How Long Can You Go Without Sleep?
Sleepless nights are a reality for many of us: parents of newborns, students preparing for exams, and those suffering from insomnia. We all know we need sleep, but is it really possible to go without it for a while? It seems so, but it’s not very pleasant.
The world record is 19 days.
The most famous record holder for the longest period of sleep deprivation—though he doesn’t hold the current record—is Randy Gardner, who is considered by many to have endured the most documented period of extreme sleep deprivation: 264 hours, or about 11 days.
According to NPR , in 1963, Gardner was working on a science fair project with two other students when they decided to break a record of 260 sleepless hours they’d heard about on a radio host. Gardner lost the coin toss and remained awake while the others observed him and tested his cognitive abilities. He was 17 years old at the time.
His experiment attracted media attention, and soon Stanford sleep researcher William Dement and Navy physician John Ross began examining him. After 264 hours, Gardner underwent a brain scan (which showed he was healthy), and then slept for 14 hours.
Since then, his record has been broken several times, most recently in 1986, when stuntman Robert MacDonald went nearly 19 days without sleep. This is the last documented world record. However, don’t try to break it: in 1997, the Guinness Book of World Records decided to stop monitoring insomnia records. They understand that publishing a record means people will continue to try to break it, and the consequences of extreme sleep deprivation are considered dangerous enough that they didn’t want to encourage it.
However, if you’d like to learn more about the record holders and their experiences, the Guinness Book of World Records offers detailed information on its website . It’s worth noting that Peter Tripp, a DJ who competed for the record in the 1950s, experienced intense hallucinations, which may have been caused by the Ritalin he took to stay awake, rather than a direct result of insomnia. (Although, of course, hallucinations of one form or another can also occur simply due to sleep deprivation.)
What happens when you experience severe sleep deprivation?
Record-breakers listed on the Guinness Book of World Records website frequently complained of nausea and irritability. By the fourth day, one of the scientists observing Gardner recalled that he was experiencing “hallucinations, delusions, and an extremely short attention span.”
The 1974 record holder, Roger Guy English, who consumed no stimulants other than caffeine, reported hallucinations that continued even after the experiment ended. Another record holder, Maureen Weston, experienced hallucinations during sleep deprivation but said she regained full consciousness once she got some sleep.
The StatPearls sleep deprivation guide reports that chronic sleep deprivation (which can include getting some sleep, but not enough, over a long period of time) can lead to “increased mortality and morbidity, impaired waking performance leading to an increased incidence of accidents and injuries, decreased self-reported quality of life, decreased family well-being, and reduced utilization of health services.” They add: “Clearly, sleep deprivation has profound effects on human health and well-being.”
How long can the average person go without sleep?
For practical advice, let’s turn to the military. The military needs its personnel to function properly, but it often assigns them tasks that make sleep difficult or impossible, so the military has developed appropriate regulations. The Pentagon’s sleep deprivation report defines “total sleep deprivation” as 24 hours of wakefulness or missing your normal sleep period, whenever it occurs. In other words, if you normally wake up at 7 a.m. but spent the night playing video games (or being under fire from enemy forces), you would be considered totally sleep deprived by 7 a.m.
They also define “partial sleep deprivation” as a period of time during which you sleep less than seven hours each night, either because your sleep has been shortened or interrupted. One week of this period is considered “chronic partial sleep deprivation.”
According to the same report, every 24 hours of complete sleep deprivation leads to a 25-35% decline in cognitive function. It’s not that you reach your limit after a certain number of hours and become unable to function, but rather that the longer you suffer from sleep deprivation, your brain begins to function less efficiently.
The report also found that sleep deprivation can increase the risk of traumatic brain injury, increase feelings of emotional exhaustion and “role overload” (burnout), increase and worsen symptoms of anxiety, worsen symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and increase symptoms of depression, suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts.
The main conclusion, according to the military, is that service members should be assigned duties that allow them to sleep eight hours out of every 24 hours, if possible. If this is not possible, they should plan to “accumulate” sleep before a sleepless period and allocate time for “restorative” sleep afterward (as Gardner did, sleeping for 14 hours after his experiment).
What if you can’t sleep?
A clinical case of insomnia is not the same as a student or a soldier who hasn’t slept all night. Insomnia can have many causes, and it’s worth getting tested to determine what’s happening in your body and brain that’s preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep. The recommendations you receive will depend on the specific issue that’s bothering you.
It’s worth noting that just because you feel like you’re not sleeping doesn’t mean you actually had a sleepless night . Every time I interview a sleep expert, they tell stories of patients who swore they didn’t sleep at all, only to have a sleep study show they actually slept a little without realizing they’d dozed off.
Even the Guinness Book of World Records acknowledges this: one of the reasons they stopped recording cases of insomnia, aside from the health risks, is that people who appear awake can still experience “microsleep.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), discussing the impact of long shifts on nurses, writes that “a person suffering from sleep deprivation cannot control the onset of microsleep and is often unaware that it is occurring.”
Sleep experts recommend relaxing instead of keeping track of the time and worrying about sleep deprivation. Relaxation is almost as beneficial as sleep and often leads to sleep. If you continue to notice problems with daytime sleepiness or have other sleep concerns, consult a doctor.