There are four fundamental survival needs that every person on the planet shares. America is trying to do away with one of them. In order of importance these are: air, water, sleep and food.
Yes, sleep is on that list, and it’s becoming an endangered species.
A person can survive about six minutes of oxygen deprivation (In very cold water this can get bumped up to nearly an hour, but either way mortality is imminent).
Without water you’ll probably croak after three to five days, a week if you’re terribly unlucky. Without food, months.
So how long can you go without sleep?
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest someone has voluntarily stayed awake without a stimulant is 11 days. That’s a lot shorter than the 79 days of fasting achieved by one of Germany’s popular hunger artists in 1953.
To date, “lack of sleep” has rarely shown up on death certificates, but a series of unfortunate lab mice have all been shown to perish within a month of forced insomnia.
Perhaps it’s not so important how long you can survive on no sleep, though, since unlike food or water, sleep is built-in. Deprive your body of it for long enough and it will eventually override your meager mortal willpower. More worrisome is what happens in the meantime, and how eager people are to inflict it upon themselves in the name of productivity.
When you’re sleep deprived, you become a raving lunatic. First you just become a little slower on the uptake, then a lot slower. Confusion follows. Then severe mental discombobulation. If it gets bad enough, hallucinations. If you won’t take the time to create dreams at night (and everybody does whether they think so or not), your body starts displaying them in front of you in broad daylight.
Mrs. Average American may not be visualizing gigantic sea monsters on the way to work, but she is drinking nearly two cups of coffee a day to account for the two-hour gap between the 6.1 hours she slept last night and the 8.1 hours recommended by sleep experts, according to stason.org.
Entire student bodies put more effort into fighting through a sleep-deprived haze to comprehend exam material than it would have taken to learn it properly the first time on a good night’s rest.
Airplane pilots and neurosurgeons stifle yawns and push through their jobs for grueling hours at a time. A recent poll conducted by the Norweigan Broadcasting Corporation showed a startling 50 percent of Norwegian pilots admitted to having nodded off in the cockpit. As for the surgeons, it might not be such a terrible idea to prescribe a good eight hours before giving them access to anyone’s brain.
One of the more sinister side affects of sleep deprivation is people often don’t even realize how exhausted they really are. People who claim to feel “fine” or “just a bit tired” can be battling fatigue equivalent to a blood alcohol content of 0.1, according to a publication by Occupational and Environmental Medicine. If that were real alcohol, they would be legally required to stay off the roads.
Instead, politicians in the same state of cognizance make decisions that affect the lives of thousands of people. Would you rather have people or Red Bull running your country?
I, for one, would prefer fewer decisions made per day with the confidence that they were made by a fully conscious human being.
But even if you don’t have to approve a bill, operate a nuclear power plant or even ace a midterm, there are simpler reasons to stay well-rested.
Most people don’t need a study to show that getting a good night’s sleep just makes you a happier person. Enormous emotional obstacles magically dissipate into minor nuisances within just a few hours of shuteye. Not only does sleep bring contentment, but also the mental acuity to enjoy it. How’s that for a win-win situation?
If the goal in life is ultimately to achieve happiness, then I have a little suggestion for you. Put down that assignment (it’ll still be there in the morning), crawl into bed, close your eyes and get a nice big head start.
Hari Rai Khalsa is a Stanford 2011 Graduate in Anthropology
