“What will happen if you don’t sleep for seven days ?

“What will happen if you don’t sleep for seven days ?

You all know how much sleep is important for us. Humans generally spend almost one third (1/3) of their lives sleeping. Do you know 12% of people dream entirely in black and white.

Lets start from the very beginning .  Our brain stores a lot of information and visuals during the day . All this information is saved in our brain as short term memory and when we are sleep, our brain undergoes a very interesting phenomenon known as consolidation. During this phenomenon our short term memory is converted into long term memory. Let us now see what will happen if we don’t sleep for seven consecutive days or more. FYI sleep deprivation will kill more quickly than food deprivation.

Day 1

You will feel a bit difficulty in decision making, hand eye coordination will be disturbed, weird emotions will be all over you, you won't be able to focus on anything. You will be shocked to know that if you don’t sleep for a day you will find yourself overjoyed. You will start smiling without any reason. All this actually happens because of increased dopamine level which is due to lack of sleep.

Day 2

Now your blood veins start swelling a little because of which you might feel like a little rash or irritation, if this symptom pursues and is not kept in check for a few days, a person might encounter cardiovascular problems. Because of this reason blood pressure level also increases.

Day 3

Now it becomes really easy for others to figure out that something is wrong(different) with you. You start feeling irritated and annoyed, your eyes start swelling, you body start paining for no reason, your immunity becomes really weak and even the slightest and the weakest virus could prove fatal for you. Even the smallest of injuries start taking a lot of time to heal.

Day 4

Now the things start getting interesting. To fulfill the lack of sleep the body starts experiencing micro sleeps. The person who is undergoing micro sleep is not aware of the fact that his body and mind are going through such phenomenon. Actually during a micro sleep the body starts going in the state of sleep or is unconscious for a very short period of time (usually 2-3 second). You are not able to talk properly. You start facing problems in speaking clearly.

Day 5 and above (things get serious)

There is no sign of concentration, you are unable to make even the smallest of decisions. You start facing problem in changing focus of your eyes, which means if you are seeing a nearby object for some time and then you suddenly move your eyes away to look at a far off object – you won’t be able to see it for a few seconds (even minutes). Everything will appear hazy and blurry. Your immune system will give up and will be of no use. Your body frequently starts experiencing  “REM sleep”(rapid eye movement). You start feeling immense body pain and morbid thoughts are all over you. Every now and then your brain starts imagining weird things. In extreme cases sleep deprivation can also lead to death.

So the next time you think about not sleeping on time, be aware of the consequences.

Loved this article ? Then also read about - “ The Russian sleep experiment”.