When Tommy Graves stopped sleeping, he did not realise how quickly his mind would begin to unravel. In 2021, the Bermondsey resident was 27 and working as an events manager and DJ. He had thrown himself into organising a livestream fundraiser for a local homeless charity, coordinating musicians, actors and performers. What began as passion slowly turned into pressure and then into something far more dangerous.
“I just got really excited about it and worked tirelessly,” Tommy, now 32, recalls in a media interaction. “The more I worked, the more stressed I became. The more ideas I had, the harder it was to sleep.”
At first, he assumed it was just a few restless nights. But his brain refused to switch off. As the days passed, his thoughts became bigger, louder and more extreme.
“By day six of not sleeping, the idea had gone from raising £100 to raising £66 million,” he says. “I was hearing and thinking and seeing things that were not real.”
When exhaustion turns into psychosis
On the sixth day without sleep, Tommy was admitted to a mental health hospital after his family realised something was seriously wrong.
“I was extremely coherent but I was not making sense,” he says. “I had plans to end racism, end sexism, end wars, cure cancer. I genuinely believed I could do all of it.”
He also became convinced that the hospital staff were not medical professionals, but actors filming him for a reality show similar to The Truman Show.
“I thought I was in a television studio,” he says. “When a nurse joked that I’d get an Oscar if I carried on, I didn’t hear sarcasm. I thought, ‘I’d love to get an Oscar.’”
Tommy sang, danced and even performed cartwheels in front of the imagined cameras. It was only after doctors prescribed medication that he was finally able to sleep.
The diagnosis was of a manic episode with psychosis triggered by severe stress and sleep deprivation.
It took him four weeks to recover physically. The emotional aftermath lasted much longer.
“When I was discharged, I felt incredibly embarrassed,” he says. “My life felt like it had been blown apart. My doctor told me if I didn’t learn how to sleep properly, I could risk losing my sense of reality again.” That warning stayed with him.
The effect of sleep deprivation on mental health
Dr. Astik Joshi, Child, Adolescent and Forensic Psychiatrist at Fortis Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, New Delhi, says Tommy’s experience, though extreme, highlights a very real medical risk.
“The effects of sleep deprivation on brain function and emotional stability are well documented,” Dr. Joshi explains. “Poor sleep can cause mood instability, anxiety, depression, irritability and poor concentration. In severe cases, prolonged sleep loss can trigger psychosis.”
He adds that people with pre-existing mental health conditions are particularly vulnerable. “Sleep disturbance can worsen underlying psychiatric disorders and increase the risk of relapse.”
The damage is not limited to mental health. “Chronic sleep deprivation weakens the immune system, increases blood pressure, disrupts hormones, contributes to weight gain and raises the risk of heart disease and diabetes,” Dr. Joshi says.
According to him, adults should aim for seven to eight hours of quality sleep each night. “Regularly sleeping less than six hours significantly increases both short-term psychological risks and long-term physical illness,” he notes. “Sleep is not optional. It is one of the three main pillars of health, alongside nutrition and exercise.”
A cultural problem?
Tommy believes lifestyle habits also play a role. In the UK, he says, late weekends followed by early weekday mornings create a cycle of exhaustion.
“You spend the weekend staying up late, then you’re waking up early for work,” he says. “You never really recover. Then the next weekend comes and you do it all again.”
After his hospital stay, Tommy began reading everything he could about sleep science. What started as self-help turned into a new calling. In April 2025, he qualified as a sleep coach.
“I never thought something like that could happen to me,” he says. “That fear pushed me to take sleep seriously.”
Today, he shares his story openly in the hope that others will recognise the warning signs earlier than he did.
“People treat sleep like it’s negotiable,” he says. “I learned the hard way that it’s not.”