No Sleep For 61 Years But Healthy At 80

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"In 1997, we stopped monitoring the record for the longest time to stay awake. The record holder at the time was Robert McDonald, who went 453 hours 40 minutes (18 days 21 hours 40 minutes) without sleeping in 1986."

You could have made it into the record books.
:eyes:
 

Inaut

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I know probably no one will believe me but I went around 22-25 days w/o sleep. I had like some OCD focus on sleep and it was like I "try" and "Do" the sleep, which made me extremely anxious and I couldn't break from the pattern at all. I was hyperaware all the time - especially when I try to go to sleep and prepare to go to bed. I would say I wasn't that tired at all after I got up from bed in the morning (I was lying 6-8h with my eyes closed). And I also know most people will think that I had some minutes/seconds of sleep during the night but there's not way to prove that it isn't true - you would just have to believe me that I didn't have a second of sleep during evenings :)

But the biggest problem for me was that I was so anxious that I'm going to die from no sleep that I was worrying every day which probably screw me up much, much more then no-sleeping thing - which was also caused by worrying/hyperawareness.

I remember then reading and listening to some spiritual teachers talking about how some meditators and gurus don't need no sleep at all. All they need is rest, which can be achievable during the daily activities. For some people their way of life is restful so they either need much less sleep or no sleep at all.
Something similar happened to me after a bad mushroom trip. It last 3 weeks. I was so out of it, fearful and depressed. I also thought I was going to die or go completely bonkers because of lack of sleep.
 

brightside

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I was mostly speaking with tongue in cheek.
I know. At face value, your post seems both, low effort and incorrect, which is why I wrote my comment. If you would have mentioned your sleeping problems I would not have said anything. I will admit that I did not watch very much of the video, and just skipped around, so I missed the part where they mentioned that he does sleep for two hours. Either way, though, I don't see how it's good, insightful, or even interesting. If you wanted to talk about your sleeping problems, in my opinion, it would have been better if you would have just made a post about that.

When researchers study sleep deprivation for depression, the patients go back to sleeping. Would it apply to people that never sleep?
I thought that they fade within a few days even without sleep, but now I am not so sure. The researches seem to be able to "prolong" the anti-depressant effects with SSRI's but I don't think that's any good. I also read that adenosine agonists help prolong the effect too, which I think is interesting and noteworthy.

I obsess over my sleep and always think I should be dead after only sleeping 2hrs for months. I woke up today at about 2:30 (about 4hrs of sleep) and I was panicked to get back to sleep so the the insomnia doesn't kill me (no luck). So my gut reaction was that he seems much healthier than I was expecting and maybe it's not as damaging as I think. I would never expect someone could survive to 80 like that (and he even looks good for his age). There are some potential upsides like having more of your life to enjoy and be productive (he has more time to make rice hooch) but you would have to embrace it rather than obsessing over how it's killing you.
Eh, I kind of doubt that you can get that much extra enjoyment out of life when sleep deprived, since your ability to feel pleasure, stay motivated, and be energetic would be blunted. Obviously it helps depressed people, but that's not a reason to do it when healthy.

You are right, obsessing is definitely the wrong way to go about it.

I don't know. Sleep deprivation is very unhealthy, and impacts basically every aspect of your health. I would put good sleep on the same level as "thyroid optimization," although they can both influence each other. I would think that genetics and environment play the deciding role here and determine how damaging the sleep deprivation is.

I assume that your sleeping issues are from the benzo use?
 
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Clyde

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I know. At face value, your post seems both, low effort and incorrect, which is why I wrote my comment. If you would have mentioned your sleeping problems I would not have said anything. I will admit that I did not watch very much of the video, and just skipped around, so I missed the part where they mentioned that he does sleep for two hours. Either way, though, I don't see how it's good, insightful, or even interesting. If you wanted to talk about your sleeping problems, in my opinion, it would have been better if you would have just made a post about that.


I thought that they fade within a few days even without sleep, but now I am not so sure. The researches seem to be able to "prolong" the anti-depressant effects with SSRI's but I don't think that's any good. I also read that adenosine agonists help prolong the effect too, which I think is interesting and noteworthy.


Eh, I kind of doubt that you can get that much extra enjoyment out of life when sleep deprived, since your ability to feel pleasure, stay motivated, and be energetic would be blunted. Obviously it helps depressed people, but that's not a reason to do it when healthy.

You are right, obsessing is definitely the wrong way to go about it.

I don't know. Sleep deprivation is very unhealthy, and impacts basically every aspect of your health. I would put good sleep on the same level as "thyroid optimization," although they can both influence each other. I would think that genetics and environment play the deciding role here and determine how damaging the sleep deprivation is.

I assume that your sleeping issues are from the benzo use?
My first reaction after seeing the video was that he should be dead but he's living a full and productive life while looking very healthy for his age. I should have mentioned that he currently sleeps for 1-2hrs from time to time (if you want to believe any of it is accurate). In the spirit of Ray Peat, this forum welcomes challenges to convention wisdom and why not have some fun with it or just do something else with your time?

