Is it possible to die of sleep? What happens when we don't sleep?
Lack of sleep can lead to psychological issues, but can it also be fatal?
We've all heard the phrase "I'm dying of sleep" many times. With today's fast-paced lifestyle, wherein success is often linked to activity levels, we occasionally lose sight of how crucial sleep is to our physical and mental health.
A significant portion of the day is spent sleeping for humans and many other mammals; in fact, we sleep for one-third of our lives. As a result, one of the most crucial mechanisms for healthy physical and psychological functioning is sleep patterns.
In order to respond to the single question, is it possible to die from sleep? We will examine the scientific data that is currently accessible in this article. We shall achieve this by outlining the consequences of sleep deprivation as well as the biochemical underpinnings of this process.
Why do we need sleep?
The most significant circadian rhythm, the sleep-wake cycle, which lasts for a full day and enables the body to repair or restore biochemical and psychological processes that have deteriorated during awake, includes the processes that explain sleep.
The body rests during these regeneration processes to be physically and cognitively engaged while awake. Simplified, we could state that in order to be awake, we must sleep.
The prevalent belief that sleep is a quiet state associated with the "deactivation" of the mind is untrue; during sleep, the brain is actually very busy. In particular, REM sleep and non-REM sleep are the two distinct stages of neural activity that make up sleep.
REM or REM sleep
20% of total sleep duration is devoted to rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep, which happens roughly every 90 minutes. This phase is characterized by a rise in heart rate and breathing rate as well as central nervous system electrical activity that is comparable to that of the waking state.
Research suggests that REM sleep plays a role in learning and memory processes. As a result, losing sleep during the REM phase interferes with the ability to process new information acquired while awake and may even make it impossible to appropriately handle stressful situations emotionally.
Non-REM sleep
Four stages of non-REM sleep take us from a shallower to a deeper sleep state. Among other things, you can control your mood at these times.
Stage 1 is when the body goes from being awake to being asleep, and all of the muscles relax fully. Phase 2, which makes up 40% of total sleep, is the longest phase. A moderately strong external stimulus might wake a person in this phase. After this, we enter phases 3 and 4, when sleep is deeper; night terrors typically happen in these subphases.
Effects of sleep deprivation
Sleep deprivation and insomnia lead to significant changes in the body. In particular, they impair perception and attention, raise the frequency of memory errors, and aggravate people, all of which contribute to the emergence of stress and anxiety symptoms.
When sleep deprivation is severe, it becomes quite an accomplishment to carry out daily chores since altered higher brain processes interfere with cognitive performance.
Lack of sleep directly impacts the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of practical reasoning and logic, as well as working memory, which is the conscious control of information stored in memory for a brief amount of time. It has also been found that there is less activity in the temporal lobe, which is important in language processing.
Therefore, even comprehending what other people are saying and coming up with suitable answers can take time and effort. Additionally, it exacerbates the thalamus's activity, a subcortical region related to alertness and attention.
Research has shown a connection between sleep deprivation and psychosis, which is a group of mental illnesses that includes schizophrenia. In this way, it's said that sleep deprivation impairs one's ability to appropriately regulate emotional events, leading to incorrect reactions to everyday stimuli.
How many hours can the body endure without sleep?
Randy Gardner holds the record for the most hours spent without sleep in a voluntary, scientifically verified manner without the use of stimulants. In particular, he remained up for eleven days, or 264 hours.
While there are reports of people going longer periods without sleep in the literature, it has not been feasible to confirm the specific conditions or rule out the use of drugs to stay awake.
Several factors were under the researchers' control during Gardner's sleep-deprived phase. The first signs of the changes were mood swings and irritability. Over the course of the experiment, the individual had delusions and visual hallucinations, and their ability to focus completely diminished.
Documents from World War II demonstrate that the Nazis tortured people by depriving them of sleep. Based on rat experiment data, science believes that death happens three to four weeks after sleep deprivation starts.
Fatal Familial Insomnia: hereditary death from sleep
A rare genetic condition known as fatal familial insomnia (FFI) affects a small number of families. It belongs to the category of encephalopathies brought on by prions.
It manifests as a result of an autosomal dominant inheritance-transmitted mutation on chromosome 20. This mutation results in the aberrant synthesis of prions, a protein that degenerates the brain when it accumulates in excess.
Adulthood marks the onset of symptoms, which include persistent insomnia brought on by thalamic involvement, trouble speaking and moving, and psychological symptoms like depression, anxiety, and hallucinations.
The condition has a deadly path that quickly results in death, usually 6 to 48 months after symptoms first appear. The descending reticular system's cells are destroyed, impairing wakefulness processes and leaving the affected person in a state of constant alertness.
About 40 families have been identified as having fatal familial insomnia at this time. Thirteen of them are Spanish, specifically from the Basque Country and Navarra.