Interestingly, Miller encourages people not to be afraid of sleep deprivation, despite the known ill effects. Still, this is a neurodegenerative disease that affects the brain, Miller says, and 'it's more likely that FFI patients die from neural degeneration, as opposed to lack of sleep.' How long will your body allow you to survive on short sleep? And what about complete lack of sleep - can it really kill you? CNET talked to sleep specialists to find out. Go without sleep longer than that, and you may begin to experience hallucinations, paranoia, delusions and other scary symptoms. After a night or two of poor sleep, you feel irritable, cranky, unmotivated and sluggish.Īfter a week of short slumbers, you may find yourself snapping at people, crying over nothing, battling headaches, losing focus, overeating or under-eating and scraping by on stimulants. Symptoms of sleep deprivation are progressive: The more sleep debt you rack up, the worse you feel.

Gardner's 11-day experiment didn't kill him, but anyone who's experienced total sleep deprivation can likely vouch that the end feels near. Although Gardner exhibited physical, mental and emotional degeneration and experienced severe insomnia decades later, he's alive in his 70s today. You may have heard the story of Randy Gardner, the boy who once stayed awake for 11 days and 24 minutes straight - that's 264.4 hours.

7 days to die health