Experts have determined that lack of sleep can affect the brain as strongly as intoxication, according to “Newsweek”.
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TikTok user @docblock_nyc popularized this claim in a video posted on May 6, explaining that after 19 hours of continuous wakefulness, a person’s cognitive functions are impaired as much as when intoxicated by alcohol.
She also stated that sleeping less than seven hours per day (and doing so for a week or two) would have the same effect on the brain. Now various experts have explained the basis of this opinion.
Neurologist Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse, specializing in sleep medicine and cognitive functions, explained that the claim that sleep deprivation affects the brain as strongly as alcohol originated from a significant study published in the journal “Nature” in 1997.
This study showed that after 17 to 19 hours without sleep, hand and eye coordination skills deteriorated as much as in a person with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%. However, after 20–25 hours without sleep, “functional impairment equals 0.1% – a level exceeding the legal limit in all 50 US states.”
According to her, based on a 2003 study by Van Dongen and colleagues published in the journal “Sleep,” partial sleep restriction had a similar effect: sleeping only six hours per day for 14 consecutive days reduced people’s performance as much as two nights without any sleep, and the decline in abilities equaled the state of a person considered legally intoxicated.
Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse noted that “study participants mostly did not notice that their performance was deteriorating; this shows that we ourselves are not the best judges of our level of sleep deprivation.”
Doctor and “Welzo” medical consultant Dr. Blen Tesfu told “Newsweek” that “both alcohol intoxication and sleep deprivation impair coordination and slow reaction time,” also hindering “making appropriate decisions.”
She pointed out that both intoxicated and sleep-deprived people often “do not realize the extent of their impairment,” which leads to traffic accidents or poor decisions.
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According to J. Fong-Isariyawongse, these studies “confirm how important it is to promote healthy sleep for people of all ages”: adults are recommended to sleep 7–9 hours, teenagers 8–10 hours, and children 9–11 hours.
Dr. Mike Gradisar, head of sleep research at “Sleep Cycle,” warned that sleep deprivation “affects everything – from the immune system to psychological well-being,” and its most common symptoms are irritability, impaired concentration, and memory problems.
“Regarding cognitive functions, the primary ability to process information may slow down and memory capacity may shorten – meaning the amount of information you can temporarily hold in memory decreases, and it takes more time to use it,” he said. “This becomes a problem because if you do not use the information quickly, you forget it and have to start all over again.”
Pulmonologist and sleep medicine specialist Dr. Emma Lin agreed that sleep deprivation “can affect brain activity just like alcohol”: after 19 hours without sleep, a person “may feel quite okay, but their reaction time, attention focus, and decision-making ability may be significantly impaired.”
E. Lin said she has observed this in many patients who have been sleep-deprived for a long time – from healthcare professionals to shift workers or parents.
“Although they say they feel only slight fatigue, brain activity is actually quite strongly impaired,” she said.
She warned that chronic sleep deprivation can cause “even more worrying” consequences, including memory gaps, impaired concentration ability, and lack of energy, and people themselves do not always understand the true cause of these problems.
According to her: “Many think they can get used to sleeping only five or six hours, but in almost all cases, this strategy proves ineffective. The main problem is that people lacking sleep mostly do not realize how strongly their abilities are impaired. Like intoxicated individuals, they tend to underestimate the negative impact.”
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