There could be so many reasons to burn the midnight oil – from preparing for your finals, doing a night shift, celebrating the New Year or just giving in to someone’s proposal to stay the night, if you know what I mean. Anyway, some knowledge about how to stay awake all night can come handy at the most unexpected moments. Still, being prepared is important, so get yourself equipped with the ten tricks below and enjoy the vigor and vivacity in you even after you have been up for a long time.
10 Effective Tricks to Stay Awake All Night
Preventive sleep
If you can’t store a necessary amount of sleeping hours in advance, you can always rely on napping as your best technique for a quick revamp of your system. It is recommended to have a nap either early in the midday or early in the midnight after 1 a.m. for no more than an hour and a half to accommodate the entire sleeping cycle.
Caffeine
Sure, it’s one of the most obvious remedies against drowsiness. However, you should be aware that it’s likely to build up resistance if you drink more than a couple of cups a day. It’s recommended to refrain from having coffee a day before your expected all-nighter all together to prevent caffeine tolerance.
Cigarettes
Alert! You don’t have to indulge in this bad habit if you’re not a smoker. If you are, this can be one of the options. Nicotine is known to keep sleep away for some time, especially if you have a cigarette outside in the fresh air. Breaking the monotony of working or studying at night with a cigarette also has a positive effect on your ability to concentrate afterwards.
Going no-carb or carb-light on dinner
Learning how to stay awake all night should also include paying extra attention to your diet. If you want to stay all vigorous during your waking hours, you’d better have a light dinner with low or no carbs. Go for foods that are rich in protein and fats as you will need much of them to live through the night and sustain yourself without feeling hungry.
Active breaks
You won’t be able to sustain your vigor and upbeat attitude without going for some active breaks from time to time. Go for a ten-minute walk outside, try doing push-ups or just walk to the bathroom to wash your face with cold water – this could be much better and more effective than just staring blank at the wall.
Fueling your body
It can be anything – from the options that we’ve already mentioned such as coffee and fat-rich foods to letting in as much fresh air as possible and putting on your favorite beats, you should find something invigorating that would work best on you. This should be consistent through the night but not distractive, otherwise you risk losing your productivity.
Forgetting about comfort
It’s easier to fall asleep if you’re comfortably settled on a coach or in your soft chair. In order to learn how to stay awake all night, you should get prepared to feeling extremely uncomfortable like taking a weird position, pinching yourself or even have some pins and needles to put occasionally in your skin to feel a bit refreshing pain. It does take to suffer, doesn’t it?
Getting yourself a partner
By sharing your all-nighter routine with a fellow, you could in fact become more productive and get less distracted, especially when your partner is as interested in your shared activity as you are. Have an occasional conversation or a coffee break, and you will notice how the time flies by while you’re getting everything done meanwhile.
Switching on the brightest lights
Sitting in the dark corner of your hide-out is not a good idea as it can provoke more drowsiness and speed up your crash. Instead, turn on the brightest light possible right up your working or studying area. This will help you stay fully awake and concentrated, keeping you from falling asleep.
Breaking monotony
The surest way to fail your mission of staying awake for the entire night is to keep digging whatever you have to do just for the sake of it, without paying much attention to the level of your effectiveness or state of your mind and body. To bring such self-awareness back, it is recommended to have a refreshing break every hour in order to sustain your productive capacity. You can choose from the list above or come up with your own activities, providing they won’t take more than 15 minutes.
The 3 Side-Effects That You Should Know
Bad memory and weak concentration
The side-effects related to your attention and ability to perceive and remember information are the most noticeable. Lack of sleep is likely to hit your memory first and reduce your attention span. Luckily, such side effects are pretty short-term, and you can recover by getting back on the right sleeping track.
Higher stress levels
The only soothing thing about staying awake when you should be sleeping is that you do get your task done before the deadline. Another thing is its price. As you deprive yourself of sleep, your body starts to produce more cortisol that is known to be a stress hormone. So if you have to prepare for the finals, consider your chances to freak out the next morning because you are so strained.
Weaker immune system
The question of how to stay awake all night can be easily replaced with the question of how to get healthy again if you keep abusing your immune system. As staying up all night usually involves lots of caffeine, irregular eating and burning off your energy reserves, it’s likely to affect your health, especially when such behavior gets repetitive.
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