Nguyen 1 Jenny Nguyen

Malcolm Campbell

URWT 1103

29 March 2015

Sleep Deprivation and the Deadly Consequences

Going twenty-four hours without sleep is dangerous. Going a couple days without sleep

can be life threatening. The majority of the working population has done it. Maybe youre a full

time student staying up late to finish a homework assignment, or someone suffering long flight

hours. Maybe youre a worker making your way through a harsh night shift, or a driver suffering

a long nights drive. Whatever the situation, everyone has experienced lack of sleep at some

point. What most wont know are the serious negative effects of sleep deprivation, and how

those effects are dangerous enough to harm others around them. This is exactly what happened

with the Joubert family. In June 2002, a family of eight driving on the interstate slammed their

Chevy Suburban right into an 18-wheel trailer parked on the side of the road. Six died, including

the mother and five of six children. The father, Israel Lane Joubert, was the one driving the car

and survived the car accident along with his sixth child. They were both critically injured, with

their son losing 90% of his liver (Los Angeles Times). All the children were 14 and under.

According to Bronwyn Fryer, in his Harvard Business Review issue, Sleep Deficit: The

Performance Killer, the family was driving through the night coming back from a family

reunion, hoping to return to work by 8 a.m., when the accident occurred. Israel had fallen asleep

for one exact reason: sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation can bring about numerous

consequences that can affect drivers, workers, and the general public. Why can it be so deadly?

The answers lie within our brain and body functions while sleep deprived. Lack of sleep can

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Nguyen 2 have detrimental effects on our cognitive performance, which accounts for our actions, thoughts,

mood, and pretty much anything involving what makes us who we are. Our body can suffer as a

result of reduced metabolism, which can strain our cardiovascular system altogether. As a result,

our risk of serious health issues increases.

Why do we need sleep? What is the real reason behind sleep, other than for survival?

According to Seth Maxons article, How Sleep Deprivation Decays the Mind and Body, no one

understands the real biological reason behind sleep. There are many theories surrounding this

mystery, but it has never been proclaimed. It could be that our brain shuts down to store the

days memories, or it could be a way to regulate our bodys hormones. What we do know is that

all humans need an average of seven to eight hours of sleep (Maxon). In fact, the numbers have

gone down since the 1960s. In Matt T. Bianchis article, Sleep Deprivation and Disease: Effects

on the body, brain and Behavior, in the 1960s, Americans slept an average of eight to nine hours.

By the 1990s, numbers declined to an average of seven hours (Bianchi). It can be assumed, that

because of our working society with more stress and longer work hours, the number of sleep-

deprived workers has increased. A resource from the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard

Medical School suggests that sleep is important because memory consolidation takes place

during this time, which means your brain stores and processes memories and neuron pathways

become stronger. This process makes it possible to learn and recall new information. The REM

stage of sleep, or rapid-eye movement sleep is essential in acquiring new information, which is

also the phase where dreams are more prevalent. Sleep deprivation interferes with this ability,

resulting in extreme exhaustion, which then results in slow performance, lack of focus, and

attention (Fryer). So what can happen when we go without sleep for a long period of time?

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Nguyen 3 According to Maxon, going without sleep can cause hallucinations, psychosis, and long-

term memory impairment. Studies from the University of Pennsylvania found that going 88

hours without sleep can cause cognitive impairment in otherwise healthy adults. In 1989, at the

University of Chicago, a study on sleep deprivation performed on rats showed that after several

weeks of no sleep, all the rats died. Although there have been debates whether sleep deprivation

can kill you, there are studies that have shown suppression in the immune system from lack of

sleep. With a suppressed immune system, the risks of attracting other forms of illnesses

increase, which can lead to death. Research on hospital interns shows how lack of sleep can

impair their job performance and how dangerous that can be in their field. Its common for many

hospital interns to stay up for over twenty-four hours because of long work shifts. It was found

that the odds of them accidentally stabbing themselves with medical tools increase by 61%.

Their risk of crashing a car increases 168% and a near miss is an overwhelming 460% (Fryer).

So my question is, why are work companies willing to put their employees and the general

public at risk for something that can be easily looked upon?

Sleep deprivation also has profound affects on our mood and behavior. In his article,

Maxon narrates his own experience with sleep deprivationan experiment he had undergone

himselfwhich landed him in the hospital days later with no recollection. He was eighteen at

that timea relatively healthy young adultwho was on a trip to Italy with his school, when he

stayed up for four consecutive days. He recounts his experiences with hallucinations, rambling,

losing focus, and even sudden shifts of mood and behavior. His teacher even asked if he was on

LSD because he was doing things he would have never done, such as stealing things from a gift

shop. Our brain regulates the flow of epinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin; chemicals in our

brain that are also responsible for mood and behavior. This could be why lack of sleep is linked

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Nguyen 4 to manic feelings, depression, and bipolar disorders (Maxon). Our general feelings of

moodiness we get from staying up into the night can be explained through this reason.

