Can a person not sleep for 24 hours? How long can a person live without sleep - terrible consequences

Today is full and restful sleep– an uncommon human condition. Stress and fatigue tend to accumulate, and in the evening, when we go to bed, we remain tense and simply cannot fall asleep. How many days can a person go without sleep, and why do they say that this is the path to a slow, painful death? These are questions that need to be answered in detail.

Normal, healthy body a person requires a change in cycles of wakefulness and rest. It is estimated that sleep takes up almost a third of life, which is a lot. However, it is precisely when immersed in dreams that strength and immunity are restored, which is extremely necessary.

Insomnia is dangerous painful condition, physically and emotionally exhausting. Even the healthy man.

Attention! If a man or woman does not rest for the required 8 hours, within a day the ability to work is lost by a third, in the second by 60%, and after 3-4 days the individual cannot work at all. After five nights, serious mental deviations and deterioration in physical condition appear.

Living without sleep: is it possible?

Yes, it's possible. A person can live without sleep for 2 days without losing much activity, mental and physical. But we're talking about only about completely healthy people; in addition, it is necessary to take into account the individual characteristics of the body. For example, students spend several days in tension during the session, just like workers shift schedule. When going on vacation, such people simply confuse their biological periods and may not sleep for a couple of days in a row. But this cannot go on forever. Long absence sleep will ultimately lead to a complete cessation of vital activity.

Reasons for lack of night rest

There are not many factors that provoke insomnia. In addition to the stresses mentioned, periods strong voltage, a person may not sleep due to an emotional outburst, a forced refusal to rest, due to illness or due to mental pathologies. Of particular interest are the following factors: and fatal insomnia.

Sleep deprivation

The concept implies refusal of night rest, voluntary or forced. This could be torture, disorders caused by drugs, forced short-term measures (for example, a student session, caring for a patient). Under such circumstances, a healthy person can go without sleep for no more than 3 days, then irreversible changes. As a result of forced deprivation, a man or woman, being without rest for a long time, dies.

Fatal insomnia

Pathology is hereditary disease, in which a person slowly dies, unable to sleep. This type of insomnia is considered incurable and is extremely rare. The causes of the disease were identified only in the 20th century: prion cells (a protein with an abnormal structure) affect the tissue of the thalamus (part of the brain), which is responsible for dreams. Symptoms of the condition manifest themselves as follows:

1. The time period of sleep and the act of falling asleep are disrupted. The patient experiences fear of the condition and against this background, nervous complications develop.
2. Sleep time is decreasing at a catastrophic rate.
3. The patient tries to hold out as long as possible without rest, and when he goes to bed, he immediately experiences a surge of vigor.
4. The slightest sound brings a person out of half-sleep, drowsiness, phase deep sleep. The patient awakens, and the body even with minimum period sleep is in a state of activity.
5. Daytime fatigue may make you want to fall asleep, but when you create comfortable conditions for rest, the patient does not succeed.

Early awakenings and late going to bed without visible reasons – additional symptoms diseases.

The disease develops in stages. At first the person simply cannot sleep for a long time, experiencing nervous and mental difficulties. Then hallucinations, phobias are added, insomnia causes an increase in body temperature, panic attacks. After six months, the patient’s body weight drops sharply, the immune system is depleted, and the body experiences senile changes in a dynamic mode. Then comes dementia - lack of response to the world. This symptom is aggravated by the inability to eat and move independently. In this state, the body is susceptible to even minor infections, which always lead to death.

Reflection of life without sleep on the human condition

Any person who hasn’t slept for a couple of days in a row can tell you what being awake without rest looks like. The absence of a natural period of reboot and recovery affects all vital systems and organs. Changes manifest themselves both externally and internally. The most harmless of them include constant desire doze, go to sleep.

