Tony Wright is an author and consciousness researcher from Penzance, Cornwall, England. He claims to hold the world record for sleep deprivation. [1]
Wright claimed the world sleep deprivation record in May 2007 with 266 continuous hours of sleeplessness. He based his record-breaking attempt on the belief that Randy Gardner was officially recognized by the Guinness World Records as holding the deprivation record of 264 hours. [2] However, the Guinness record was actually for 11½ days, or 276 hours, and was set by Toimi Soini in Hamina, Finland, from February 5 to the 15th, 1964, and Wright did not in fact break the Guinness record. [2] However, Wright's friend Graham Gynn asserts that the Gardner record was the accepted record in the sleep research community. [2] Regardless, Wright's record claim was not credited by the Guinness Book of Records, since after 1990 it no longer accepted records related to sleep deprivation due to the health risks. [2] [3]
Wright claimed that his deliberate insomnia was made possible in part by his biochemically complex diet of raw foods (carrot juice, bananas, avocados, pineapple and nuts). [4] [5] He also asserted that his motivation for breaking the world sleep deprivation record was neither fame nor fortune, but that his intention was to promote his radical theories of human neurological degeneration that were proposed in his self-published book.
Sleep is a state of reduced mental and physical activity in which consciousness is altered and certain sensory activity is inhibited. During sleep, there is a marked decrease in muscle activity and interactions with the surrounding environment. While sleep differs from wakefulness in terms of the ability to react to stimuli, it still involves active brain patterns, making it more reactive than a coma or disorders of consciousness.
Guinness World Records, known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as The Guinness Book of Records and in previous United States editions as The Guinness Book of World Records, is a British reference book published annually, listing world records both of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. The brainchild of Sir Hugh Beaver, the book was co-founded by twin brothers Norris and Ross McWhirter in Fleet Street, London, in August 1955.
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Penzance is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about 64 miles (103 km) west-southwest of Plymouth and 255 miles (410 km) west-southwest of London. Situated in the shelter of Mount's Bay, the town faces south-east onto the English Channel, is bordered to the west by the fishing port of Newlyn, to the north by the civil parish of Madron and to the east by the civil parish of Ludgvan. The civil parish includes the town of Newlyn and the villages of Mousehole, Paul, Gulval, and Heamoor. Granted various royal charters from 1512 onwards and incorporated on 9 May 1614, it has a population of 21,200.
Sleep debt or sleep deficit is the cumulative effect of not getting enough sleep. A large sleep debt may lead to mental or physical fatigue, and can adversely affect one's mood, energy, and ability to think clearly.
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Randy Gardner is an American man from San Diego, California, who once held the record for the longest amount of time a human has gone without sleep. In December 1963/January 1964, 17-year-old Gardner stayed awake for 11 days and 24 minutes, breaking the previous record of 260 hours held by Tom Rounds. Gardner’s record was then broken multiple times until 1997, when Guinness World Records ceased accepting new attempts for safety reasons. At that point, the record was held by Robert McDonald at 18 days and 21 hours.
Shift work sleep disorder (SWSD) is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder characterized by insomnia, excessive sleepiness, or both affecting people whose work hours overlap with the typical sleep period. Insomnia can be the difficulty to fall asleep or to wake up before the individual has slept enough. About 20% of the working population participates in shift work. SWSD commonly goes undiagnosed, so it's estimated that 10–40% of shift workers have SWSD. The excessive sleepiness appears when the individual has to be productive, awake and alert. Both symptoms are predominant in SWSD. There are numerous shift work schedules, and they may be permanent, intermittent, or rotating; consequently, the manifestations of SWSD are quite variable. Most people with different schedules than the ordinary one might have these symptoms but the difference is that SWSD is continual, long-term, and starts to interfere with the individual's life.
Sleep deprivation, also known as sleep insufficiency or sleeplessness, is the condition of not having adequate duration and/or quality of sleep to support decent alertness, performance, and health. It can be either chronic or acute and may vary widely in severity. All known animals sleep or exhibit some form of sleep behavior, and the importance of sleep is self-evident for humans, as nearly a third of a person's life is spent sleeping.
Mark de Rond is Professor of Organizational Ethnography at Cambridge University. He studies people by living with them under similar conditions so as to better understand how they experience, and develop meaningful relations to the world around them. His fieldwork has included stints with war surgeons in Afghanistan, elite rowers in Cambridge, biochemists in Oxford, comedians in London and Edinburgh, and peace activists on a protest march from Berlin to Aleppo. It also includes an effort to row the length of the Amazon River so as to learn, first-hand, how collaboration unfolds and how problems are solved under trying conditions.
"(Last Night) I Didn't Get to Sleep at All" is a song written by Tony Macaulay and performed by The 5th Dimension with instrumental backing from L.A. session musicians from the Wrecking Crew. The song appeared on the band's album Individually & Collectively, produced by Bones Howe and arranged by Bill Holman. The song was a top 10 hit for the group in the U.S., and their sixth and final platinum record.
Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams is a 2017 popular science book about sleep written by Matthew Walker, an English scientist and the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in neuroscience and psychology. In the book, Walker discusses about the importance of sleeping, the side effects of failing to do so, and its impact on society.
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Matthew Walker is a British author, scientist and professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Tony Wright has pushed it as far as any human we know of