ALARM BELLS
The haunting effects of no sleep after boy, 17, stayed awake for 11 days straight then suffered crippling consequences
Randy Gardner set the world record for sleep deprivation - but paid for it for decades to come
A TEENAGER set the world record for going the longest time without sleep when he stayed awake for a whopping 11 days straight.
But it wasn't without consequences. Randy Gardner ended up crippled by his "idiotic" project for years to come.
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The 17-year-old initially felt a little bit sick, was a tad grumpier than normal, and started slurring his words.
But his problems continued well into adulthood, battling severe insomnia for decades.
He said in an interview in 2017: "I could not sleep.
"I was awful to be around. Everything upset me."
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More than 50 years earlier, in 1963, Gardner entered the Greater San Diego science fair in California, US.
Desperate to impress the judges, he decided to run a sleep deprivation experiment - on himself.
At the time, the record was held by a Hawaiian DJ, who stayed awake for 260 consecutive hours.
But Gardner was confident he could do better, so he enlisted two friends, Bruce McAllister and Joe Marciano, to help him stay alert.
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The high school students wanted to find out what happens to a human's brain when they don't sleep.
"We were idiots, you know, young idiots," McAllister told .
The first couple of days were a breeze - Gardner simply avoided beds and tried to stand up as much as he could.
But by day three, the effects started to set in.
Gardner felt nauseous, his sense of smell was warped, and he soon began hallucinating.
"By the fourth or fifth day, it was like, 'Are you kidding me? This is hard'," he said in an interview with Guinness World Record.
Speaking to in 2017, he added: "It was crazy. I couldn't remember things.
"It was almost like early Alzheimer's."
I was awful to be around. Everything upset me.
Randy Gardner
But the team ploughed on, with McAllister and Marciano taking it in turns to nap while the other kept their friend awake.
Then, after reading about the trio's project in a newspaper, sleep researcher William Dement got in touch.
He visited the schoolboy for the final few days of his experiment to monitor his mental and physical health - and to help him battle his drooping eyelids.
They drove around in his Ford convertible with the radio on full blast, went for walks on the beach, played pinball and basketball, visited the county jail at 3am, and chatted nonstop.
"We did everything," Gardner said. "You name it, we did it."
And the only things he used to remain conscious were Coca Cola, loud music, and regular hot and cold showers.
His two classmates also administered a set of tests every six hours to assess his mental state.
Towards the final nights of the stretch, Gardner was having mood swings, memory loss, slurred speech, and paranoia.
He had trouble with his coordination and struggled to pass 65 when asked to count to 100.
But on January 8, 1964, after 11 days and 25 minutes (or 264 hours), he'd done it; he'd stayed awake longer than anyone else ever had.
He also won first place at the science fair - and a lifetime of fame.
'Don't try this at home'
The teen immediately slept for 14 hours and 46 minutes under observation at a naval hospital.
Gardner said: "I remember when I woke up, I was groggy, but not any groggier than a normal person."
He slept around 10 and a half hours the following night, but then his bedtime pattern pretty much returned to normal.
His mind, however, did not.
Brain scans later revealed Gardner had been "catnapping the entire time", with parts of it asleep and other parts awake.
It possibly explains why he didn't die during the experiment (a benefit of human evolution), but why he went on to battle serious insomnia, and then, in the early 00s, why he pretty much "stopped sleeping".
"I could not sleep," he said.
"I would lay in bed for five, six hours, sleep maybe 15 minutes and wake up again.
"I think it was some karmic payback for my body going, 'OK buddy, yeah, 11 days without sleep when you know damn well you need sleep, well let's try this out for size'.
"I was awful to be around. Everything upset me.
"It was like a continuation of what I did 50 years ago."
Thankfully, things have improved slightly since then, but Gardner, now 78, still struggles to get more than six hours a night.
Several people attempted to break Gardner's record, but it stopped being certified in 1997 over the potential dangers to people's health.
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Craig Glenday, editor in chief at the Guinness World Records, said: "Please do not do this at home. It's not advisable."
According to the NHS, the average adult needs between seven and nine hours a night.
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The health risks of getting no sleep
SLEEP is vital for mental and physical health.
So not getting enough of it can have devastating consequences.
At first, people might notice:
- Daytime sleepiness
- Difficulty concentrating
- Problems multitasking
- Mood changes
- Weight gain
- Slow reaction times
- Poor balance
But long-term sleep deprivation can result in:
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Heart disease
- Hormone imbalances
- Mental health disorders
- Pain
- Problems controlling emotions
- Immunodeficiency
- High blood pressure
- Trouble falling asleep
- Waking up throughout the night
- Waking up feeling unrefreshed
- Snoring or gasping loudly while sleeping
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