It is important to know! If the workload increases, a person tries to cheer up with coffee or energy drinks, but doctors do not advise abusing these drinks. The absence of a recovery period leads to greater blood contamination, only pure water helps remove from the body harmful substances, at the same time allowing you to better cope with daily worries and endure the working day.

External signs

The consequences of insomnia are manifested by changes in a person’s mental background. Without rest, irritability increases. At the same time, the patient’s emotional sensitivity decreases, and he becomes sluggish and aggressive. Outbursts of nervousness are quick, bright, protracted, but at the same time lazy and apathetic.

External signs of lack of sleep:

• redness of the whites of the eyes;
• excessive paleness of the skin;
• dry lips;
• tremor of the limbs;
• puffiness, bags and black circles under the eyes;
• slow reaction.

In addition to those listed, there is one more a clear sign lack of sleep - an irresistible desire to rest. A tired body is unable to work at full capacity, and a person can fall asleep even in the most uncomfortable position, “falling” into sleep literally “on the go,” in the middle of a conversation or some action.

Internal changes

Difficulties with the perception of reality begin after the first sleepless night. The patient is annoyed bright colors, the coherence of speech is disrupted, and mental lability appears. This happens due to the death of brain cells. What happens to life support systems:

Dangerous consequences

If a person does not sleep for five days, he begins to go crazy. In this case, the patient may faint at any time, but is no longer able to fall asleep on his own. Irreversible damage is caused to the body, changes affect not only the cortex, but also the subcortex of the brain, and the nervous system is destroyed. Increasing suspicion takes on the features of phobias, panic attacks become more frequent, hallucinations become tangible. A little later, health deteriorates in extreme– a person loses touch with reality.

Behavioral reactions change in any direction; it is impossible to predict the logic of actions. If you don't sleep for 160 hours, the damage to your health is irreversible. Hormonal destruction affects all life support organs. A decrease in the natural immune response opens the door to all viruses; the patient only needs the slightest infection for the dynamic development of pathologies.

Doctors compare the condition of a person who has not slept for 5 days in a row with the condition of a drug addict after receiving a dose. Retardation of consciousness, violation of the boundary between reality and fiction, relaxation of the sphincters, dullness pain threshold- here is a small list destructive changes.

If you do not sleep further, such a patient will not last long. Recovery period may take longer, and some pathological disorders organism will be irreversible. The latter include: death of the cellular structure of the brain, failures metabolic processes, liver, kidney diseases, problems with the heart and blood vessels.

What helps you stay awake for a long time

Despite the danger of lack of sleep at night, there are sometimes periods of forced wakefulness. If you do not fuel your body with energy drinks, a person can last no more than 24 hours without sleep and loss of performance. And this is without obvious violations chronic. You can even live longer without sleep, but you will need support. The most harmless ones include:

• strong coffee is better with sugar and milk;
• natural preparations based on ginseng;
• energy;
• charger;
• walks in the open air;
• cool shower.

If there are several sleepless days, you need to give up a heavy menu, food should be light, maximally fortified. This will help the body stay alert, get optimal nutrition to carry out the work process.

It is important to know! Drugs such as Amphetamine and powerful energy drinks are prohibited for children. The teenager instantly gets used to the dose and will no longer be able to refuse constant shaking on his own. If an adult is dependent on “Amphetamine” and similar drugs occurs at stage 5-6 of the dose, children cannot do without the medicine after the first dose. Consequences of use: VSD, disorders heart rate, tachycardia and other problems with the cardiovascular system.

The amount of time a person can withstand without sleep

In searching for an answer to the question of how long a person can live without sleep, one must rely on the individual characteristics of the body. Doctors say that maximum term– up to 6 days.

Minimum term without serious consequences

Deadline for death in the absence of sleep

If the disease is not caused genetic disorders, then on the 6th day the patient’s body begins to die. Continued insomnia will lead to death within 7-8 days. But this indicator is strictly individual and concerns people who are not under external pressure. In torture chambers, where prisoners were subjected to other physical and emotional stimuli, the man died on the 5th day, the woman on the 4th.

