How long can humans survive without sleep?

Answer 1

No-one healthy will die from straight-forward lack of sleep. When you become very sleep deprived, your mind takes little micro-naps of a few seconds of REM even if your eyes are open, often leading to hallucinations (happened to me once!).

However, the reason for you not sleeping may be dangerous. There is a very rare degenerative brain disease called 'malignant insomnia' where you die after not sleeping for about a month. A more common reason for not sleeping is a psychiatric illness, such as mania where people will exhaust themselves in other ways because they do not feel fatigue.

This is not an excuse not to sleep! Good shut-eye helps your memory and problem-solving, making you seem more intelligent and have better relationships.

Answer 2

Nobody really knows why, but people who go for extended periods without sleep often have long term health problems. It's not a case of stay awake for x hours and you'll die, more a case of long term effects. I seem to remember the person who set the longest time in the Guinness book of records worked for a radio station. He had mental problems later which he put down to the record breaking attempt I think he totally lost his ability to concentrate. Maggie Thatcher was well known for only sleeping around 5 hours a night during her term in office and she has since suffered several minor strokes and other ailments. There are several other similar cases.

Answer 3

Don't ever take the sleeping pills route!!

1. They will damage your liver big time and you can get into serious health problems.

2. You will get hooked up on them and you won't be able to have a normal life any more if you don't take your pills everyday.

The sleeping pills industry is damaging our health by capitalizing on our ignorance, and by distracting people from effective and natural ways to deal with this problem. I had been taking prescription sleep medications [Ambien] for over 5 years. It stopped working and I simply took more. Still did not work. Nights were very difficult - medication put me to sleep but I would wake up after 2–3 hours with a strong sympathetic response (fast pulse, pounding heartbeat, wide awake alert). It was a very difficult cycle to break. I was really in bad shape due to lack of sleep.

After years of struggling I was able to cure my insomnia naturally and pretty fast. I followed the Sleep Tracks sleep optimization program, here is their official web -site if you want to take a look: http://www.insomniacure.net

Ohhh..and Good Luck!

Answer 4

"There are no documented cases of a healthy human dying from total sleep deprivation (excluding accidents), aside from those suffering from fatal familial insomnia. In carefully monitored experiments, several normal research subjects stayed awake for 10 days. While they all experienced cognitive deficits in memory, concentration, etc., none of them experienced serious medical, neurological, physiological or psychiatric problems .[10]. Total sleep deprivation in rats leads to death in around 28 days. Death occurs later[citation needed] if only REM sleep is eliminated. In humans, extended sleep deprivation causes "microsleep" sessions to develop. A person who has fatal familial insomnia may die after several months with no sleep at all; people without this condition may experience dementia or develop permanent personality changes within the first few weeks."

Answer 5

3 days

Answer 6

I heard 3-4 days

Answer 7

this varies from person to person. Some cant stay awake 24 hrs. I have stayed awake 4 days.(military). It depends on how hard you push your body till it becomes totaly exhausted. Lack of sleep will not kill you per se. But it could lead to other problems that could affect your health.

Answer 8

The genus book of records has 7 days and i forget the hours and min. Insomniacs are different from not sleeping. They still close there eye's and get a lesser form of sleep. You can die from lack of sleep. It has been documented.

Answer 9

I'm not really sure, but I read somewhere that there was a study conducted wherein they compared two groups of people; first group, are the people whom they deprived of food; second group were the people whom they deprived of sleep. In the end, they found out that those who were deprived of food lived LONGER than those who were deprived of sleep. So, that tells us something scary..

Answer 10

22 days