Surviving an All-Nighter

[Ubiquitous Duck]

Due to my inevitable failure to ever plan ahead, as always, I started last night what is going to be a two-night destruction of a project for my college course, outside of work.

I survived the morning without major fuss on no sleep, but it is now 1:30pm and the pain is starting to sink in.

Energy drinks have kept me at bay but the noticeable heartbeat change, paired with the drinks eventual ineffectiveness to battle my tiredness forever, has caused me to begin the downward slope.

I need to survive work until 5pm, then return home to resume work on the project. At this rate however, there won't be much of me left to complete it.

I was wondering what methods people have employed to survive an all-nighter, so that could perhaps help me push through to the end of this one? Also, what has driven you to pull an all-nighter in the past? Is it common for you or does it never happen?

Edit: Deleted pointless opening sentence

 

[ClockworkPenguin]

I've never done a double all nighter, so I can't really help with the second day. You need more energy when you're awake, so eating at intervals through the night might be helpful. Taking 5 minute breaks every hour is supposed to help concentration generally as well, so it might help to replace energy drinks with coffee, giving you the same caffeine, but also a short break to brew it up.

Mythbusters also showed that micronaps (15 mins every 2 hours or so) greatly improve performance as well. It just depends on whether you trust yourself to get up again once you lie down.

 

[Liquidprid3]

What coincidence, I just pulled an all nighter last night for a ten page essay. Kill me. I did finish it, though.

My method was listen to dubstep on high volume if I ever got tired. Other times I have dunked my head in cold water. Sometimes a nice shower could work.

 

[Elfgore]

I find that walking about every so often helps keep me awake. If I just lay in bed and work, I'll get tired pretty quickly. Faster paced, loud music like dubstep, rock, metal also tend to kick your brain into high gear. Regular coffee drinks every couple hours helps me stay awake as well.

I can barely do one all nighter, best of luck with two.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

Previous comment about walking around a lot is something I would also recommend, but I tend to do that while working anyway.

Have lots of sugar and caffeine. My first all-nighter pretty much relied solely on chocolate to keep me awake.

Also, make sure there is nothing important to do the next day. After my first all-nighter I fell asleep in both lectures and was on the edge of falling asleep in a group project meeting.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

I find that walking about every so often helps keep me awake. If I just lay in bed and work, I'll get tired pretty quickly. Faster paced, loud music like dubstep, rock, metal also tend to kick your brain into high gear. Regular coffee drinks every couple hours helps me stay awake as well.

I can barely do one all nighter, best of luck with two.

I've never tried the walking around method before, perhaps I will employ it later when I'm at home. Might look a bit mental at work to start pacing around randomly and I can only justify so many trips to the bathroom.

The loud music is not necessarily optimal, as it would have to be encompassed in headphones, as late hours raves are not appreciated by the other working residents of my house... or my dags.

I tend to just ponder and procrastinate for ages, struggle along for ages and eventually hit periods of absolute madness, when it all comes out in a flurry. I wish I could just tap into that speed sooner.

Previous comment about walking around a lot is something I would also recommend, but I tend to do that while working anyway.

Have lots of sugar and caffeine. My first all-nighter pretty much relied solely on chocolate to keep me awake.

Also, make sure there is nothing important to do the next day. After my first all-nighter I fell asleep in both lectures and was on the edge of falling asleep in a group project meeting.

Luckily we've just had easter, so I have readily available chocolate for consumption. I may need to get some more drinks on my way home though for the extra edge!

Tomorrow I have work again (I guess that's important ) and college itself, which will probably be unimportant as most people will spend it doing last minute work on their assignments. Some people go at 7/8am and just work there until the deadline (some point late afternoon/early evening). Even closer calls than I make. Deadline day madness.

I've never done a double all nighter, so I can't really help with the second day. You need more energy when you're awake, so eating at intervals through the night might be helpful. Taking 5 minute breaks every hour is supposed to help concentration generally as well, so it might help to replace energy drinks with coffee, giving you the same caffeine, but also a short break to brew it up.

Mythbusters also showed that micronaps (15 mins every 2 hours or so) greatly improve performance as well. It just depends on whether you trust yourself to get up again once you lie down.

I have to say that I have never taken a nap in my life. They had nap 'pods' at my uni, but they were only trialling them so there were like two for the whole university. You had to book them out in advance (how are you supposed to pre-book that weeks in advance? How would you know you needed it?). People suggested taking those energy drink shots and then napping 20-30 minutes and then the drink will kick in and automatically wake you up, refreshed.

I have tried a couple of times to nap, but never to success. I just ended up lying there, not falling asleep. It just didn't work.

 

[AWAR]

The secret to surviving an all nighter is to do nothing but sleep all day the next day, thus planning ahead before doing it...
Don't drink too much caffeine as it might bring you down later in the day, what I would do is take a long nap after returning from work, waking up and work on your project and then go to sleep again for 3-4 hours till it's time to go to work.