People living without sleep: interesting facts

There are only two people in the world who have not slept for many years. The record belongs to a Vietnamese man named Ngoc Thai, who has been awake for 44 years. This information was published in several newspapers, but there is no information about scientific evidence of this phenomenon. The second person is Yakov Tsiperovich, who experienced clinical death and stopped resting night and day. However, both of these cases are exceptions to the rule; they are more like a miracle that is hard to believe.

In China in ancient times torture was practiced - the person was not allowed to sleep. After the third day without sleep, many of these prisoners gradually began to die.

The Guinness Book of Records stopped recording achievements after scientifically proven irreparable harm from insomnia. Today, one of the record holders is a patient who spent 11 days without sleep so as not to miss the matches of his favorite football team. There is also a man who has not slept for 19 days. As for medical experiments with sleep, they end on the 6th day. Otherwise, patients may die.

Conclusion

You shouldn’t test your body’s strength and go without sleep for more than a day and a half. After forced insomnia, it is necessary to take measures for recovery normal schedule: Go to bed on time in the evening and get up in the morning. AND little advice: If you have to stay awake for a long time, it is extremely important to drink more pure still water and give the body short-term rest in the form of walks or a change in activity.

The question of how long a person can live without sleep interests scientists and workaholics. But everyone who tried to remain employed at the same time failed. People with superpowers or disabilities can do without sleep.

Various studies conducted to determine how long a person can go without sleep normal image life, have shown that the brain cannot be deceived. Chronic lack of sleep destroy the body. Five to seven days of wakefulness lead to severe consequences– physical exhaustion, serious mental disorders. Therefore, experiments on people are not carried out. But there were sleepless volunteers who risked their health for the sake of fame. Randy Gardner, who lives in California, proved that you can stay awake for 264 hours. The more the young man was awake, the more he observed side effects: hallucinations, memory loss, dizziness. After the end of the experiment, the guy slept and his functions returned to normal. Gardner is still alive and adheres to normal mode, does not repeat risky experiments.

The next record holder, who was interested in how long one could live without sleep, was Briton Tony Wright. The man said that his brain would be awake and resting at the same time, like dolphins. While one hemisphere is working, the other is resting. After the experiment, Tony admitted that with each sleepless day his health worsened. Weakness and irritability gave way to hallucinations and disordered thinking. The record without sleep (275 hours) was not easy for Wright. On the eleventh day he became sensitive to bright light, loud sounds. Symptoms of speech impairment and memory loss appeared. The problems disappeared after Tony got some sleep. Representatives of the Guinness Book of Records refused to register the achievement due to the danger of such experiments.

Experiments have proven that people who do not sleep at night will not be able to achieve success, even though they have more time. Man has been adapting to the change between wakefulness and sleep for thousands of years. While the body is resting, things happen in it important processes. The pancreas produces more insulin. The adrenal cortex synthesizes adrenaline, which is needed during the day. At night, the production of growth hormone, which takes part in metabolism, is activated. During the physiological state of rest and rest, brain cells are restored to actively function during the day.

Scientific experiments

American neurophysiologist Nathaniel Kleitman tested for himself how long one can go without sleep. He suggested that hallucinations during prolonged wakefulness are REM sleep with dreams. The scientist managed to record what also prevents forced wakefulness. After five days of insomnia, delta waves were recorded on the electroencephalogram, which appear in slow sleep. This is how the brain defends the right to rest and recovery after the onset of pathological processes.

The body of a living being can be compared to a computer. The machine cannot work for a long time, it needs to be rebooted. Sleep is a reboot for the body. Soviet scientist Yakov Levin studied the effect of prolonged wakefulness on the psyche and body of people who work daily. The young men tested did not sleep for 36 hours and felt well, but after the examination they were found to have a decrease in general activity, associative and short-term memory, motivation, and an increase in anxiety.

