Man who didn't sleep for eight days straight reveals surprising impact it had on him

A man who didn't get a wink of sleep for a staggering eight days has detailed the impact it had on his body after spending four weeks in hospital.

In March 2021, Tommy Graves decided to raise money for a homeless charity through a livestream, but his tireless efforts led to him not sleeping for over a week.

"I was working on a project to raise some money for a local homeless charity. There were going to be musicians, actors and performers," he said.

"I just got really excited about it and worked tirelessly on it. The more I worked on it the more stressed I became, the more ideas came into my head and the harder I found it to sleep."

Tommy wouldn't switch off from his work and it soon became days that the Brit hadn't rested.

And as those hours of being awake increased, Tommy says he's ideas became 'more extreme'.

The Brit couldn't switch off (Kennedy)

He continued: "By day six of not sleeping the idea had gone from raising £100 to raising £66million."

The Londoner's family became more concerned and it got to the point where Tommy was admitted to a mental health hospital. Once there, his ideas became ever more extreme.

"I had a plan to end racism, end sexism, end wars, cure cancer, all of these amazing things," Tommy added. "By this point I didn't even know where I was. I thought I was in a television studio, like The Truman Show.

"One of the nurses told me I would get an Oscar if I carried on like this. Most people would have seen that as sarcasm but I thought I'd love to get an Oscar."

Tommy had 'completely left planet Earth' and even thought he was going to have a meeting with the queen at one point.

"I was performing to these cameras at the mental health hospital and I was trying to engage and entertain the audience," he continued. "There was singing, dancing, cartwheels, running up walls. I leaped over a nurse."

After being provided with a ton of medication, Tommy was able to sleep again and spent a total of four weeks in the mental health hospital following a 'manic episode'.

Tommy suffered a 'manic episode' (Kennedy)

Since that very tough time in 2021, Tommy has qualified as a sleep coach and has urged others to take better care of their sleep schedule.

"The experience I had of being a lad living in the UK, it is the norm for weekends to be dedicated to late nights and for weekdays to be more early mornings," he added.

"You end up in this vicious cycle of exhaustion - you're trying to get over the late nights from the weekend and you go into a week of early mornings, and then it's back to the late nights again.

"As soon as I learned to sleep better my brain started working, my productivity got higher, I experienced what life feels like when you're fully rested."