‘n“You can’t make plans for the poor,” says a young cop in this tense and painful pandemic drama from India. Filmed in black and white, it is set at the start of a government-imposed lockdown in May 2020 that has resulted in an exodus of 10 million migrant workers from India’s cities. A police officer has been placed in charge of a roadblock in the countryside to prevent poor workers from returning to their families and villages and prevent the spread of the virus. But realizing that help is not coming, the crowd, feeling hungry and abandoned, gets angry. The results are explosive, laying bare the fault lines of caste prejudice and class conflict.

Officer Surya (Rajkummar Rao) is himself from a low-caste family, but he climbs a ladder; he is a competent, decent cop who refuses kickbacks or bribes (just what modern police need). However, his boss never lets him forget his place and we see how Surya has also internalized prejudices. The whole society is at its checkpoint. A wealthy upper-caste woman (Dia Mirza) waltzes, accompanied by her charioteer, fully expecting to sail by. A young woman who worked as a maid in the city risks her life to bring her alcoholic father home to their village. An elderly security guard is on the bus; then a film crew from a news channel arrives.

Taking a scalpel to the caste system, director Anubhav Sinha shows how podcasts and other divisions stifle solidarity. Everyone at this checkpoint is blaming each other. A Hindu rants about a Muslim, accusing Muslims of spreading the virus. The situation is similar to a gasoline spill – waiting for a match to be struck, although, unfortunately, when it happens, after such a complicated and tough drama, everything ends up more like a hiss than an explosion.

We need sleep to strengthen our memory banks, maintain an even mood, flush out toxins, and balance hormones in our bodies. Without it, we will eventually turn into an agitated, delusional mess.

Take happening An 18-year-old espresso drinker who stayed awake during a school trip to Italy and was eventually hospitalized:

“At some point I tried to speak exclusively in rhyme. The next day I gave up speaking altogether. I remember telling people that circles are divine, and made it a rule to hit me on the head when I made mistakes, and eventually broke my own glasses with one blow.

Typical symptoms of sleep deprivation are less noticeable and include fatigue, lethargy, memory problems, and difficulty concentrating. Officially, a person becomes drunk after 24 hours of wakefulness, According to the CDC.

Read more: How to recover from a sleepless night

How long can you go without sleep?

By scientific standards, most wakefulness records stood on shaky ground, although Guinness acknowledged a few before announcing in 1997 that it would no longer sanction insomnia for safety reasons and because of the rare fatal disorder (fatal familial insomnia) that causes the condition.

Guinness World Record Standards

As such, Guinness dismissed the 28-year-old Los Angeles celebrity photographer’s claim in 2010 that he didn’t sleep 968 hoursor more than 40 days, with the help of a “team of monitors” to ensure that he did not doze off.

Guinness last extended the record in 1986 to stuntman Robert McDonald, who rocked in a restaurant rocking chair for 18 days and 21 hours, a more relaxed task than his previous stunts, but not an easy one. “I’m Ready to Crash” he told the reporter“because it was hard for me to stop eating.”

The 1964 recording stood up to immediate scientific scrutiny in the form of a sleep researcher driving a convertible who accompanied 17-year-old Randy Gardner, who had not slept for 11 days. But experts later claimed that he was not fully awake, as he had frequent “microsleeps” lasting several seconds.

Sleep Deprivation Research

Scientific studies examining the effects of sleep deprivation typically keep people awake only for from 24 to 72 hoursfor ethical reasons. The researchers found gradual declines in reaction time, working memory, attentiveness, math ability, and decision making.

A 2004 study who kept 21 volunteers awake for 36 hours on three separate occasions, found that some people suffered from the aforementioned effects, while others seemed to have a particular resistance to sleep deprivation and loss of mental function.

Read more: What happens when we go without sleep?

Can you die from lack of sleep?

Indirectly, yes.

In 2012, a 26-year-old Chinese man died after staying up 11 nights in a row to watch football matches of the European Championship on TV while smoking and drinking beer. Hello reportedly returned home after watching the last game with friends, took a shower, fell asleep around 5 am and never woke up again.

A local emergency room doctor later said the man “was in good health. But staying up all night and not getting enough sleep weakened his immune system, and he drank and smoked while watching. [games]causing his condition.”

familial insomnia

Sleep deprivation also plays a role in a rare genetic disorder, fatal familial insomnia (FFI), which slowly renders its victims unable to sleep for about 18 months (or longer) and eventually kills them. A prion disease such as mad cow disease, FFI causes excruciating panic attacks and paranoia, other mental symptoms including depression.

The nervous symptoms are relentless and “marked by increased heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, sweating, respiration, and stress hormones.” Sleep Foundation.

FFI victims share much in common with delirium tremens, also known as severe alcohol withdrawal, with its hallucinations, extreme anxiety and high blood pressure. But instead of lasting a few days, FFI can last for years as dementia sets in, along with speech and movement difficulties. At some point, a person may completely lose the ability to sleep and inevitably fall into a coma and die.

Norepinephrine, a stimulating neurotransmitter, rushes through the bodies of both DT and FFI sufferers, while the nocturnal peak of sleep-inducing melatonin somehow never occurs.

Read more: Why you should avoid coffee late at night