Biochemical studies showed that catecholamine levels decreased. The hormone affects the speed of thinking, assimilation of information, emotional stability, and is involved in the formation of behavior. After the experiment, sleep lasted longer than usual, the indicators returned to normal. How long a person can go without sleep depends on the physical and mental health. The consequences were not the same for everyone. The physically resilient and balanced study participants recovered faster.

Military doctors different countries They are researching psychostimulants that will allow special forces soldiers to stay awake for several days. The drugs help fight sleep and fatigue, but after stopping use, mental and physical exhaustion occurs.

Exceptions to the rules

A unique challenge to nature is the man who never sleeps. Ukrainian Fyodor Nesterchuk and Belarusian Yakov Tsiperovich spend several decades without sleep at all. Yakov lost the ability to sleep after clinical death. At first, the man’s body suffered from insomnia, but soon adapted to this condition. Tsiperovich leads a normal life. To give his brain a chance to rest, he meditates. Except low temperature Doctors do not find any other abnormalities.

Vietnamese Ngoc Thai has not slept at all since 1973. He works hard in the field and feels good. Men are not very happy about the extra time and want to go back to their old life, when they could sleep.

Facts about the harms of lack of sleep

Scientists cannot answer how long a person can live without sleep. Sleep deprivation experiments were conducted on rats. Animals reacted inappropriately to food and relatives. The experimental rats died after two weeks due to weight loss, the body's inability to maintain normal temperature bodies. Neuroscientists have come to the conclusion that any living creature cannot live without sleep. Even systematic lack of sleep reduces the standard of living.

• Risk premature death increases by 15%.
• People who sleep little and are consistently sleep-deprived are 25% more likely to suffer from depression.
• A week of systematic lack of sleep reduces intelligence by 15%.
• A driver who has not slept for 17-18 hours is less attentive than a person with moderate alcohol intoxication.

It has not yet been established how long you can go without sleep so as not to harm your health. Many people have proven that it is possible to reduce physiological state peace and relaxation to a minimum. But the body will react to such deprivation over time.

• Valery I. Shestopalov, Yuri Panchin, Olga S. Tarasova, Dina Gaynullina and Vladimir M. Kovalzon Pannexins Are Potential New Players in the Regulation of Cerebral Homeostasis during Sleep-Wake Cycle Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, July 2017, Volume 11, Article 210
• V.B. Dorokhov, A.N. Puchkova, A.O. Taranov, V.V. Ermolaev, T.V. Tupitsyna, P.A. Slominskii, and V.V. Dementienko Gene Polymorphisms Associated with Sleep and Cognitive Functions and Their Associations with Accident Proneness in Shift-Working Bus Drivers Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology, Vol. 48, No. May 4, 2018
• Vladimir M. Kovalzon Ascending reticular activating system of the brain Translational Neuroscience and Clinics, Vol. 2, No. 4, December 2016, pp 275–285

List of used literature:

• Kovrov G.V. (ed.) Quick Guide in clinical somnology M: “MEDpress-inform”, 2018.
• Poluektov M.G. (ed.) Somnology and sleep medicine. National leadership in memory of A.N. Vein and Ya.I. Levina M.: “Medforum”, 2016.
• A.M. Petrov, A.R. Giniatullin Neurobiology of sleep: modern look (tutorial) Kazan, State Medical University, 2012.

Rhythm of life modern man has high speed. But even in such conditions, a day is not always enough to complete all the tasks. It is at such moments that we begin to think about what needs to be done in order to stay awake, for example, all night.

Our body works like a clock, and the slightest malfunction can lead to physical and mental health problems. But despite this, there are ways to deceive the internal mechanism. We present you with several options for staying awake for a long time.

Is it harmful to not sleep at night?

