Sleep expert says Norme’s viral no-sleep stream wasn’t as dangerous as everyone thought

YouTube streamer ‘Norme’ sparked backlash across social media due to this viral no-sleep broadcast in August — but experts say this might not have been as unhealthy as some netizens fear.

In August 2024, a YouTuber named ‘Norme’ set out on a mission to break the world record for the longest time staying awake without sleeping.

After going 200 hours (around eight days) without sleep, viewers began to express concerns for his health, urging him to quit his self-imposed challenge and catch some z’s.

That didn’t stop Norme, however, who continued his quest to stay awake for 12 days straight. During this time, both YouTube and Kick shut down his broadcast — but that didn’t stop him.

After switching to Rumble, Norme finally met his goal, successfully going 264 hours and 24 minutes without snoozing.

Norme’s broadcast was worrying for many viewers due to some behaviors he exhibited during his experiment, with the streamer collapsing or seemingly nodding off at random points, forcing his friends to step in and keep him awake.

We spoke to adult sleep physiologist Stephanie Romiszewski of the UK’s Sleepyhead Clinic to gauge just how harmful going such a long time without sleeping can be… and it turns out that Norme might not have gone the entire time without getting in some microscopic naps.

According to Stephanie, who holds a BSc Hons degree in Psychology and an MSc degree in Behavioral Sleep Medicine, the body has an extremely strong mechanism to sleep when needed, and it’s incredibly difficult to resist shutting down when you’re truly tired.

“Even in the most studied cases in the world of staying awake, with people being observed by clinicians 24/7, it is likely they did experience microsleeps, which can only really be picked up by monitoring brain wave activity,” she told us. 

“The most worrying side effect of actively trying not to sleep is in fact the microsleeps, making certain activities such as driving very dangerous. It is true that your performance, immune system and memory, without the regular cleansing/restorative system that sleep provides, will decline.”

Instagram: normeenorme

Norme sparked concern from netizens after going 200 hours without sleeping in early August 2024.

According to Stephanie, the negative effects of going so long without sleep are much higher if this were a challenge that Norme undertook on a regular basis — but it could be far worse for those who have mental and physical health conditions.

“If you did this regularly (trying to force yourself to stay up until extreme times, then ‘recovery sleeping’, then doing it over and over again), it is likely to cause more significant problems over time, as your body loses the predictable and regular opportunity to cleanse/restore/rejuvenate,” she explained. 

“If you are susceptible to mental health conditions or have physical disease, and/or if you’re taking medications whilst you do this, it’s likely the effects will be far worse. In men specifically, it is associated with increased mortality.

“It’s likely that doing this as a one-off (for an otherwise healthy individual) will not be too harmful, other than watching cognitive performance decline and not feeling 100%. It is the act of trying this kind of experiment over and over again no matter your condition, which would start to impact your health long term, such as increasing your chances of cardiovascular diseases (like heart attacks and strokes), obesity and serious mental health conditions.”

Stephanie says there isn’t much well-documented evidence regarding the long-term impacts of staying awake so long without sleeping, explaining that the answer is likely “down to individual differences such as your health before you started, and any medication you may have been on” at the time.

The NIH also corroborates Stephanie’s statements, saying the “cumulative effects of sleep loss and sleep disorders have been associated with a wide range of deleterious health consequences including an increased risk of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, depression, heart attack, and stroke.” 

Although Norme’s no-sleep stream definitely isn’t something you should try at home, as per Stephanie’s expertise, it doesn’t look like this is something that will prove vastly destructive to his physical health as a one-off experiment… but if he were to try it over and over again, it would most certainly pose a major problem for him.