A Day Without Sleep: My 24-Hour Odyssey

Sleep deprivation can have serious consequences on both your physical and mental health. After 24 hours without sleep, you are likely to experience impaired coordination, memory, and judgment, as well as heightened stress hormones and increased irritability. Going without sleep for longer periods can lead to more severe issues, such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and a weakened immune system. In extreme cases, chronic sleep deprivation can even lead to death. While it may be tempting to reach for caffeine or sugar to stay awake, it is important to prioritize sleep and make lifestyle changes to improve your sleep hygiene.

Poor balance and coordination

The effects of sleep deprivation on balance and coordination can be explained by the role of sleep in the restoration of the body and brain. Sleep allows the body to conserve and store energy, repair and recover from daily activity and injuries, and rest, reorganise and re-catalog the brain. When you are sleep-deprived, your brain is unable to properly catalog its memories, and your body is unable to clear the toxins that accumulate during waking hours.

The impact of sleep deprivation on balance and coordination can be observed in as little as 17 hours without sleep, with irritability, impaired judgment, memory, and hand-eye coordination skills, and increased sensitivity to pain. After 24 hours without sleep, your brain may even enter a state of "local sleep", where parts of your brain shut down and sleep in waves while others remain active.

Chronic sleep deprivation, or regularly getting less than 7-9 hours of sleep per night, can lead to long-term issues with balance and coordination. This is because sleep deprivation affects your overall functionality, including your decision-making skills and coordination.

Mood changes and mental health issues

Sleep is closely connected to mental and emotional health and has demonstrated links to depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and other conditions.

Impact on Mood

A bad night's sleep can make you grumpy and irritable, and you may find it difficult to concentrate and lack energy. Studies show that people who are sleep-deprived report increases in negative moods (anger, frustration, irritability, and sadness) and decreases in positive moods. Sleep loss can affect your mood, and your mood can also affect how much and how well you sleep. Anxiety and stress increase agitation and keep your body aroused, awake, and alert. You might find that you can't turn your brain off, and your heart beats faster and your breathing is quick and shallow.

Sleep Deprivation and Mental Health

The link between sleep and mental health is complex. While lack of sleep has long been known to be a consequence of many psychiatric conditions, more recent views suggest that lack of sleep can also play a causal role in both the development and maintenance of different mental health problems. Sleep problems can lead to changes in mental health, but mental health conditions can also worsen problems with sleep. Lack of sleep may trigger the onset of certain psychological conditions, although researchers are not completely certain of the underlying reasons for this.

Sleep Deprivation and Specific Mental Health Conditions

• Depression: Sleep issues are commonly associated with depression, including insomnia, hypersomnia, and obstructive sleep apnea. Sleep issues may influence the function of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which can contribute to the development of depression. Sleep disruptions can affect the body's stress system, disrupting circadian rhythms and increasing vulnerability to depression.
• Anxiety: Sleep problems have a strong association with anxiety disorders. Worry and fear contribute to a state of hyperarousal, which is considered to be a central contributor to insomnia. Sleep problems may become an added source of worry, creating anticipatory anxiety at bedtime that makes it harder to fall asleep. Research indicates that poor sleep can activate anxiety in people who are high-risk for it, and chronic insomnia may be a predisposing trait among people who go on to develop anxiety disorders.
• Bipolar Disorder: Sleep patterns change considerably depending on a person's emotional state. During manic periods, they usually feel less need to sleep, but during depressed periods, they may sleep excessively. There is evidence that sleeping problems induce or worsen manic and depressive periods.
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Sleep deprivation is a common symptom of PTSD, affecting between 80% and 90% of people with the condition. It is also believed to play a role in both the development and maintenance of this disorder. People with PTSD frequently replay negative events in their minds, suffer from nightmares, and experience a state of being on alert, all of which can interfere with sleep.
• Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Sleeping problems are common in people with ADHD. They may have difficulty falling asleep, frequent awakenings, and excessive daytime sleepiness. There is evidence of a bidirectional relationship between sleep and ADHD. In addition to being a consequence of ADHD, sleep problems may aggravate symptoms like reduced attention span or behavior problems.
• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): Children and adolescents with ASD have a higher prevalence of sleep problems, including insomnia and sleep-disordered breathing. Addressing insomnia and other sleep disturbances is an important component of care as it may decrease excessive daytime sleepiness and other health and behavior problems in people with ASD.
• Schizophrenia: People with schizophrenia are more likely to experience insomnia and circadian rhythm disorders. Poor sleep and symptoms of schizophrenia may be mutually reinforcing, so there are potential benefits to stabilizing and normalizing sleep patterns.