First, it's important to talk about the consequences of lack of sleep. Constant wakefulness does not allow the body to properly rest, and the consequence may be premature aging internal organs, not to mention mental problems. If you do the calculation per day, you get something like the following picture:

• a day without sleep - fatigue sets in, and problems with memory and concentration appear;
• 2-3 days without sleep - hormonal levels begin to change in the body, and connections between brain cells are disrupted. Speech, vision, and spatial coordination also deteriorate, and nausea may begin;
• 4-5 days without sleep - cell destruction begins, which results in the destruction of personality. The person becomes irritable and begins to suffer from delusions and hallucinations;
• 6-8 days without sleep – speech slows down, trembling appears in the limbs, and the person begins to suffer from memory loss;
• 11 days without sleep - such a record was achieved only once. This happened in 1965, when 17-year-old R. Gardner wondered how to stay awake for several days. On the 11th day, the young man looked more like a living dead man who did not have the strength to move, speak, think or engage in any kind of activity. Having completed his experiment, the young man slept for 14 hours, and then, after two hours of wakefulness, he needed another 8 hours of sleep to re-enter the usual rhythm of life.

If your goals are not so global, and the question of how to stay awake for several days is extremely important, try several methods that should help you overcome sleep for a while.

What to do to stay awake?

Considering the specifics of work and lifestyle in different cities, it is difficult to imagine how many various methods the fight against drowsiness was invented by mankind. However, the reasons why sleep needs to be pushed back a little from your usual schedule are usually the same. Let's look at the most relevant ones.

1. How to stay awake at work. If for some reason you fall asleep on the go during work, try the following methods:

• start an argument with your colleagues. Few people know that a dispute not only makes you nervous, but also sharply increases blood pressure and promotes the release of adrenaline into the blood and improves brain activity;
• Rub your face with both hands and massage with your fingers behind the ears, on the temples and in the corners of the nose. This will improve blood flow and invigorate you;
• stock up on seeds. If your activity allows you to crack seeds while sitting at your desk, then you are guaranteed a distraction from drowsiness. The main thing is not to be distracted from the work itself.

2. How not to sleep while driving. Get into a vehicle sleepy state extremely dangerous. But if you can’t avoid the trip, you can resort to the following methods:

• Bring a travel companion with you. A conversation with him will distract you from sleep, and if you close your eyes for too long, he will be able to pull you out of your slumber;
• electronic signaling devices. Thanks to modern technologies special sensors were created that react to a person falling asleep. So, for example, one of these devices is put on the ear and starts beeping if a person lowers his head down;
• take food with you. In a beautiful way distracted are the same notorious seeds or nuts.

The main thing you shouldn’t do while driving is drinking liters of coffee, which large quantities on the contrary, it increases drowsiness. If you feel like you are falling asleep while driving, it is better to stop on the side of the road and take a nap for at least 15 minutes.

The last issue worth touching on is the choice of means to stay awake. And in this regard, for a person who decides to declare war on drowsiness, there is a huge choice:

You can only use these tips when as a last resort. After all, nothing can undermine your health more than lack of sleep. Don’t experiment with your body’s endurance and then it will help you cope with tasks before night falls.

Sleep - there is so much in this word. Many of us dream of quickly finishing the work day, coming home, lying down in our favorite bed and falling asleep. And here you are in bed, drowsiness comes in waves, and you are ready to fall asleep and suddenly - the feeling that sleep is leaving you. It's unpleasant, isn't it? How long can a person stay awake and what happens to his body?

Everyone knows that sleep is the best way to gain strength and relax. Scientists have found that on average a person can go without sleep for 3-4 days to a week. Latest version can rather be classified as fantasy. Now let's take a closer look at what happens while our body is awake?

Day 1. The man did not sleep for days. Fatigue and irritability appear, albeit insignificant or even unnoticeable for a person, and increase arterial pressure. After a sleepless day, a person immediately plunges into the phase REM sleep, and if no one and nothing distracts him, he will instantly fall asleep.

