Sleep deprivation

Sleep deprivation refers to the arbitrary or forced renunciation of sleep over a certain period of time, which can last from hours to days. Sleep deprivation can be used both from a therapeutic point of view (as sleep deprivation or waking therapy in psychiatry) and against a background of torture. Prolonged sleep deprivation can have a variety of effects, but in most cases these can be remedied by catching up on healthy sleep.

A distinction is made between a proportionate one, in which only the second half of the night was awakened, and complete sleep deprivation. After sleep deprivation, in many cases the mood improves the following day. This effect is exploited when using sleep deprivation as a form of treatment for depression. If the sleep deprivation lasts for a longer period of time or if a permanent lack of sleep occurs, physical and mental complaints occur, which negatively affect clear thinking.

Consequences

The official world record for the period during which a person willingly abstains from sleep (without taking stimulants or medication) is 11 days and 24 minutes. The 1964 experiment was extensively documented and did not show any serious long-term physical or psychological consequences for the test person, except for sleep deprivation-related effects, such as concentration and memory disorders, as well as mood swings and perception disorders. These, however, disappeared after the end of the experiment and by catching up on sleep.

In the following decades, sleep deprivation and its effects were further researched. A famous experiment (by Allan Rechtschaffen and Bernard Bergmann) from Chicago researched the long-term effects of sleep deprivation on rats. The test animals lost weight despite sufficient food intake, developed purulent bumps on their bodies and finally died.

Critical to the performance of the experiment is the high level of stress and a conscious suppression of the normal day and night rhythm (through continuous exposure), which may also have influenced the consequences described above. It is therefore questionable whether sleep deprivation alone can be fatal. Even special cases such as fatal familial insomnia (lethal familial insomnia) do not provide any conclusive or transferable statements about this. It is interesting to note that physical effects occur less frequently than the psychological effects of sleep deprivation. In principle, the willingness to sleep during the day is increased by shortening the sheep’s time.