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    How Long Can You Go Without Sleep?

    By Lylah M. Alphonse, Senior Editor, Yahoo! Shine | Healthy Living – Wed, Feb 22, 2012 8:16 PM EST

    How much sleep do you really need?How much sleep do you really need?Parents might feel like they forgo sleep as soon as they bring their baby home, but the longest any person has gone without sleep(on purpose) has been 11 straight days.

    There were a few side effects.

    Randy Gardner was a 17-year-old high school student in California when he decided to avoid sleeping for 264 hours in a row. It was 1964, and, according to researchers, he ended up suffering from memory problems, paranoia, and hallucinations because of it. Other studies have linked sleep deprivation in mice to the development of characteristics associated with Alzheimer's disease, and some have shown that chronic sleep loss may cause obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, depression, and diabetes among human and animal test subjects alike.

    Sleeping helps our brains develop and make neurological connections, bolsters our immune systems, consolidates memories, process information and helps our bodies heal. According to a 2011 National Sleep Foundation poll, 43 percent of American say that they rarely or never get a good night's sleep on weeknights; 15 percent of adults and 7 percent of kids age 13 to 18 reported that they get less than six hours of sleep per weeknight.

    So, how much sleep do you really need? Researchers say that there is no "magic number," but in general women sleep longer than men, and babies sleep longer than the elderly. Our bodies actually force us to sleep in tiny increments (called microsleeps) when we've gone too long without rest.

    Do you think you get enough sleep?

    Copyright © 2012 Yahoo Inc.




    Also on Shine:

    New baby, no sleep: Dealing with sleep deprivation
    Night owl? Your sleep schedule may put you at risk
    Do you really need 8 hours of sleep?

     
    • JayEdwards
      JayEdwards  •  2 months ago
      ive allways thought about trying it maybe not so much now....
    • rhymrr
      rhymrr  •  2 months ago
      yesterday I woke up exhausted from sleeping 0 - o
      • Ernest T Bass
        Ernest T Bass 2 months ago
        You must be on welfare...
      • darlene
        darlene 2 months ago
        yup, thats very possible to do..like with me, i sleep soo hard when i can finally get good rest that i'v slept so hard i've have to wake up to rest.
      • rhymrr
        rhymrr 2 months ago
        @ goodolboy nope, never been on welfare .. I was making a wisecrack about the article .. if I had a caulk this is where I would tell you to suck it :)
    • Grace
      Grace  •  Pewee Valley, Kentucky  •  2 months ago
      Longest I have gone without sleep is probably about 3 days, I wasn't exactly the most sociable person. Of course I never do have any free time any way.
    • Molly
      Molly  •  Denver, Colorado  •  3 months ago
      I never feel like I get enough sleep.. ever. And I'm always exhausted when I'm awake. Insomnia blows.
      • Dream
        Dream 3 months ago
        I once a very bad sleeper for a long decade i always felt exhausted. Now im back to normal that my thyroid is cured, my hyperacidity and my nerve problems. Its very hard to cure insomnia if u dont know the main cause or causes.
      • Molly
        Molly 3 months ago
        Exactly. Hoping to visit a sleeping specialist soon
      • skidmohda
        skidmohda 3 months ago
        Insomnia does indeed blow, as you say. If you are seeing a sleep specialist arm yourself with as much information as you can prior to your visit. Have a set of questions to ask the doctor because like the above reply said, it is often difficult to cure if you don't know the causes. Most sleep experts say insomnia is usually due to mental stress of one type or another. There are safe pharmacological aides that are non-addictive that can help too. The older meds seem to have less side effects and are a lot cheaper. Elavil and Trazadone really helped me. I hope you have success in finding a solution to this aggravating problem.
    • Philip
      Philip  •  Royal Oak, Michigan  •  2 months ago
      Crackheads can stay up many days without sleep, 10 day binges are normal for some of them, some of them have probably beat that record. They look like the walking dead!
      • grrrrr
        grrrrr 2 months ago
        That's because they are
      • Lain Forseti
        Lain Forseti 2 months ago
        I had a friend who did coke every day for like 20 years or something ridiculous and she said she would often stay awake for 4-5 days at a time and then her whole body would hurt tremendously from the lack of rest.
    • rachel
      rachel  •  Mt Hamilton, California  •  3 months ago
      did you know that the skin on your elbow is called your "wenus"...and did you know that you can squeeze it as hard as you want and it won't hurt. Yes, let the wenus squeezing commence!

      p.s. i know you're trying it right now.
      • ncf
        ncf 2 months ago
        lol so random
      • Old Geezer
        Old Geezer 2 months ago
        I got Wenus confused with Penus and it hurt like hell!
    • Dot
      Dot  •  Columbia, South Carolina  •  2 months ago
      I didn't sleep much in jail...
      • sisi
        sisi 2 months ago
        Its possible you may get startled out of your sleep by your roommate trying to kill you.
      • Black
        Black 2 months ago
        yeah it aint easy listening to all those tough guys crying for their mommies at night.
    • COL Porter
      COL Porter  •  2 months ago
      When I was going through Army Ranger training back in May 1979, I remember (vaguely) getting a total of 4 hours of sleep in 5 days--and we were constantly on the march.
    • MiguelH
      MiguelH  •  Irvine, California  •  2 months ago
      My platoon and I went about 56 hours with out sleep and let me tell ya when you're on top of a turret bouncing like a rag doll and you still with all your might try to not fall asleep that's when your brain is telling your body.....no mas!!
    • The Paranoid Android
      The Paranoid Android  •  Richardson, Texas  •  3 months ago
      11 days? Crikey! The longest I've gone without sleep is 24 hours and I was grumpy as hell!
    • Richard Gozinya
      Richard Gozinya  •  Albany, Georgia  •  2 months ago
      Any decent meth freak can break that record, providing they don't run out of money.
    • Tyler Asner III
      Tyler Asner III  •  2 months ago
      People in this lifetime will never get enough sleep even if you trying catching it up.
    • likeyesterday
      likeyesterday  •  2 months ago
      I went weeks without sleep and it was horrible. I just couldn't sleep mostly due to stress. Eventually I had to spend 4 days in the hospital. They tried knocking me out. Each night was a different concoction of pills adding a pill everynight. Finally, I was put into a "sleep induced" coma for 24 hrs. They said they could hear me snoring all the way down the hall. Finally, I slept. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. You start seeing things that are not there, you really do start losing your mind.
    • murda
      murda  •  New York, New York  •  2 months ago
      I wake up to take a nap on weekends.
    • Lovely_Becca
      Lovely_Becca  •  3 months ago
      I can go a whole 9 hours without sleep... at work. Sometimes I'm not very sucessful tho!
    • BionicPnis
      BionicPnis  •  2 months ago
      Ask Keith Richards.
    • Spyder Man
      Spyder Man  •  Hayward, California  •  2 months ago
      The person named Randy Gardner was "mentally challanged" before he went without sleep for 11 days. The "after affects" actually were a pe-existing condition. He did not have all of his marbles to begin with!
    • AXEMAN
      AXEMAN  •  2 months ago
      Check out the tweaker community,one of them must hold the record.
    • MikeC
      MikeC  •  Rochester, New York  •  2 months ago
      i watched Pete And Pete and learned this already back in the mid 90's
    • EF
      EF  •  Irvine, California  •  2 months ago
      I saw a meth head on a doc. that was up for 5 days and he looked like his body was short circuiting and wanted to turn off.....
     Post a comment

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