I've heard you can. Yet how does this happen? What about sleeping keeps us alive? What about not sleeping kills us? Has anyone ever died from lack of sleep? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
My father was an MD, with a patient & friend (Bill D.) who was chief engineer and technically manager for radio WCHS (a 50,000 W station with three antennae so it could have two "notches" in the radiation pattern as far away were two other stations also operating on 580Khz). Back then FCC required a person with a First Class FCC Commercial license be at the station when it was on the air. Bill knew I was bright kid and a radio "ham" who had made my own transmitter, etc. at age 10, and he had a problem with only four engineers in the summer maning the station 24/7 when one was on vacation. (double time pay for first few hours over 40, then triple time pay: Cheapest solution was for each of the three to work 56 hours per week, if he did not do few shifts. ). So he told my dad that if I could pass the First Class Commercial exam, about 5 hours long and tough, He would pay me same as his engineers for at least 12 weeks each summer. At age 12, I did on first try - few do that the first time. I'm pretty sure I was youngest in US to be in charge of one of the most powerful stations in the US. (West Virginia briefly tried to block me from working around high voltages, etc. but eventually said that if FCC certified me as qualified, they would ignore the child labor laws. - I have always assumed Bill bribed someone after explaining I would just sit in a chair* and write some meter readings down in the log. It was a great job paying 10 or 11 times more than my paper route did - just turn the volume up high and read books. I hated the Sunday afternoon symphony - they sometimes had 20 seconds of dead air time.) One mid night at end of my fill in for one engineer, I was getting pissed as the engineer who would relieve me was still not there at 1AM and I was getting tired and sleepy. (I was living in my aunt's hot attic and not sleeping well so got up at 6 AM or before. I was working my way thru Will Durant's 11 volumes called The Story of Civilization she had stored there.) So I looked up to see which engineer was scheduled to replace me. Turned out it was the one who I would now fill in for the next three weeks. Thus, I worked a 16 hour stretch. When I left the station at 8 AM I had been up for at least 26 hours, and was no longer sleepy, needed to eat etc. and in the late afternoon it was so hot in the attic I could not sleep and was afraid that if I did, I would not get up to pull the midnight to 8AM shift (2nd day) of the engineer on vacation I was filling in for. Fortunately, his two day "week end" off was the next two days. At 8AM of the second day I filled in for for him I had been awake for at least 2+2x24 = 50 hours and it was again very hot up in my aunt's attic. At 8PM on that day, I had been awake for 62 hours. I had read that by 100 hours, I would be hallucinating, and decided to "go for it" but as no one was checking** on me so I also set for myself a hard rule / test that would terminate my period of being awake. I promised myself that when I added up the same three (or four, I forget) telephone numbers three times and no two results were the same, I would go to bed and sleep. I did not quite make 100 hours, - about 90 as I recall - when I failed this test and went to bed, somewhat disappointed as I did not hallucinate anything. I think I slept for more than 14 hours and felt fine when I woke, by set alarm, in time to eat and go back the station to pull the third midnight to 8AM shift for the engineer I was filling in for. * Despite this, I lost ~6 pounds, I was so responsible and tense - what if the transmitter crashed*** - could understand why and I fix it? - I wrote in the station log about a dozen meter readings every half hour, (antennae currents and relative phase were legally important) until the day I relieved another engineer and saw there were no entries in the log for the last 6 hours. Both of us had to sign the log so I was worried. He said "I'll fix that." and made up more than 144 numbers to write in. After that I relaxed, wrote in the log when ever I had to get up to go to bathroom or fix a meal. Quickly gained my weight back. ** (My aunt would not be concerned with not seeing me. I had key to her house and she knew I worked strange hours. *** Station was down for nearly 4 hours once when I was on duty, but it was not the transmitter. The studio was several miles away from it, in the city. Some earth mover had cut the leased telephone line. I got switched over to the back up line, but the disk-jockey could not find the switch. Eventually Bill D. got there and we were broadcasting audio again. I had a microphone and knew how to feed its signal in. I toyed with idea of doing my own talk show, but decided just dead air would not get me into trouble.
If I'm not mistaken, your body will eventually say enough is enough and you will pass out on the spot.