Interestingly, sleep deprivation has been used as a torture tactic because of the mental

manipulation capabilities captors can make their prisoners experience. According to Maxon,

sleepiness befogs the reason, undermines the will, and the human being ceases to be himself, to

be his own I. Sleep deprivation is used as a torture tactic because it left no mark, and can

easily break a prisoners will. Prisoners are held captive and kept awake for days, which makes

them more susceptible to interrogation and decreases pain tolerance (Maxon).

Fryer explores in his Harvard Business Review, four major impacts sleep deprivation has

on our cognitive performance. Throughout the day, everyone has a build up of homeostatic

pressure for sleep. This need becomes stronger depending on how much sleep a person had the

night before. Our sleep and wake up cycles are completely involuntary, and we cannot control

when we sleep or when we wake up, even though most people think they do. This is especially

true when we become extremely drowsy. As discovered by Dr. Clif Saper at Harvard Medical

School, when we become drowsy, it can be a sign that our brain is telling us we need to sleep

soon, or it will seize control. When our homeostatic pressure becomes too great, thousand of

neurons in our brain responsible for sleep ignite, which then causes sleep to seize the brain

anywhere at anytime (Fryer). This is why drowsy drivers fall asleep at the wheel without

remembering they ever did. Specialists also call this micro sleeps, when the brain forces the

body to sleep on its own (Maxon).

The second major impact on our cognitive performance, according to Fryer is determined

from the amount of sleep you received over several days. With eight hours of sleep everyday, we

are expected to be stable. With less than eight hours, we build up sleep deficit, which results in

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Nguyen 5 cognitive impairment. Being awake for over twenty-four hours is equivalent to legal

drunkenness, which can also result in: slurred speech, longer reaction time, short and long term

memory problems, affects decision making capacity, math processing, cognitive speed, impedes

judgment, and spatial orientation. This is also true when someone cuts back hours of sleep over a

period of days. When a person sleeps an average of five to six hours a night for several days in a

row, these effects magnify (Fryer). Serious lack of sleep can also increase temporary lapses in

attention, which is when a person experiences periods of non-responsiveness lasting a second

(Bianchi). According to Maxons own experience, there were days where he completely

renounced speech altogether and days where he only spoke rhyme.

The third impact on our cognitive performance according to Fryer involves our circadian

rhythm. This refers to our internal body clock or neurological timing device, which tells our

body when its dawn or midnight. It sends out the strongest sleep drive just before we wake

up and the strongest wake drive when we are about to go to sleep. Our homeostatic pressure

works together with the circadian rhythm, though they work in opposition to one another. Most

scientists dont have clear explanations for this phenomenon, but because we dont take frequent

naps like most animals, it helps us stay awake and asleep in one long interval. As midafternoon

arrives, we usually have the need to sleep or take a nap, which is why many people turn to

caffeine to help them stay awake. Caffeine temporarily blocks receptors in our brain that

regulates sleep. At this time, our homeostatic pressure for sleep builds up, but our circadian

rhythm hasnt settled in to keep us awake. As it eventually does, we are able to stay awake

through the day. As night falls, melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep and wake cycles,

increases, which then quiets the circadian signal to stay awake, allowing us to fall asleep. As our

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Nguyen 6 homeostatic pressure goes away, the circadian sends out sleep signals through the night and

increases until morning. As we wake up, melatonin declines (Fryer).

The final impact on cognitive performance from sleep deprivation involves sleep

inertia, which is the grogginess many people experience when first waking up. During this

period, our brain needs to wake up, which also means our memory and decision-making isnt at

its peak during this time. It doesnt actually reach its peak until a couple hours later. Sleep inertia

is especially dangerous for drivers and workers. Drowsy drivers accounts for a fifth of car

accidents in the United States annually. This is equivalent to 8,000 deaths per year. An estimated

80,000 drivers fall asleep while driving everyday, with 10% swerving off the road and every two

minutes, one crashes. Workers are also at risk from sleep deprivation. Interestingly, many work

accidents mentioned on media are a result of tired, sleep-deprived workers. The oil spill of

Exxon Valdez and an incident involving a metro train in New York that derailed were caused by

sleep deprived workers (Maxon). These workers put themselves, companies, and the general

public in dangerous situations because most companies dont enforce policies on how much

sleep a worker needs, but instead enforces policies on drinking, smoking, etc. (Fryer).

