Not sleeping right leads to mental breakdown?

Question

I have heard many people say that you need to have a good sleeping pattern… if not your mind will wonder off and you will have a mental breakdown. Is this true?

Answer 1

It IS true that if you are deprived of sleep long enough, your brain will not be able to function properly, you'll become irrational and eventually it will shut down.

The reason we sleep is because during waking hours, the brain does an amazing amount of thinking and other mental processing. As the brain cells do their work, they give off waste byproducts into the glia, which accumulate faster than the blood can carry them away. At a certain point, this accumulation creates a sensation of "mental fatigue," the signal that you should sleep so that the brain can "catch up" with the waste disposal process. The feeling of being refreshed in the morning is how you feel when the brain is clear of waste byproducts.

The same happens if we overwork a muscle...the process of expending energy to work the muscle creates waste byproducts, which accumulate faster than they can be carried off, creating the feeling of muscle fatigue. With inactivity, this feeling goes away.

Now you know why!

Answer 2

I have no idea.

But everytime I'm mugging for an exam, I don't do sleeping patterns. And i survived.

Plus, there was a couple of times when I went through three-four days without sleeping. Don't do that though, its dangerous. I've insomnia, so I can't help it.