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How are there cases of people deliberately staying awake for so long they died? Wouldn't you just automatically pass out and sleep long before you got to that point? (lemmy.cafe)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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(Note: I'm not talking about FFI, but healthy people.)

It's said that we need sleep because waste products, such as adenosine (which is a CNS depressant) build up in our brains while we're awake. When we sleep, the glymphatic system activates and flushes it out. Too much adenosine is known to cause a slower heart rate, the body temperature to decrease, immune system to weaken, hallucinations, and more.

I read about how a Chinese guy (in 2014 or 2012?) deliberately stayed awake for 11 nights with no sleep at all to watch the world cup, and he died. The articles said he died of sleep deprivation.

Here's the part which confuses me. I understand why too much of a CNS depressant waste product in your brain would be deadly, since it'd supress vital functions such as breathing, heart rate etc. I'm just wondering why it wouldn't make you automatically pass out and sleep, long before it got to that level as it's something which very gradually builds up in your brain the longer you're awake.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I frequently have trouble sleeping. After a few days of little to no quality sleep, I become unable to fall asleep.

The best way I’ve been able to describe it like a car battery. It helps start the car and when the car drives it keeps the battery charged. But if the battery gets too low it can’t start the car to recharge.

It’s like the part of my brain that tells my body to go into sleep mode hasn’t been charged by getting sleep. I’m so tired I can’t think and I feel absolutely awful, but the sleep doesn’t come.

I have to take a sleep aid when that happens.

This is just anecdotal, but if it works like that for the people who died, it makes sense to me.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago

That car battery analogy is spot on - neurologically what happens is your brain's sleep regulation system (mainly in the hypothalmus) can actually become dysregulated from extreme sleep deprivation, creating a paradoxical state where you're exhausted but your brain literally can't initiate the sleep process proprely anymore.