Being awake at night sucks. I can’t begin to list the times that I just can’t fucking shut it down, and then it’s the morning and I’ve got to get on with my day. If you’ve experienced bouts of insomnia, then you know what it’s all about. It’s a waking nightmare and can be pretty dangerous. But did you know that it could lead to some pretty messed up (and possibly fatal) consequences? We’ve already covered some of the side effects of insomnia, but didn’t really touch on how serious it could be. It’s fucking serious.
Not sleeping takes a huge toll on your body, both physically and mentally and can possibly be the worst thing that’ll ever happen to you. Good luck getting to sleep tonight.
Death by sleep deprivation is incredibly rare, but it does happen
There’s only been a few documented (key word, documented) cases from around the world, of people dying from lack of sleep. But it does happen.
The most recent case was back in 2014, where a man in China stayed awake to watch the entire FIFA World Cup in one marathon session. That’s 11 days of no sleep. After he was rushed to the ER, it was determined that the lack of shut-eye did him in, as his body was too exhausted to function.
There’s a medical condition that can cause insomnia to the point of death
For most people, there’s no physical way to keep themselves awake long enough to die this way. There are failsafes built into the body that will ensure that you get the rest and recuperation your body needs. Simply put, there is no way our body will let you stay awake long enough to die from sleep deprivation. Unless you have a genetic condition that makes it impossible to stay asleep.
Called Fatal Familial Insomnia, it’s a genetic disorder that causes you to have issues with sleeping for months at a time, and eventually, your body wears out. There was actually a case of a man who died 6 months after he was diagnosed with the disease. He slept so intermittently during that period, that his body and brain literally deteriorated.
It only takes 24 hours to start seeing symptoms
If you’re wondering how long it’ll take before you start to see symptoms of sleep deprivation, it’s actually not that long. In fact, it’s pretty much right away.
Since your body needs sleep every night, after one missed night, you’ll start to see some hormonal changes which can lead to high blood pressure, strange carb cravings and a weakened immune system.
Your blood pressure is going to rise
As you start to feel the effects of the lack of sleep, the high blood pressure will play havoc on your system. In most cases, there’ll be some dizziness and headaches, which can also lead to migraines and nausea.
The pressure can also lead to your face getting flushed and your vision gets cloudy or starts to pulse in and out. That, in turn, can also lead to more headaches and lightheadedness, which can lead to accidents.
Sleep deprivation has negative effects on your ability to show joy
It’s obvious that there are emotional consequences to sleep deprivation, but there are also physical ones too. In fact all positive emotions are the first to go, when you don’t have enough sleep. Not only do you feel sad and depressed, but you’ll also have a challenge expressing a positive emotion if you feel it.
Doctors have found that people who aren’t sleeping, start to lose the ability to show joy – as in, they literally cannot smile. All you give is a neutral expression or a grimace, instead of a full-on smile.
As well, you might not be able to recognize a smile from another person either. This is part of why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture.
Mood swings and rage are going to be your companions
Once you lose ability to feel joy, it leads to other emotional problems and mood swings. In fact, it’s the same neurotransmitters that control your mood and your ability to sleep.
Because of these chemical changes, you start exhibit symptoms that mimic bi-polar disorder and you have manic episodes. You’ll go from feeling neutral, to being incredibly depressed and suicidal, to raging at everything, and taking out that anger with violence.
Your body will start to force you to sleep at any random time
Just because you can’t sleep at night, or you’re choosing to stay awake, there will be times that your body’s gonna try to do a hard reboot and force you to sleep. Called “microsleeps,” these mini-naps can last up to 30 seconds, before you snap back awake.
In some cases, your eyes will remain open, but you won’t be processing info and your brain will be asleep. Even if you force yourself awake, you might just fall back into another microsleep moments later.
You can imagine the danger of this if you’re behind the wheel, on the job, or just simply walking down the street.
You’ll start to experience delirium
If you don’t sleep for just one night, you know that you start to feel a little ‘off’ the next day, right? Imagine a few days. Things start to get a little trippy. It’s called delirium and you become disoriented by the world around you, and get restless, react strongly to stimuli and your speech starts to slur.
This is when your brain starts to go haywire from the lack of sleep. Night and day are confused and the most normal things are twisted into a psychotropic nightmare.
You start to see things that aren’t really there
An episode of sleep deprivation can lead to some hardcore hallucinations. You might see things that aren’t there, or hear noises that don’t exist. This is pretty much the last thing you need when you’re already stressed and confused by the sleep loss. Then you start to get paranoid, see flickers of light in your periphery and just fucking lose your mind.
Irrationality isn’t a good look for anyone.
You start to have a strange relationship with pain
There’s a huge connection between your amount of sleep and the amount of pain you feel. For some, no sleep leads to a decreased pain threshold. That means that you’re more sensitive to pain. Even the littlest thing can become excruciating and intolerable.
On the other hand, some people start to feel less sensitivity to pain, which means they could injure themselves and not even know it. There was once a case of a man who cut his foot and didn’t feel it/know it due to a severe case of sleep deprivation. It led to infection, gangrene, amputation and ultimately a painful death from toxic blood.
Even the most basic tasks become impossible to do
Once your vision starts to go weird, you’ve got migraines, your emotions are haywire and you’re delirious, it’s becomes obvious that your body isn’t listening to you. Whatever you tell it to do, it won’t react. Your response time is fucked up and your hand-eye coordination is impacted. This means eating, writing or doing anything with your hands, really.
This is comparable to being dangerously intoxicated, and when you reach this point, you’re already far gone and the damage is already done.
Your immune system stops working
After several days of no sleep, your immune response starts to be suppressed, which doesn’t just mean you might catch a cold. It’s far worse. Things that happen to your body or in your body that normally don’t pose a threat, now are incredibly dangerous.
For example, with enough lost sleep, your lack of an immune system will let the normal bacteria in your intestines spread through your body and poison you. That’s on top of the regular bumps, bruises and paper cuts that you normally get in your daily life. Those will now kill you.
Your body temperature plummets
Scientists are not sure at what kills more sleep deprived people; accidents, infection or hypothermia. When you go without sleep for days or weeks, your body can’t regulate its temperature and it starts to rapidly drop. It can get to the point that you’re not keeping warm enough to survive and you get hypothermia. Which means your organs start to shut down.
And that’s pretty much ‘roll credits’ right there.
It might only take 11 days straight to die
There’s no official scientific answer to how long someone can go without sleep, but scientists know that you can last up to eleven days before things get critical. That Chinese soccer fan that I mentioned earlier lasted 11 days before passing.
On the other hand, there was a high school student in the 60’s, who tried to stay awake as long as he could for a science project. He too, lasted 11 days before succumbing to sleep. But he didn’t die, nor have any long term health problems.
But given that the number of deaths due to sleep deprivation are still pretty high, I’d suggest getting as much sleep as you can get. Because one way or another, insomnia is going to take it’s pound of flesh, given the chance.
H/T Ranker
