Miya Pearson
Sleep is crucial for our physical, mental, and emotional health. Even after just 24 hours without sleep, we start to feel its absence. Sleep deprivation can cause daytime sleepiness, anxiety, irritability, impaired coordination, and problems with cognition and thinking. The longer we go without sleep, the more severe these symptoms become. After 36 hours, hallucinations might begin, and after 48 hours, depression can set in. At 72 hours, hallucinations can intensify, and delusions may occur—symptoms similar to psychosis. Sleep deprivation can also have long-term health consequences, increasing the risk of high blood pressure, certain cancers, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Time without sleep | 24 hours |
| Effects | Reduced reaction time, impaired judgment and decision-making, diminished memory and attention, impaired vision, hearing and hand-eye coordination, tremors, muscle tension, increased stress hormones, impaired coordination, impaired cognition, increased risk of accidents, higher blood sugar levels, raised levels of stress hormones, increased fatigue, impaired vision, increased risk of reckless risk-taking, impaired driving, impaired physical performance, impaired memory, impaired mood, impaired immune system, impaired glucose tolerance, increased chance of developing Type 2 diabetes, increased chance of becoming overweight or obese, increased chance of high blood pressure, cardiac events and stroke, increased chance of depression and other mood disorders |
What You'll Learn
Increased risk of errors and accidents
Missing out on sleep for one day can have a significant impact on your alertness and cognitive function, increasing the risk of errors and accidents. Sleep deprivation impairs your ability to focus, react to changing situations, and make decisions. This heightened risk of errors and accidents is a serious concern, especially in certain occupations.
When you are sleep-deprived, your attention span decreases, and you may find it harder to concentrate on tasks, particularly those requiring sustained attention. Your reaction time also slows down, which can be dangerous if you need to respond quickly to unexpected events, especially when driving or operating heavy machinery. Studies have shown that being awake for 24 hours straight can impair performance to a level equivalent to having a blood alcohol content above the legal limit for driving, highlighting the serious impact on reaction time and coordination.
Additionally, sleep deprivation can lead to poor decision-making and impaired judgment. You may find it more challenging to assess risks accurately, consider alternative solutions, or make complex decisions. This can have far-reaching consequences, especially in leadership or management positions, where critical decisions need to be made. It is also worth noting that sleep-deprived individuals may become more impulsive, taking unnecessary risks without fully considering the potential consequences.
The risk of errors and accidents increases as the level of sleep deprivation intensifies. Even a single night of no sleep can significantly impact performance, but the effects become more pronounced with prolonged sleep loss. Chronic sleep deprivation, where an individual consistently fails to obtain adequate sleep over an extended period, can lead to a constant state of impaired cognitive function, further elevating the risk of errors and accidents in daily tasks and activities.
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Cognitive impairment
Sleep is crucial for maintaining physical, mental, and emotional health. Even after just 24 hours without sleep, you will start to feel its absence.
Sleep deprivation can cause cognitive impairment, affecting your ability to think, concentrate, and make decisions. After 24 hours without sleep, you may experience:
- Trouble concentrating
- Problems with cognition and thinking, such as short-term memory loss and brain fog
- Impaired judgment and decision-making
- Lower performance at work or school
- Increased problems with social cues
- Behavioural issues, especially in children
- Changes in visual perception, such as misinterpreting the shape of an object
- Impaired vision, hearing, and hand-eye coordination
- Tremors and muscle tension
- Increased levels of stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline
The longer you go without sleep, the worse these symptoms will become. After 36 hours without sleep, you may start to experience more intense mood changes, alterations in brain function, and physical symptoms. By 48 hours, you will likely be suffering from severe emotional, cognitive, physical, and mental health symptoms.
Long-Term Effects
Chronic sleep deprivation can have long-term effects on cognitive function, including an increased risk of cognitive impairment and dementia. It can also negatively impact children's academic performance and their ability to get along with others.
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Mood changes
Sleep deprivation can have a significant impact on your mood. After 24 hours without sleep, you may experience irritability and anxiety. As time goes on, these mood changes can become more severe, with people experiencing switches between feelings of apathy and euphoria after 48 hours.
After 36 hours without sleep, you may notice even greater mood changes, along with alterations in brain function and physical symptoms. Your body will be under a lot of stress, with hormone imbalances and a slowed metabolism. You may experience fluctuations in your mood, attention, body temperature, and appetite.
If you go without sleep for 72 hours or more, your ability to regulate your emotions will be severely compromised. You may feel irritable, anxious, and depressed, and you may struggle with executive functioning and thinking. You might also start to hallucinate and have illusions, which can further impact your mood.
Chronic sleep deprivation can also lead to long-term mood disorders such as depression and anxiety.
