Why is sleep deprivation toxic?

You can live for about 3 days without water, 21 days without food and about 3 minutes without air, but what about sleep?  You can live without sleep for only 11 days.  Somehow, we don’t think it’s critical to life.  It must be important because if we don’t get enough, we die.  Even prehistoric man slept, and they were at serious risk for snoozing in their wild world.  The brain cleans itself while you’re sleeping and if you don’t get enough, toxins build up and you will die.  It takes about 200 hours for this to happen, but it will happen.  And, because the brain is the single-best producer of mind-altering drugs, when you haven’t slept, you feel drugged.  Oh sure, you’ll feel irritable, confused, depressed, have headaches, gain weight and eventually develop Parkinson’s and heart disease, but you’ll keep going because, for you, exhaustion is a badge of honor.  Get some sleep!