What Happens If You Don’t Sleep For a Month

The longest anyone has gone without sleep is 11 days and 25 minutes. The record was set in 1963 by a then-17-year-old Randy Gardner as a part of a science project. The record, however, would not be broken since the Guinness Book of World Records deems this feat extremely dangerous. Thus, considering the outcomes of not sleeping for a month becomes very vague. A better approach would be to consider how the lack of sleep causes trouble on a daily basis.

Sleep plays a vital role in rejuvenating, repairing, and restoring our bodies. It is crucial for mental, cognitive, and physical well-being. According to Dr. Drerup, a behavioral sleep medicine expert, restorative processes occur during sleep, which we need to stay healthy. The question arises, what happens when we deprive ourselves of sleep for a night or two, or even more? Let’s go night by night and check out the effects of sleep deprivation. One thing to note here is that the symptoms will vary from person to person; for some, the symptoms of sleep deprivation will commence before others.

What happens if you don't sleep for 24 hours?

Before realizing what happens during a month filled with sleeplessness, we need to begin at day one. Missing a day or 24 hours of sleep won’t majorly affect your health. At most, you might start feeling exhausted or fatigued, and mentally off. However, sleeplessness can make you prone to errors and accidents due to reduced alertness, attention span, and executive function. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), being awake for more than 24 hours is like being drunk. Legally, the blood alcohol concentration permissible for driving is 0.08%, while the effects of sleeplessness are similar to having 0.10% blood alcohol concentration.

Symptoms in brief:

drowsiness
irritability
impaired judgement
impaired decision-making
altered perception
memory deficits
vision and hearing impairments
decreased hand-eye coordination
increased muscle tension
tremors

What happens if you don't sleep for 36 hours?

Missing 36 hours of sleep will overwhelm you with an urge to sleep, a symptom known as sleep pressure. You might start to experience bouts of sleep for a few seconds, which are known as microsleeps, and chances are that you won’t realize these are happening. Other than that, extreme fatigue and increased appetite will start to affect your body adversely.

Hormones such as cortisol, insulin, and human growth hormone are regulated by the sleep-wake cycle of the human body. Sleep deprivation for prolonged periods can start causing hormonal imbalances, affecting appetite, mood, stress level, temperature, and metabolism.

Symptoms in brief:

extreme fatigue
hormonal imbalances
decreased motivation
risky decisions
decreased attention
rigid reasoning
speech issues

What happens if you don't sleep for 48 hours?

You have reached a threshold; missing 48 hours of sleep means extreme sleep deprivation. It is even harder to stay awake, and microsleeps become more frequent. Staying awake for over 48 hours starts disrupting the immune system. Inflammatory markers that prevent illnesses circulate at higher levels. Research has shown that the level of natural killer (NK) cells, a type of white blood cell that responds to immediate health hazards such as viruses and bacteria, decreases with sleep deprivation.

Symptoms in brief:

depersonalization
anxiety
perceptual distortions
increased irritability
spatio-temporal disorientation

What happens if you don't sleep for 72 hours or more?

You’ll have an extremely overwhelming urge to sleep by now. Many fail to stay awake on their own. By now, the ability to think properly has diminished. Particularly, executive functions such as multitasking, remembering details, and paying attention become difficult. Completing basic tasks requires more effort than usual.

People with sleep deprivation also get more irritated than usual, might experience anxiety, mood disorders, and paranoia. Sleep deprivation also gets in the way of recognizing emotions. In a study, participants who lacked 30 hours of sleep failed to distinguish angry and happy facial expressions.

Symptoms in brief:

complex hallucinations
illusions
delusions
disordered thinking

Chronic sleep deprivation

When you don’t get enough sleep at night, it is known as chronic sleep deprivation. Instead of pulling an all-nighter or two, you get some sleep during chronic sleep deprivation. According to a report by the CDC, 35% of American adults do not get adequate sleep at night.

Not getting enough sleep over a short period, such as a week, may cause:

anxiety
drowsiness
unstable mood
forgetfulness
difficulty staying alert
difficulty concentrating
cognitive problems
decreased performance at work or school
increased risk of illness or injury

Longer periods of less sleep induce the following effects:

high blood pressure
heart disease
stroke
obesity
Type 2 diabetes
mental illness

Conclusion:

It isn’t clear what the effects would be if someone didn’t sleep for a month, since nobody has gone that far. However, lack of sleep over 36 hours is enough to induce effects like hallucinations, impaired thinking, and speech problems.

An all-nighter won’t hurt much if taken once or twice every couple of months, but sleeplessness across a span of days, intentionally or not, requires medical attention. Sometimes, one might fall asleep without even having a memory of sleep, an issue known as paradoxical insomnia.