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Hallucinations
Sleep deprivation can lead to hallucinations, which are perceptions of something that isn't actually present in the environment. Hallucinations differ from illusions, which are misinterpretations of something that is present. For example, seeing a cat that isn't there is a hallucination, while mistaking a coat rack for a person is an illusion.
About 80% of people will hallucinate if they've been severely sleep-deprived, which means getting only a few hours of sleep or none at all over the course of one or more nights. Most of these incidents involve visual hallucinations.
The exact brain mechanism behind hallucinations is not fully understood. One possible explanation is that certain parts of the brain responsible for visual functioning get disrupted. Another possibility is that changes in dopamine levels in the brain play a role: "Excessive dopaminergic transmission in certain brain areas seem to be the best understood mechanism for hallucinations," according to Brandon Peters, MD, a double board-certified neurologist and sleep medicine physician.
> Six years ago, as I was sitting in my Native American literature class in college, I found myself doing that thing where your head sort of wobbles around on your neck as you try to stay awake. Every few seconds my head would fall forward and then snap back up. My eyelids felt weighted and would barely stay open...The only thing keeping me awake during this class was an intense itchy sensation all over my legs. It was as if I was on Fear Factor, trapped in a glass case full of spiders and centipedes and all sorts of creepy-crawlies...Out in the hallway, the itchiness quickly dissipated, much to my relief. I went back inside, took my seat, and assumed everything was fine. I tried to concentrate on what my professor was saying, but when I looked at her, something strange happened. Her short pixie cut began to grow. Her brown hair lengthened out to her shoulders, then her chest, then down towards her waist, all in a matter of seconds. My eyelids no longer felt heavy as I stared at her, wide-eyed with shock...This is impossible, I told myself. But it looked so real. I had just witnessed something magical. I looked left and right to my classmates, but they were all staring straight ahead, completely unfazed. I looked back at my professor. Her hair was short again...Something was wrong with me and I had no idea what to do.
In this case, the individual had been sleeping only a few hours a night for several weeks. This is an example of how sleep deprivation can accumulate over time and eventually lead to hallucinations.
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Health complications
Sleep deprivation can have a range of negative effects on your health, and these effects worsen the longer you go without sleep. After 24 hours without sleep, you will likely experience reduced reaction time, impaired judgment and decision-making, diminished memory and attention, impaired vision, hearing, and hand-eye coordination, tremors and muscle tension. Your body will also produce more stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, to compensate for the fatigue you're experiencing.
After 36 hours without sleep, the physical impact on your health becomes more severe, with higher levels of inflammatory markers in the blood. You will experience hormone imbalances and a slowed metabolism, along with fluctuations in mood, attention, body temperature, and appetite.
By 48 hours without sleep, you will likely experience microsleep, a protective reflex where your brain forces you to fall asleep for a brief moment. This can last up to 30 seconds, and you may not even be aware that it happened. Microsleep can be extremely dangerous, especially if you are driving or in a vulnerable position, as it can lead to accidental injury to yourself or others.
At 72 hours without sleep, your ability to regulate your emotions and accurately perceive the world around you will be severely compromised. You are likely to experience irritability, anxiety, depression, and impaired executive functioning and thinking. Hallucinations and illusions may also occur, further impairing your perception of reality.
Chronic sleep deprivation, or regularly getting less than the recommended amount of sleep, can have long-term health complications. It can increase your risk of cognitive impairment, dementia, poor balance and coordination, weakened immune system, impaired glucose tolerance, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, cardiac events, stroke, and depression.
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Frequently asked questions
After 24 hours without sleep, you will likely experience symptoms such as trouble concentrating, memory issues, reduced coordination, and impaired judgment and decision-making. Your body will also produce more stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, to compensate for the fatigue.
After 36 hours without sleep, the physical impact on your health increases. You may experience higher levels of inflammatory markers in the blood, hormone imbalances, and a slowed metabolism. Mood fluctuations, attention issues, changes in body temperature, and increased appetite can also occur.
At 48 hours without sleep, you will likely experience microsleep, which is when your brain briefly forces you to fall asleep for up to 30 seconds. This can be dangerous if it occurs while driving or in other vulnerable situations. The side effects of sleep deprivation will also continue to intensify.
After 72 hours without sleep, your ability to regulate emotions and accurately perceive the world is severely compromised. You may experience irritability, anxiety, depression, and hallucinations. Illusions, where you struggle to interpret something that is there, may also occur.
Chronic sleep deprivation can have serious long-term health complications. It can increase your risk of high blood pressure, certain cancers, cognitive impairment, dementia, weakened immune system, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, and mood disorders.
