Sleep deprivation can be caused by physical illness, psychiatric issues, or stress. It can lead to physical and mental side effects such as slowed reflexes, memory loss, and moodiness. People who are sleep deprived may struggle to stay awake and perform high-alertness tasks. The longest documented period of sleep deprivation is just over eleven days.
Sleep deprivation is a generic term for when the body does not get enough sleep. It can be caused by a variety of causes, from physical illness, to psychiatric derangement, to torture, and can have a wide range of consequences. In its most benign form, this condition is something most of us deal with on a regular basis, while in its most drastic form it can be a life-threatening situation.
A loss of sleep is common simply because of circumstances among people who live busy and stressful lives. Students, in particular, often find themselves experiencing this to some degree as they struggle to keep up with heavy workloads and busy social lives. Young children are also likely to get too little sleep, as they generally require more sleep than adults and often don’t get it.
Many people are unable to sleep due to anxiety or stress, and any sleep they get is intermittent and frequently interrupted, leading to deprivation. Others may experience physical pain or problems such as a severe cough that can keep them from falling asleep. In some cases, people may actively pursue insomnia for some of its psychological side effects, which can include hallucinations and waves of mania. Some religious mystics, most famously the Desert Fathers of the early Christian church, are known to have induced sleep deprivation as a way to experience spiritual awakening.
Not getting enough sleep can have many negative side effects, both physical and mental. Most immediately apparent is a slowing down of mental awareness and responsiveness, a general dulling of thought processes. Physical responses are also dulled and slowed down, and reflexes may be delayed or dulled. Memory loss and brief memory lapses can occur during sleep deprivation, as well as periods of delirium and dizziness. Headaches, fainting, and nausea are physical effects that can be triggered by this condition, while a general moodiness and sometimes even psychotic behavior are psychological effects that can occur.
People who are experiencing sleep deprivation may also find it very difficult to stay awake, finding themselves constantly sleepy and dozing off. It can be difficult to keep your eyes open when you’re tired, which, coupled with slowed reflexes, makes driving or other high-alertness tasks quite dangerous. The body also functions more poorly on its own without getting enough sleep, and wounds can take longer to heal, and the body is more prone to disease due to a weakened immune system.
How long people can go without sleep is a bit of an open question. There are people all over the world who claim to have been without it for many years, or even decades. Some of these people even claim that they experience none of the usual side effects. It is possible that some of these people are actually sleeping in very short periods, called microsleeps, which they don’t remember, but which give their body a rest. In the West, the longest officially documented period of sleep deprivation is just over eleven days, recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1965. Because of the health risks associated with such extremes; however, the Guinness Book of World Records no longer recognizes the category, and no one has since been documented to have stayed awake more than eleven consecutive days.
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