Lifestyle: Do We Glorify Extreme Sleep Deprivation?

The Race Across America, considered to be the single toughest endurance contest in existence, sends competitors riding 3,000 miles across the continental United States in a matter of days. To finish successfully, cyclists must complete the race in 12 days or less, which means they must ride a minimum of 250 miles per day.

This year's winner finished in eight days and eight hours, and averaged 400 miles of riding per day. How did he accomplish this? He essentially gave up sleep for the duration of the race.

Christoph Strasser, a 28-year-old bike messenger, averaged slightly more than a single hour of sleep per night for the eight nights he was cycling. He rode the first 24 hours of the race before stopping to rest at all, at which point he took a 10-minute nap before getting back on his bike for another day of riding.

Athletes in this race and other ultra-sport endurance competitions face any number of dangers related to accidents and injuries. It is important to acknowledge another very real danger to these competitors: lack of sleep. There's a tendency in our culture to applaud our ability to function without sleep, but the ability to force yourself to go without sleep is really nothing to celebrate. The consequences and risks of this kind of extreme sleep deprivation are serious:

•When the body is deprived of sleep, some regions of the brain begin to shut down. This will impair a person's ability to process information, affecting everything from their judgment and perception to their reaction time, communication and motor skills.

•As sleep deprivation progresses, delusional thinking, panic attacks and hallucinations set in. Race for America winner Christoph Strasser acknowledged that by the final leg of his race, he had no idea where he was or why he was riding a bicycle!

•Sleep deprivation poses an increased risk of heart attack, even in people like these cyclists, who are young, athletic and fit.

Obviously this ultra-cycling race is an extreme example of sleep deprivation and the dangers that accompany it. But you don't need to be an endurance athlete to face dangers to your physical and mental health because of a lack of sleep. Sleep deprivation is linked to a wide range of health problems, including: obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular problems, migraines, reproductive problems and cancer.

Let's celebrate athletes for their exceptional talents and physical accomplishments -- but let's also make sure that sleep deprivation isn't one of them.

The Holy Quran has puts emphasis on sleep, commanding mankind to sleep and rest during the night, this seems to be forgotten by many living in the city:

And He it is Who has made the night a covering for you, and Who has made sleep for rest, and has made the day for rising up. [Holy Quran, 25:48]

And We have made your sleep for rest. [Holy Quran, 78:10]


The Ahmadiyya Post, Lifestyle. By Zubair Ahmed. Sept 21, 2011