Day 2. The psyche is under attack chemical processes, occurring inside a person. About 50% of information is not absorbed. If there is no sleep for two days, brain cells begin to deteriorate, and the load on internal organs increases many times over.

Day 3. Change hormonal levels, increased production stress hormone, and as a result - a decrease in the rate of regeneration of brain cells. The emergence of “confusion”, loss of facts. The state is depressive, up to a neurotic disorder.

Day 4–5(and sometimes a third) Paranoia, auditory and visual hallucinations, speech impairment.

As shown Scientific research, at long absence Sleep reduces the body's ability to absorb glucose, which ultimately leads to the development of diabetes.

Further, if a person does not die, irreversible processes occur:

1. convulsions
2. slurred speech
3. tremor
4. memory loss

Therefore, experimenting with sleep is highly undesirable. A different picture occurs with those who do not sleep against their will. Insomnia, or insomnia translated from English, torments about 30% of the world's inhabitants. And this is every third of us.

Why can a person go without sleep for a long time?

According to experts, the body begins to cheat during prolonged wakefulness. A person cannot be without sleep for so long. Therefore, people who have not slept for several days can enter the so-called phase shallow sleep. In this case, the cerebral hemispheres are switched off for short periods time, and the person is awake at this time: he can communicate, eat, walk and perform other actions.

It has been proven that in extreme situations a person can remain without sleep longer than in normal conditions. This is due to the fact that due to constant feeling danger, adrenaline is released into the blood. All internal reserves of the body are activated and adjusted to survive. But when the danger has passed, a person needs a long sleep to recuperate.

Medicine has described cases where people did not sleep at all. The reason for this is genetic disease, called fatal familial insomnia. This pathology is observed in only 40 families worldwide. The disease, which is inherited, begins to manifest itself between the ages of 30 and 60 years, lasts from 7 months to 3 years and ends in death.

First, patients experience disturbed sleep, panic attacks, phobias, and hallucinations. Gradually, a person stops sleeping, and over time, he stops speaking and reacting to his surroundings, and he rapidly loses weight. Cause fatal outcome– irreversible brain damage caused by lack of sleep.

Interestingly, Thai Ngoc from Vietnam has been suffering from insomnia for a very long time. Having suffered from a fever as a child, he has not slept for more than 40 years. However, according to doctors, he feels great, no matter what.

Experiments

1. In the 80s of the last century, Chicago scientists conducted an experiment on rats. Its essence is that as soon as the rats fell asleep, they were instantly woken up. A month later, all the rodents died. Exact reason their deaths were not clarified. But it is believed that the stress that the rodents experienced after waking up was to blame. Also during the experiment, it was noted that despite the increased appetite, the animals lose weight and their thermoregulation is impaired.
2. A similar experiment was carried out on humans. They were given the required 8 hours of sleep, but were awakened during the initial phase of each sleep. After three days, it was noted that all participants had worsened concentration, irritability, hallucinations, and signs of psychosis.
3. The record holder for no sleep is a man from the Guinness Book of Records. Randy Gardner from San Diego did not sleep for 11 days, which almost became fatal for him. Later it was decided to exclude this achievement, since an attempt to set a new record could end in tragedy.
4. The journalist decided to find out how long he could last without sleep. He stayed awake for 4 days. At the same time, he needed the help of colleagues, who immediately woke up the experimenter when he passed out.
5. Military doctors test and use various psychostimulants so that soldiers can stay awake for several days. The drugs help fight fatigue and prevent sleep, but after taking them, severe physical and mental exhaustion is noted.

Trying to find out how long a person can go without sleep, some begin to experiment. But, firstly, everything is individual, depends on individual characteristics and body endurance. Secondly, life without sleep is reminiscent of existence in a closed jar, where sunlight and nothing more. Even reducing the amount of time devoted to sleep has a negative impact on general condition person. First of all, memory and heart suffer. Therefore, you should not experiment on yourself, even for the sake of good work.

