Not sleeping for 11 days leads to severe cognitive, emotional, and physical breakdown, causing intense hallucinations (seeing/hearing things that aren't there), paranoia, delusions, disordered thinking, extreme irritability, severe cognitive impairment (memory, focus), and potentially resembling psychosis, making it extremely dangerous and potentially life-threatening due to organ stress and accident risk, though a famous case showed some function for a while, serious effects like hallucinations start much sooner, around 48-96 hours.
The longest recorded time a person has gone without sleep is around 11 days, set by Randy Gardner in 1964 as part of a science fair project. However, prolonged periods without sleep can have serious health consequences, and it's generally not advisable to go without sleep for extended periods of time.
The dangers of sleep deprivation
According to Dr. Drerup, chronic sleep deprivation can do all sorts of damage, including raising your risk of: Cognitive impairment and dementia. Poor balance and coordination.
While every organ in the body is affected by poor sleep, the brain takes the biggest hit, showing signs of dysfunction faster than any other system. Over time, the heart, liver, and immune system also begin to show stress, which can increase your risk of chronic illness.
These included moodiness, problems with concentration and short-term memory, paranoia, and hallucinations. On the eleventh day, when he was asked to subtract seven repeatedly, starting with 100, he stopped at 65. When asked why he had stopped, he replied that he had forgotten what he was doing.
Gen Z stays up late due to a combination of technology (blue light, endless content), significant stress and anxiety (FOMO, financial/global worries), biological shifts (natural teenage circadian rhythm), and "revenge bedtime procrastination," where they sacrifice sleep for personal time, often in bed, scrolling social media. This digital-heavy, high-stress lifestyle creates overstimulation and a misalignment with natural sleep patterns, leading to chronic sleep deprivation, notes the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Health Foundation.
Arnold Schwarzenegger famously advocates for getting only six hours of sleep a night, claiming he consistently slept that amount while achieving immense success in bodybuilding, acting, and politics, famously telling critics they just need to "sleep faster" to fit more into their 24-hour day. While younger, he needed more sleep (around nine hours), but as he aged and his intense training lessened, six hours became sufficient, allowing him more time for his goals.
In his piece, he revealed that through his years of research, he's found that rumination is the biggest thing that causes poor sleep. He says that being worried about something at night has affected his own ability to fall asleep.
It's particularly important to see a doctor if you're experiencing any kind of sleep problem that's preventing you from getting the sleep your body needs.
Whether you prefer a cold drink or a warm bedtime drink, here's our list of the best drinks before bed to help you drift off.
The 3-3-3 rule for sleep is a technique to help manage anxiety and improve sleep quality. It involves focusing on three things you can see, three things you can hear, and moving three parts of your body.
The koala is the animal that sleeps approximately 90% of the day (20-22 hours), a necessity due to its low-energy eucalyptus diet requiring intensive digestion, making it the ultimate champion of sleep in the animal kingdom, followed closely by sloths and bats.
Perceptual distortions, anxiety, irritability, depersonalization, and temporal disorientation started within 24–48 h of sleep loss, followed by complex hallucinations and disordered thinking after 48–90 h, and delusions after 72 h, after which time the clinical picture resembled that of acute psychosis or toxic ...
As people near 120 hours without sleep, they may experience a rapid and severe decline in mental health. This may involve symptoms of psychosis, where a person becomes detached from reality. View Source with complex delusions and violent behavior.
Gardner did not die, but the sleep deprivation would have other bizarre effects. He began to suffer from hallucinations, paranoia and short term memory loss. On day 11, he was asked to count backwards from 100 by subtracting seven each time. When he got to 65, he stopped because he couldn't remember what he was doing.
Best Foods for Sleep
10 hours before bed: No more caffeine. 3 hours before bed: No more food or alcohol. 2 hours before bed: No more work. 1 hour before bed: No more screen time (shut off all phones, TVs and computers).
The first few hours of sleep are the deepest, he said. It's during this time that the body performs tissue growth and repair, allowing healing and restoration to occur. It's also the time when the brain clears away stuff it doesn't need, making room for the stuff it does need.
Sleep terrors are a type of parasomnia. A parasomnia is a disturbing or strange behavior or experience during sleep. People who have sleep terrors don't completely wake up from sleep during the episodes. Their appearance may suggest they are awake, but they remain partially asleep.
Key Findings
Relax, unwind and try meditation to help you sleep
Avoid electronic devices at least an hour before bed, as mobiles, tablets and computers all throw out blue light that stops sleep. Reading, listening to soft music or a podcast, or sleep meditation can all help if you have trouble sleeping.
Whilst boomers and millennials may use the 😂 emoji, this has long since been deemed 'uncool' (or 'cheugy') by Gen Z. Instead, this has been replaced by the skull (💀) or the crying emoji (😭), dramatising the idea of 'dying with laughter'.
Across much of the world, it is no longer middle-aged adults who are the most miserable. Instead, young people, especially Gen Z, are reporting the highest levels of unhappiness of any age group.
Some evidence suggests that high IQ is associated with later sleep patterns. However, it is unclear whether the relationship between IQ and later sleep is due to biological or social effects, such as the timing of working hours.