him awake for several months. However, this wasn’t
recognized as a world record because of missing measurements.
If you think that there may be something wrong with you, it
would be best to consult a medical professional regarding your condition. He
may advice you on the appropriate prescription medication or alternative
medicine to help you conquer sleeplessness once and for all.
Even if there were no significant physiological changes that
occurred in a person with severe lack of sleep, it is still important to have
healthy sleeping habits every night. You can find some techniques to maintain
healthy sleep habits on how to fall asleep and other pages of this website.
So how long can you go without sleep? The answer could be
"not that long". However, the real answer depends on several other
factors like level of physical activity of a person, the age of a person and a
personals ability to handle stress.
If you can go long without sleep, great! But don’t feel
tempted to try it out frequently, as sleep deficiency is not healthy. Not for
you, not for your body and not for your mind. How long can you go without sleep
really is a question you better not to know the answer to!
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