I think I read an article which claimed that mental deterioration would occur before serious physical problems. From my own experience, my mother once had what seemed to be a nervous breakdown due to lack of sleep. It was a temporary problem.
Makes me wonder if this applies to meth addicts or people who are awake and sitting in the same position getting blood clots in their legs from not moving or running,or the claim that if you eat a bunch of msg and exercise it lowers taurine in the heart causing death..
One problem with not sleeping is that your brain cells do not get their waste products removed - these are cells, like all cells they metabolize to power their activities and suffer occasional mishaps and breakdowns, but they have trouble getting rid of waste and repairing stuff because the blood/brain barrier interferes. So when you sleep a flow of cerebrospinal fluid, that does have direct contact with them, opens up and bathes them. If you don't sleep, waste and poisons accumulate and undone repair jobs mount up and the brain starts to misfire and break down. This can kill you in any number of ways, starting with heartbeat regulatory malfunctions, loss of temperature regulation, blood flow misgovernance, and other physical functions under more or less continual control by the central nervous system.
Where does this idea that production of CSF slows down during sleep come from? I think the CSF is produced at about 0.3 cc per minute, day or night. I read up on it 30+ years ago as we (at APL / JHU ) had made a very good implanted insulin release pump (licenses to Medtronic and still sold by them). It had an exteral command system telling it after each meal what to release, but user had to estimate the sugar content of his food. Making it "closed loop" required an implanted blood sugar measurement device - they work fine for a couple of weeks until the body encapsulates them. I learned the CSF follows / tracks blood sugar level well at a about 50% reduction in level. I designed system that used optical rotation of sugar solution that had good chance of working for years, but needed about a 6 cm optical path thru the CSF to be accurate. That would have required fusing three vertebrae into one rigid unit. We decided to stay with the open loop system instead. In all the literature there was no indication that the CSF flow changed with sleep, so please give link supporting your idea that is does. Also I think you are falsely assuming the number of brain neurons firing while sleeping decreases significantly. Consciousness uses only a tiny fraction of the neural discharges.
Chinese soccer fan dies from lack of sleep watching World Cup By Jessica Chasmar The Washington Times Monday, June 16, 2014 A 25-year-old soccer fan in China died from lack of sleep after he stayed up several nights in a row to watch the World Cup on television. The man was found in front of his TV at his home in Suzhou, near Shanghai. The time difference between Suzhou and Brazil is 11 hours, meaning fans have to stay up through the night to follow the World Cup, Yahoo Sports reported. Doctors said the death was related to an excessive lack of sleep, but couldn’t be sure whether it was sheer exhaustion or a possible heart attack, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported. The man’s death highlights a growing problem in China linked to Internet and television obsession. During the Euro 2012, a fan died from exhaustion after spending 11 sleepless nights watching every game of the championship. Chinese hospitals also saw a surge in patients admitted with symptoms of exhaustion during the 2006 and 2010 World Cups, Xinhua reported. In 2011, a Chinese man collapsed and died in an video gaming parlor after spending months living there. China has become the first country to brand Internet addiction as a behavioral disorder, and many rehab correctional facilities, similar to military training camps, are scattered throughout the country for Internet-addicted youths. Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ies-lack-sleep-watching-world-/#ixzz34sZYJEhD Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
What? I was referring to this factor (representative link of hundreds on the topic): http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/october2013/10282013clear.htm
My guess is that production isn't increased during speed, but the flow is increased so that toxins get washed out. At least that's what I get from the link iceaura posted. So your findings might be correct anyway, but the conclusion is still the same.
Not self consistent POV. The sheath around the spinal cord is called the dura matre if I member correctly. As name indicates it is tough - has a constant volume with slight pressure internally vs the exterior. Thus the production rate and exit rate are the same. The spinal core does not grow much after birth but you back bone sure does. The nerves at the end do stretch or grow longer but are all separate from each other. Their Latin name translates as the "horse's tail." Near the end of the Dura Sheath there are "Pop Valves" that open to leak a little CSF out into the abdominal cavity but close before the internal pressure drops down to the external - Don't want germs to get into the CSF and then back up to the brain - It does not fight germs well.
I'm not following anything you've posted here. Why did you bring up the rate of CSF production in the first place?