The question of how long a person can go without sleep interests people, how can they scientific point sight and out of curiosity. It was experimentally established that every day a person needs to spend 6-8 hours in a state of sleep in order to be able to recover from energy expenditure during the day. Sleep deficiency or lack of sleep can lead to changes in cognitive and emotional sphere people, contribute to changes in physical level, which manifests itself in the occurrence of various psychomatic diseases.

However, there are individuals in the world who are able to go without sleep for a long time. This is mainly due to mental disorders And genetic mutations when change occurs biochemical processes in the brain and disruption of neuroregulation.

But there are also individuals who consciously choose to refuse sleep due to their personal motives, which are based on entertainment, self-knowledge, or stupefying the mind akin to drugs. Sleep deprivation techniques are also deliberately used to stage hallucinations, to heighten sensory capabilities and a sense of unreality. It was these initiators that served as an incentive for neurophysiologists to conduct experiments and find answers to the questions: how long a person can stand without sleep.

One of the first such daredevils who decided to demonstrate to themselves and others how long a person can go without sleep was an ordinary American schoolboy, Randy Gardner. He was able to set a scientifically and documented record of maximum stay in a state of wakefulness, without the use of any stimulants.

In 1963, Randy Gardner set the record for the longest time without sleep. Source: newscientist.com

In the fall of 1963, 17-year-old Randy decided to stay awake as long as physically possible. And he succeeded! He was able to stay awake for 11 consecutive days, for a total of 264.30 hours.

The record was recorded by the Commissioner for Dreams at Stanford University, Dr. K. Dement. Randy could have continued to set the record, however, John J. Ross - Colonel military medicine those monitoring his health were strictly forbidden to do so, due to negative consequences related to physical and psychological state young man.

With his experiment, the guy proved that when a person is deprived of sleep for a long time, there is Great chance destructive changes in the intellectual, sensory, and psychological components human brain. At the end of the experiment, Randy Gardner was depressed, had memory problems, and hallucinated. However physiological health The teenager remained fine, confidently able to beat his opponent at pinball after 11 days without sleep.

Experiments to study how long you can stay awake without harm did not stop there. They aroused genuine interest, in particular, the question arose: what consequences can arise when a person is deprived of sleep for a long time? Can lack of sleep lead to death? And where is the line that makes it clear: how long can you live without sleep in days?

A series of experiments began on people in order to understand how long a person can stay awake.

So, in 1986, researchers from the United States studied a group of volunteers consisting of 3 people who were not supposed to sleep for 90 hours. Oddly enough, despite the difficulties, they managed to overcome sleep by the third day without causing harm to their health. Based on this, the researchers concluded: a one-time deprivation of a person’s sleep for 2-3 days does not cause him any physical or moral harm.

Lack of sleep and consequences

In the course of studies conducted by neurosurgeons, psychiatrists and physiologists, a cause-and-effect relationship was established: /deviation. They gave a description of what happens in the body of a person who is somehow deprived of sleep. The main starting points for the changes taking place were: 24, 48 and 72 hours.

24 hours

If you don't sleep for a day, special consequences the body will not experience it for itself. The next day, a person may only feel some fatigue, inattention, and decreased intelligence. Cognitive impairments similar to alcohol intoxication occur.

48 hours

After this time without sleep, the body turns on compensatory function: Begins to store energy through microsleep. These are periods of 1-30 seconds. In this state, a person feels mild disorientation. Moreover, this state occurs suddenly, regardless of the circumstances. After 48 hours without sleep, focus is lost and the person is unable to retain information in short-term memory.

72 hours

This time without sleep leads to disruption mental processes: perception, memory, thinking, imagination. Hallucinations predominate, speech is distorted. Sensory abilities are lost.

Staying without sleep for longer periods of time leads to serious consequences – structural changes personality, distortion of perception, psychosis and changes in neuroregulation in nervous system– and as a result, to psychosomatic diseases.