Its obvious; sleep deprivation can cause many psychological and physical effects. These

effects are dangerous enough to cause our judgment to become impaired, and as a result, we

make irrational decisions. This maybe the reason that sleepiness and alcohol intoxication

parallels each other more closely than most may realize (Bianchi). Our hand eye tracking and

coordination becomes impaired, similar to that of alcohol intoxication, and according to Fryer,

twenty-four hours of no sleep or a week of less than eight hours of sleep is equivalent to

impairment to a blood alcohol level of 0.1%. From Maxons experience, when he woke up from

the hospital after sleeping for several days, his body began to carry the baggage of being sleep

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Nguyen 7 deprived for a long period of time. He began stumble when he tried to walk, and he appeared

hung-over.

Sleep deprivation has been shown to increase weight gain, heart disease, type II diabetes

and high blood pressure. These health problems can cause serious cardiovascular diseases in the

future, which is why sleep deprivation can cause long-term effects (Bianchi). While we sleep,

our body undergoes multiple repairs. According to Maxon, our cells provide oxygen and glucose

as by-products as they undergo cycles of repair when we sleep. So what happens when we stay

up all night? Our brain denies these products, which then hampers our organs disrupting our

body systems. While we are awake throughout the day, our cells burn off energy, releasing what

scientist call substance S. Substance S is believed to be adenosine, which is release as a by-

product of these cells into the blood stream. When we sleep, our body clears our blood stream of

this substance, but if we dont this substance can pile up, clogging our system (Maxon). As

mentioned earlier, we have our own circadian body clock. Carolyn Kylstra, from BuzzFeed

Staff wrote in her article, 10 Horrible Things Pulling An All-Nighter Does to Your Brain, our

hypothalamus in the brain is in charge of the circadian clock that every cell in the body has. It

makes sure everything functions normally. Throughout the day, we send different signals to our

hypothalamus to activate different hormones to trigger hunger, sleepiness, etc. When you are

sleep deprived, these signals mess up, which causes you to feel hungry late at night, leading to

unhealthy snacking (Kylstra). Denise Manns article, Sleep and Weight Gain on WebMD,

reviewed by Hansa D. Bhargava, MD, states that while sleep deprived and tired, we are running

low on energy, causing us to turn to unhealthy snacks to wake us up. Without good sleep quality,

our metabolism doesnt function properly, causing unwanted weight gain and could ultimately

lead to obesity (Mann).

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Nguyen 8 As we age, sleep becomes more difficult (Fryer). Its true about what they say about older

people having a harder time falling asleep. As we age, our sleep intervals becomes more

fragmented and we are more easily awaken by noise. Even our own body aches and pains can

prevent us from falling asleep. This can increase the risk of sleep disorders, such as restless leg

syndrome, insomnia, and sleep apnea. With chronic sleep restrictions, we experience an increase

in appetite, stress hormones, and our ability to metabolize glucose lowers. The production of a

hormone called ghrelin increases, causing us to crave carbs and sugars (Fryer). When our body

clock becomes inconsistent with sleep, our brain and body essential becomes confused, sending

out the wrong signals at the wrong time.

Its pretty clear; sleep deprivation has numerous effects on every part of the human body.

Sleep is a natural part of our routine that every animals needs to survive. Our cells and our

organs malfunction if we dont nourish our body with quality sleep. Brain performance goes out

of sync and our body suffers, resulting in cardiovascular and metabolic illnesses. Drowsy drivers

and tired workers put themselves and others at risk because of lack of sleep, which is why I

believe companies should look more into enforcing policies that limits the amount of work hours

an employee gets. Even the government adopted sleep deprivation as a torture tactic because of

how much it impairs the brain. All of these facts show how sleep deprivation can be so deadly

for us. It explains the reason why many doctors emphasize getting eight hours of sleep is

essential to maintain good health. Like I said before, the majority of the population has

experienced twenty-four hours or more of no sleep at one point in their lives. The exhaustion can

be very overwhelming.

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Nguyen 9 Works Cited

Bianchi, Matt T. Sleep Deprivation and Disease: Effects on the Body, Brain and Behavior. 2014.

Web. 2 Apr. 2015

Fryer, Bronwyn. "Sleep Deficit: the Performance Killer." Harvard Business Review. Harvard

Business School Publishing, Oct. 2006. Web. 2 Apr. 2015

Kylstra, Carolyn. "10 Horrible Things Pulling an All-Nighter Does to Your Brain." BuzzFeed.

BuzzFeed Staff, June . Web. 2 Apr. 2015.

Mann, Denise. "Sleep and Weight Gain." Coping With Excessive Sleepiness. WebMD, Web. 2

Apr. 2015.

Maxon, Seth. "How Sleep Deprivation Decays the Mind and Body." The Atlantic. The Atlantic,

30 Dec. 2013. Web. 2 Apr. 2015.

Press, Associated, ed. "6 Killed as SUV Hits Big Rig." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times,

11 June 2002. Web. 2 Apr. 2015.

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