With incline of self-professed paranormal investigators, spending many long extenuating hours, through out the day, and primarily the night at locations, if we were to believe the stone tape theory - residual energy, perhaps in years to come will we be investigating ourselves?

With food for thought on that matter, lets now discuss the real effects of paranormal investigations, late nights and how we deal with sleep deprivation, are we working ourselves into an early grave?

From speaking with many friends and people within the paranormal field, the general consensus I hear is that people believe they can train there bodies to require less sleep than they may have been used too, which is of course a false belief. Sleep is the key to our body functions, sleep is our rest period where by the body can repair itself and help maintain aspects of ourselves including our most valuable asset, the human brain.

Without sleep ‘neurons’ inside us, can misfire causing an adverse effect that can be seen from an individuals behaviour. Of course there are certain parts of our bodies which will regenerate without sleep, one of which being our muscles, sounds like a contradiction keeping in mind your brain is pretty much a muscle, however your constantly using your brain whilst awake so it doesn‘t have time, whereas other muscles can still be rested allowing them time to regenerate.

Sleep gives us time for ‘neutrons’ in our cerebral cortex, through out various stages of sleep state, other stages may allow us to form new memories, and re-organise the days, weeks, months, years, events, allowing us to awake with a much clearer memory. Without sleep whilst on a paranormal investigation, facts may become muddled, with an oversight of potential information critical to research, our attitudes may become more relaxed or aggressive which in turn can prevent us from collating data.

One of the major effects of sleep deprivation which can also taunt your research is hallucinations, regardless weather this are minor or more serious. Research run in these areas have shown that people suffering from sleep deprivation over continued periods of time, can even lead to temporary insanity.

So the next question this brings us too, is can prolonged periods of time without sleep, cause any permanent damage?

Most certainly, prolonged lack of sleep can severally weaken our immune system, causing a decrease in white blood cells, whilst possibly rendering remaining white blood cells less effective, people can also see an increase in body weight due to the fact the body struggles to metabolise sugar, hence stock piling more body fat. This can obviously lead to the possible death of a person suffering from sleep deprivation over prolonged periods of time.

From reading many studies on this subject, one proclaims that people, whom sleep less than 4 hours every day, run the risk of dying within the following six years, in fact three times more likely. Other effects of not sleep may also lead to our brain deteriating.

Final Thoughts

Well now there is plenty of food for thought, and on that note the only words of advice would have to be for those out there in the field, take regular breaks, get plenty of sleep prior and after all investigations, maybe even take a couple of hours out of an investigation to catch up on some sleep, if your investigation has many researchers there, maybe take it in turn whilst some can rest.

Also keep in mind lack of sleep can lead to hallucinations, which in turn can taunt any potential eye whiteness accounts leaving no other option but to dismiss the whole investigation, due to having little credibility.

As much as people love paranormal research lets not be investigating you before time.

Driving Awareness

Driving whilst tired can cause accidents, please rest before driving home from an all night investigation.

Resources:

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/hu/groups/sleep/
http://www.emedicine.com
http://health.ucsd.edu
http://www.nature.com
http://www.ninds.nih.gov
http://www.webmd.com
http://sleepdisorders.about.com

We’ve tried to credit all references used in the production of this article, however if we have missed your reference please let us know.

Article Written by Ghosts-UK for the SJB Network