Here's the longest people have survived without air, food, water, sunshine, or sleep

wilderness survival thirst drinking water shutterstock

Humans can scale the highest mountains and live in the harshest deserts. But we all live precarious lives: ones not far from death if we lose access to simple things like water, food, or even sleep.

How long can we survive without the basics?

Every person and situation is different, though the "rule of threes" gets at the desperate nature of what our bodies need: three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, three weeks without food.

But some extraordinary members of our species have broken and redefined these and other limits of human survival.

Here are some of the records for how long people have lived without staples like air, water, food, sunlight, and sleep.

Warning: Do not attempt to break any of these records yourself. You could die.

The rule of three minutes without air is a good guideline. Hold your breath for longer, and you run the risk of brain damage.

deep breath

Source: American Physiological Society

But some people humans can hold their breath for much longer, as is the case of trained free diving.

Free Diving
Lars Plougmann/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The current world record for static apnea, or holding your breath in water without moving (often face down, unlike this training session), is 11 minutes and 35 seconds, and was set by Stéphane Mifsud in 2009.

Static Apnea
jayhem/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Source: AIDA (International Association for Development of Apnea)

Allow a breath of pure oxygen before the attempt? The record nearly doubles to 22 minutes and 22 seconds. Tom Sietas set it in 2012.

Tom Sietas

Source: Time

We can hold our breath longer underwater than in air because of a mysterious function known as the mammalian diving response. It allows us to more easily subdue the reflex that forces us to breathe — and to drown.

polar bear swimming
Wikimedia Commons

Source: American Physiological Society

And what about water? How long can we go without the vital fluid that comprise two-thirds of our bodies?

bottled water
Brian Smithson/Flickr

Find a source within three days, or you're in trouble.


But the actual time a human can go without water varies wildly, mainly because our bodies must maintain water balance, and our fluid stores must be replenished as we sweat, urinate, and exhale.

Winter Cold Girl Kiev Ukraine

Under extreme conditions, like strenuous exercise under the hot sun, we can sweat out 1.5 liters of water in an hour. Fail to replenish this, and blood volume drops, sweating stops, and we become even hotter and more dehydrated, leading to death in mere hours.

Marathon Running
Associated Press

Source: Scientific American


Cubicle land

Source: Scientific American

Andreas Mihavecz, an 18-year-old Austrian man, may have survived the longest without drinking water: Police accidentally left him in a holding cell for 18 days in 1979. It's a fuzzy record, though, since he allegedly licked condensation off the walls of the prison.

jail prison cell bars
Wikimedia Commons

Source: Arbeiter Zeitung, Der Spiegel


peppers vegetables colors green red orange yellow grocery stores
Dean Hochman / Flickr (CC-BY-2.0)

Food deprivation is also a difficult thing to test ethically, though voluntary hunger strikes give us clues. Mahatma Gandhi's longest of many fasts lasted 21 days.

AP/James A. Mills

But the longest-lasting hunger strike in recorded history was undertaken by Irish political prisoner, Terence MacSwiney, whose 74 day strike ended with his death in 1920.

Terrence macswiney
Kglavin/Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Source: The Irish Independent

During starvation, the body starts using up glycogen in the liver and muscles to produce a sugar called glucose, followed by some amino acids. Then, your body will start processing fat stores and then its own protein.

empty plate fork knife
Flickr/Carly Sheil

Source: BMJ

If the starvation period ends, and the patient's food intake is not carefully monitored, they can retain too much sodium, causing a dangerous accumulation of fluid that can lead to heart failure.

rice bowl

Source: BMJ

And what about sunlight? Can humans live in total darkness?

tree Germany sunlight
Michaela Rehle/Reuters

Source: Slate, CNN

Unfortunately, we know the answer to this from a group of children kept in dark catacombs by a Russian cult in Kazan, Tartarstan until 2012. Many of them, including a 19-year-old, had never seen the sun.

Kazan, Tartarstan
Aleksandr Zykov/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Source: Slate, CNN

But as long as you take in Vitamin D to stave off rickets, you can live without sunlight. Your body's serotonin levels may be disrupted, though, which can affect your sleep and mood.

vitamin D tablets
Vitamin D tablets.
Colin Dunn/Flickr

Source: Slate

And sleep is essential — go without it for too long, and your brain basically starts to fall apart. Randy Gardner, a 17-year-old high school student who stayed awake for 264 hours (11 days) in 1965 for a science fair, is often cited as the record holder.

Woman Sleeping

Source: Scientific American

Others have gone longer than Gardner's 11 days, though they may fall into sleep-like restful states. Others suffer from Fatal Familial Insomnia, which — after months without sleep — leads to brain deterioration and death.

woman not sleeping insomnia

Source: Scientific American

Scientists still aren't clear why exactly we need sleep. It may flush toxins from the brain, or allow us to organize our thoughts into memories and knowledge. But one thing's for sure about sleep: Not getting it is bad news.

sleeping student class boring hat
Pink Sherbet Photography from Utah, USA via Wikimedia Commons

Source: Tech Insider

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