***There is no way to study the effects of lifelong sleep deprivation on humans because you can't confine people for 80 years and deprive them of sleep. So you are left with anecdotes like this that you can take as seriously as you want.***

My sleeping issue are multifactorial.
 
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brightside

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In the spirit of Ray Peat, this forum welcomes challenges to convention wisdom and why not have some fun with it or just do something else with your time?
Umm, this doesn't just go against conventional wisdom, it goes against ALL wisdom. If you are going to try to challenge something as basic as sleep, then you better have some kind of theory, anecdote, or logical basis( I know the video is an anecdote, but I don't accept that as a good anecdote. It's just a random video vs, say, your anecdote). Otherwise, IMO, it does not meet the requirements to be considered as an idea. Again, I didn't just comment because it's clearly wrong, but also because it's low effort. It's kind of like a JamesGatz post, spam-like. Maybe people don't see it as an issue, but I think its detrimental. I think this forum has a lot of information to offer to the world, and posts that distract and dilute, are harming the people who need this information the most.
I do see exactly why you made the post, it's kind of like a short quick "hey look at this interesting/weird thing I found". There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but I think in the context of "Miscellaneous Studies, Articles, Health Discussion," it's definitely out of place.

***There is no way to study the effects of lifelong chronic sleep deprivation on humans because you can't confine people for 80 years and deprive them of sleep. So you are left with anecdotes like this that you can take as seriously as you want.***
You can still look at people who are chronically sleep-deprived. Yeah, it's not definitive data, but I think it's quite clear that sleep deprivation is harmful.
 
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Clyde

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Umm, this doesn't just go against conventional wisdom, it goes against ALL wisdom. If you are going to try to challenge something as basic as sleep, then you better have some kind of theory, anecdote, or logical basis( I know the video is an anecdote, but I don't accept that as a good anecdote. It's just a random video vs, say, your anecdote). Otherwise, IMO, it does not meet the requirements to be considered as an idea. Again, I didn't just comment because it's clearly wrong, but also because it's low effort. It's kind of like a JamesGatz post, spam-like. Maybe people don't see it as an issue, but I think its detrimental.
JamesGatz is a creative genius and his posts are entertaining.


"The resulting data led to a rejection of our hypothesis that sleep deprivation is necessarily detrimental. Indeed, acute sleep deprivation (ASD) was associated with a reduction in ischemia-induced interleukin 1β (IL-1β) gene expression and attenuation of neuronal damage in the hippocampus. Further, sleep deprivation increased gene expression of two anti-inflammatory cytokines, IL-6 and IL-10 that are associated with improved ischemic outcome. To determine whether the anti-inflammatory properties of ASD were specific to ischemia, mice were treated systemically with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a potent inflammogen. Acute sleep deprivation attenuated the central and peripheral increase in tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) and increased IL-10 expression. Together, the ischemia and LPS data suggest that, ASD produces an anti-inflammatory bias that could be exploited to improve medical procedures that are compromised by inflammation."

So it has antidepressant and anti-inflammatory properties. But does it cure cancer? Probably not :(
 
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brightside

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JamesGatz is a creative genius and his posts are entertaining.


"The resulting data led to a rejection of our hypothesis that sleep deprivation is necessarily detrimental. Indeed, acute sleep deprivation (ASD) was associated with a reduction in ischemia-induced interleukin 1β (IL-1β) gene expression and attenuation of neuronal damage in the hippocampus. Further, sleep deprivation increased gene expression of two anti-inflammatory cytokines, IL-6 and IL-10 that are associated with improved ischemic outcome. To determine whether the anti-inflammatory properties of ASD were specific to ischemia, mice were treated systemically with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a potent inflammogen. Acute sleep deprivation attenuated the central and peripheral increase in tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) and increased IL-10 expression. Together, the ischemia and LPS data suggest that, ASD produces an anti-inflammatory bias that could be exploited to improve medical procedures that are compromised by inflammation."

So it has antidepressant and anti-inflammatory properties. But does it cure cancer? Probably not :(
Are you trying to frame is anti-inflammatory effect as a good thing? It's a stress response, and this anti-inflammatory effect is directly tied to it's anti-depressant effect. The purpose - resolve the problem keeping you awake. My example with the glucocorticoid shots is quite accurate. Pleasurable in the short term, deleterious long term.

This is literally the basic mechanism of action of cortisol.
"Cortisol inhibits production of interleukin 12 (IL-12), interferon gamma (IFN-gamma), IFN-alpha, and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) by antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and T helper cells (Th1 cells), but upregulates interleukin 4, interleukin 10, and interleukin 13 by Th2 cells." (Wikipedia).

Cortisol is indeed raised in sleep deprivation, and explains both the anti-depressant effects and anti-inflammatory effects, at least to an extent. There are of course other mechanisms at play, but cortisol is still a big one.

How is elevated cortisol going to promote health? What does this have to do with cancer?
 

brightside

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@brightside Do you think the long term effects of glucocorticoid shots can ever be reversed or does it cause permanent damage?
I wouldn't know. Things like muscle loss shrinking of the thymus and hippocampus are definitely reversible. I don't think that you couldn't live a good life with intelligent intervention.
 

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