(Note: I’m not talking about FFI, but healthy people.)
It’s said that we need sleep because waste products, such as adenosine (which is a CNS depressant) build up in our brains while we’re awake. When we sleep, the glymphatic system activates and flushes it out. Too much adenosine is known to cause a slower heart rate, the body temperature to decrease, immune system to weaken, hallucinations, and more.
I read about how a Chinese guy (in 2014 or 2012?) deliberately stayed awake for 11 nights with no sleep at all to watch the world cup, and he died. The articles said he died of sleep deprivation.
Here’s the part which confuses me. I understand why too much of a CNS depressant waste product in your brain would be deadly, since it’d supress vital functions such as breathing, heart rate etc. I’m just wondering why it wouldn’t make you automatically pass out and sleep, long before it got to that level as it’s something which very gradually builds up in your brain the longer you’re awake.
I frequently have trouble sleeping. After a few days of little to no quality sleep, I become unable to fall asleep.
The best way I’ve been able to describe it like a car battery. It helps start the car and when the car drives it keeps the battery charged. But if the battery gets too low it can’t start the car to recharge.
It’s like the part of my brain that tells my body to go into sleep mode hasn’t been charged by getting sleep. I’m so tired I can’t think and I feel absolutely awful, but the sleep doesn’t come.
I have to take a sleep aid when that happens.
This is just anecdotal, but if it works like that for the people who died, it makes sense to me.
I struggle with much of the same and have found that taking melatonin regularly (as in at the same time every day) and working out within 2ish hours before bed helps a lot…when I can remember to keep to that schedule, at least. Did you know that adhd is annoying asf to live with? Because it is.
Anyway, it might not be the fix for you, but it might also be well worth the shot. Either way, good luck getting where you want to be!
I’m open to try it! I also have ADHD and remembering to take my medication is a challenge for me too.
Is it something that you have to take everyday to be effective or can you just take it as needed? I hate taking sleep aids like ZzzQuil.
You can take it as needed, and it is the same chemical your brain naturally makes to get itself tired so it doesn’t feel anything like other sleep aids. I recommend taking it daily because, in my case at least, the pattern of it helps my body get back on its own regular schedule. I get used to getting sleepy around the same time every night, as long as I remember to keep to the process.
That car battery analogy is spot on - neurologically what happens is your brain’s sleep regulation system (mainly in the hypothalmus) can actually become dysregulated from extreme sleep deprivation, creating a paradoxical state where you’re exhausted but your brain literally can’t initiate the sleep process proprely anymore.
I think that most people would indeed “automatically pass out and sleep” long before 11 days went past, unless they used some strong drugs or stimuli designed to keep them awake. Source: I tried to see how long I could go without sleeping, no tricks just sheer force of will, when I was young and healthy. Slightly more than 90 hours.
My record when I was young and healthy was around 114 hours. Took an entire month to recover and I felt horrible. It’s highly likely I was micro sleeping during that though, as I was alternating between a MUD gaming marathon and grabbing food/using the bathroom. I seem to recall I paused for a short time to have a shower too.
Anyway, I highly recommend never staying awake for that long. At the end I was mildly hallucinatory. When I woke back up after a 16 hour nap, I had a massive hangover, despite no alcohol/caffeine/etc. before.
A big part of a hangover is horrible sleep due to the effects of alcohol!
In both cases, a big part of the discomfort is due to tissue dehydration.
So true. So many things feel off when I haven’t had enough water!
Which MUD?
Adenosine can be blocked from uptake at receptors by something as common as caffeine, for example. I think when the point is reached that adenosine can be taken up again, there is so much extra to absorb that it overwhelms the body. This is supported by reports of people sleeping for high numbers of hours hours once they do fall asleep. Given that it can also lower heart and respiration rates, it’s possible that is what leads to death. An example is that adenosine is related during certain types of seizures, and can pull someone out of a seizure, but in high amounts will depress the respiration rate to the point of death
drugs
I read about such experiments some time ago. If I remember correctly, after being forced awake for some time, some people stopped being tired and had to be forced to sleep. I also believe there are individual differences, so while some people in the discussion describe their own interesting experience, keep in mind that others might react differently.