Forgetfulness and neurological concerns

Missing out on a day's sleep can have a significant impact on your memory and neurological health. Sleep is essential for brain health, and when we don't get enough, it can affect our ability to remember and react.

Memory and Learning

Deep stages of sleep, including rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) or slow-wave sleep (SWS), are responsible for learning and memory. During sleep, our brains produce vital brain waves that play a role in storing memories. These brain waves transfer memories from the hippocampus, a part of the brain that helps with memory, to the prefrontal cortex, where long-term memories are stored.

When we are sleep-deprived, our brains struggle to create and retain new memories. Studies have shown that students who pull all-nighters do not perform better on tests the next day because their brains were unable to properly ingrain the information due to lack of sleep.

Neurological Disturbances

Sleep is also necessary for brain health as it allows our brains to clear toxins that accumulate during waking hours. A good night's sleep may help prevent neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease. Research indicates that this process takes seven to eight hours, and sometimes longer.

Other Health Effects

In addition to the neurological concerns, lack of sleep can also lead to:

• Mood changes and mental health issues: Sleep deprivation can contribute to or be a symptom of mood disorders like depression and anxiety.
• Weight gain: Sleep deprivation can disrupt key hormone levels, making it harder to lose weight and contributing to weight gain.
• Higher stress levels: Sleep deprivation may raise cortisol levels, which can have various negative impacts on the body.
• Increased risk of accidents: Sleep deprivation can lead to poor balance and coordination, putting you at risk for accidents, falls, and injuries.
• Weakened immune system: When you don't get enough sleep, your body starts making more white blood cells, creating an imbalance that weakens your immune system over time.
• Changes in appearance: Sleep deprivation can cause dark under-eye circles and increase cortisol levels, which can break down collagen and lead to wrinkles.

Changes in your appearance

Sleep deprivation can occur after 24 hours without sleep. After one day without sleep, you will likely experience some changes in your appearance, including:

• Dark under-eye circles
• Puffy eyes
• Redness in the sclera (the white part of the eye) and across the face and neck
• Fine lines around the eyes
• Pale skin
• A tired, dull complexion

After 72 hours without sleep, these symptoms will be more pronounced, and you may also experience extreme fatigue, increased inflammation, and a compromised immune system.

Prolonged sleep deprivation can lead to premature aging, as the body releases growth hormones during sleep that keep our skin at its full thickness and promote muscle tone. In addition, lack of sleep can cause weight gain and obesity, as it disrupts the body's hormone levels, including ghrelin, leptin, and cortisol.

Weakened immune system

Sleep is an active physiological process that plays a fundamental role in physical, mental, and emotional health. The immune system is critical to overall health and is fundamental to healing wounds, warding off infections, and protecting against chronic and life-threatening illnesses. Sleep and the immune system have a bidirectional relationship. While infections can trigger sleepiness, sleep provides essential support to the immune system.

Sleep loss or deprivation can throw off the immune system and make an individual more susceptible to infections and inflammatory pathologies. Sleep deprivation has been associated with alterations of innate and adaptive immune parameters, leading to a chronic inflammatory state and an increased risk for infectious/inflammatory pathologies, including cardiometabolic, neoplastic, autoimmune, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Sleep deprivation may result in deregulated immune responses with increased pro-inflammatory signaling, thus contributing to an increased risk for the onset and/or worsening of infection. Sleep loss not only plays a role in whether we come down with a cold or flu but also influences how we fight illnesses once we come down with them. For example, our bodies fight infection with fevers. A good night's sleep can help us get a better fever response.

Sleep also plays a role in our ability to fight off serious health conditions. Research suggests that sleep-deprived people are at higher risk of dying from heart disease. Sleep loss also plays a role in our ability to fight off serious health conditions. Sleep-deprived people are at a higher risk of dying from all causes. Studies show that people who get about seven hours of sleep a night have the best survival rates.

The bottom line is that there is no substitute for getting consistent, good-quality sleep, especially if we want to reap the immune system benefits that sleep can offer.

Frequently asked questions