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What happens to your body if you don't let it sleep?

Students regard 'pulling all-nighters' as a necessary evil. But beware: sleep deprivation can do serious damage
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After months oflabour, putting the finishing touches to a project that represents the culmination of your undergraduate education can turn into a caffeine-fuelled ordeal. Especially when things go horribly, horriblywrong.
I still have nightmares about my final meeting with my supervisor, three days before submission. She casually informed me that all the work I'd done in the past three months had been a waste oftime. The error was minor, but 20 pages had to be consigned to the garbage bin. I had 72 hours to do what I could to repair the damage...
All-nighters are pretty much synonymous with studentlifestyles. But frequent sleep deprivation over four years can have drastic long-term consequences, unleashing a neurological cycle of degeneration.
Susan Redline, a professor of sleep medicine in Boston,has found links between sleep deprivation and the onset of neuropsychiatric disorders such as anxiety and bipolar depression.
Over time, forcing the body to stay awake also affects blood pressure andlevels of inflammation, resulting in an increased susceptibility to heart disease and cancer.
So those are the long-term issues. But what about the immediate consequences?
Recent research atHarvard and Berkeley has just revealed a very dangerous side effect of pulling an all-nighter – short term euphoria.
After missing a night's sleep, the mesolimbic pathway (the neural circuit thatcontrols pleasure and reward) is strongly stimulated. The process is driven by a chemical called dopamine.
The higher dopamine levels that result from your sleepless night may mean you enjoy a boost inmotivation, positivity, even sex drive. You may think that sounds good; unfortunately you'd be wrong.
Not only are these feelings brief, but the dopamine surge also encourages addiction and impulsive...