There was a period in the 1950s and 60s when sleep deprivation was all the rage. Sparked by radio DJs attempting to outdo each other’s wildly dangerous – yet presumably quite boring – publicity stunts, the record for staying awake was repeatedly broken and extended.
Eventually, however, Guinness World Records called a halt to the madness when they stopped recognizing sleep deprivation achievements in 1997, fearing that someone could end up getting hurt. At that point, the record belonged to a professional stuntman named Robert McDonald, who went an agonizing 18 days, 21 hours, and 40 minutes without sleeping in 1986.
“Although we no longer monitor the record due to the inherent dangers associated with sleep deprivation, we can say that no one is known to have broken it since McDonald,” explains the Irish stout-based record verification authority on its website.
The company also claims that McDonald experienced no long-term consequences following his sleepless marathon. If true, he can probably count himself lucky since sleep deprivation has been linked to a number of negative health effects.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, severe lack of sleep raises the possibility of developing colorectal cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Spending too much time awake can also age the brain by three to five years, and is associated with a 33 percent increase in the risk of dementia.
Recent research on mice has corroborated these concerns by revealing that sleep deprivation significantly depletes stores of a protective protein in the brain called pleiotrophin (PTN). As PTN levels drop, neurons in the hippocampus begin to die off, leading to cognitive impairment and potentially triggering neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s.
As it happens, previous record holder Randy Gardner – who went 11 days without sleep in 1964 – has said that the stunt impacted his short-term memory “like an early Alzheimer’s thing brought on by lack of sleep.” A few days into his record attempt, Gardner began to experience hallucinations and working memory deficits, although these cleared up after he eventually got some shut-eye.
Despite the pointless yet impressive achievements of McDonald and Gardner, scientists now think that all former record-holders probably experienced “microsleeps” during their attempts to stay awake, whereby they actually nodded off for a few seconds here and there without realizing it. So while they may not have allowed themselves a proper rest, none of these champions can actually claim to have reached their milestones without any sleep.
