Today’s Excerpt:

Do you typically get enough sleep?

Read the first part of an article about Randy Gardner in Discovery Magazine:

“Here’s something you might not know: the Guinness Book of World Records doesn’t accept entries for the longest period spent without sleeping. That’s because it’s pretty dangerous to stay awake for days and weeks on end. But they did at one time, and what happened to the current record holder is the very reason they stopped taking submissions. Meet Randy Gardner.

In late December 1963, 17-year-old Randy Gardner enlisted two of his friends, Bruce McAllister and Joe Marciano, to help him pull off a project that was sure to win the science fair: he’d beat the record for most days without sleep.”

Randy Gardner stayed up for 11 days and 25 minutes, while his two friends slept in shifts to keep him company. As the days went on, he felt sick to his stomach, experienced memory loss, couldn’t complete simple tasks, and started seeing things that weren’t actually there.

Decades later, Gardner is convinced that the experiment hurt his ability to fall asleep during his older years. For a long time, he could barely get to sleep at all even when he wanted to. “I was awful to be around,” he says. “Everything upset me.”

Discuss:

• Have you ever not gotten enough sleep? Were you happier or grumpier?
• Can you relate to what Randy Gardner is saying?