In this post, I would like to write about how long did we can stay awake? How many hours human can survive without sleeping?
There is an experiment in 1965 which Randy Gartner as a subject, a 17 years old high-school student who can stay awake for 267 hour (around 11 days). While other research with different subject show that human can stay awake within 8-10 days. Luckily, none of this subject were reported to have serious medical, neurological, physiological or psychiatric problems. Besides, all of them showed the deficits in concentration, motivation, perception and other higher mental processes in the duration of the "awakeness".
Based on my experience, I could last for 36 hours (1 and a half day) without sleep. I am not experimenting with myself but due to lot of factors such as studying, part time work, maybe stress make me stay awake. When in past the 24 hours after my previous sleep, I could feel drowsy, hard to focusing, I also cannot make a decision very well, not able to memorize thing and much more of the negative things that I could feel. I also don't drive when I don't get enough sleep. We all know that sleep deprivation is the major factor of the road accident.
An experiment has been conducted by Allan Rechtschaffens sleep laboratory at the University of Chicago, where they use rat as a subject. A continuously sleep deprivation can caused death for the subject. The subject were putted on rotating disc, when it almost falling asleep. The disc was rotated to keep the subject awake. The cause of death was not succesfully proven by sleep deprivation but it was associated with hypermetabolism.
A rare disease called Fatal Famillial Insomnia (FFI) which effect the thalamus. Where thalamus is a part in our brain works to control the sleep-wake cycle. Person who diagnosed with this disease may have progressive insomnia that could last for months. Death usually occurs within 12-18 month from the first symptom.
Based on the statement above, do we really "awake"? Due to prolonged of the sleep deprivation, we could altered the state of conciousness. Which resulting to loss of cognitive and motor function.
The rats case, showed that sleep deprivation can lead to death but there is no proved to state the same thing could occur to the human. Excluding the death by an accident and also for the rare disease. But we know that sleep deprivation were dangerous to our health and mental state.
The author of this article, J. Christian Gillin, stated that :
U.S. Department of Defense has offered research funding for the goal of sustaining a fully awake, fully functional "24/7" soldier, sailor, or airman
Maybe in the future humans can live longer without sleep. I do not agree with this because sleep is a gift from God. Thanks God because we still being able to sleep and wake up normally.
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Disclaimer : I am not an expert. I wrote based on my understanding and my experience. Maybe some of it is not accurately from the fact. If I make something wrong, feel free to drop a comment.