 

[Someone Depressing]

When I did piano in high school, I had to pull all-nighters pretty often. Personally, my biological clock is so vague and awkward that it doesn't matter when I sleep, as long as I have enough caffeine intake, and take at least 20 minutes after I wake up to stretch and complain about life. The most I ever did was a quadruple nighter.

Lots of soda (sugar-free, or it might agree with you, especially with an increasing heartrate), light exercise (very light), but the best thing you could possibly do is sleep a lot beforehand, as if storing energy.

 

[Jenitals]

I recommend a 20 minute-2 hour sleep/nap you can't function properly without sleep, it doesn't matter what you drink or what you do 48 hours no sleep is going to cause lapse in concentration. Do your project, whether it's an essay or whatever, take a nap then read over it. You'll regret it if you don't, make sure you stop drinking energy drinks/eating chocolate at least 4 hours before doing so. 20 minutes won't hurt, have one at regular intervals and you'll feel much better for doing so.

 

[Flutterguy]

Done this plenty of times myself. Avoid sugar, and only caffeine when absolutely necessary. If you need increased alertness for possible danger or finishing up/editing.

Take a few minutes to turn off stimulus and determine if it is worth continuing. Often it is not.

This really beats up your body. I quit doing it last year.

 

[McMullen]

Before you ask how to get through a two-day all-nighter (are you MAD?), you should think hard about just how much of your health you're willing to sacrifice for this project. Sleep deprivation is NOT the minor inconvenience that people treat it as. You are impairing nearly every system in your body, and doing damage, some of it possibly permanent or long-lasting, to your cognition, memory, and all those subtle processes that separate you from insanity. Also, people die from it, usually indirectly but sometimes directly, and sometimes as a complication with other problems (like those people in internet cafes you hear about every few years).

If you're already short on sleep, you probably shouldn't do it.

Caffeine works, but only up to a certain point, and then it just leaves you feeling drained. Also, it causes irregularities with your heartbeat, which you've already noticed. Also, eating sugar is bad advice based on a myth that has been discredited for at least a decade. Complex carbohydrates (breads and starches) might be helpful, but simple sugars are not. The body's usual response to a spike in blood sugar is to increase the amount of insulin in the blood, bringing it back down, possibly below the starting value. The hyper kid thing is bullshit. The kid's hyper because it's a kid who's been told it's about to get hyper under mitigating circumstances; the kid is not hyper because of the sugar.

Finally, expect to work slower and make more mistakes. I found that it's far more productive to just sleep regularly because when I worked 16-19 hours a day, my working hours weren't worth as much as they used to be. Eventually I got to a point where I was getting four hours' worth of work done in nine hours.

Long story short: our culture doesn't place much value on sleep. This is one of those areas where our culture is absolutely and irredeemably full of shit. Pay no attention to it and do what your body is telling you to do instead. I've been there (5 hours a night or less for two or three weeks) and I'm here now (8 hours a night), and I can tell you that here feels better and is more productive.

 

[lacktheknack]

After a certain point, you will stop being tired. A similar phenomena happens when you choose not to eat or go to the bathroom - the urge to fulfill your bodily functions goes away.

At this point, you're living on borrowed time. Streamline everything: Get your work done as quickly and efficiently as possible, hand it in as soon as possible, do EVERYTHING you need to do immediately. As soon as everything is taken care of, go to bed immediately, tired or not.

The "Sleepy Rebound" is a truly terrifying and soul-killing experience (especially if you're prone to night-terrors - think of the "micronap" moments in the newest Nightmare on Elm Street), and it can strike at any time after you've stayed awake for so long that you're no longer tired. The only way to survive it unscathed is to be asleep when it hits.

Warning: You'll feel like you got hit by a truck when you wake up. It'll go away eventually.

 

[Dimitriov]

Before you ask how to get through a two-day all-nighter (are you MAD?), you should think hard about just how much of your health you're willing to sacrifice for this project. Sleep deprivation is NOT the minor inconvenience that people treat it as. You are impairing nearly every system in your body, and doing damage, some of it possibly permanent or long-lasting, to your cognition, memory, and all those subtle processes that separate you from insanity. Also, people die from it, usually indirectly but sometimes directly, and sometimes as a complication with other problems (like those people in internet cafes you hear about every few years).

If you're already short on sleep, you probably shouldn't do it.

Caffeine works, but only up to a certain point, and then it just leaves you feeling drained. Also, it causes irregularities with your heartbeat, which you've already noticed. Also, eating sugar is bad advice based on a myth that has been discredited for at least a decade. Complex carbohydrates (breads and starches) might be helpful, but simple sugars are not. The body's usual response to a spike in blood sugar is to increase the amount of insulin in the blood, bringing it back down, possibly below the starting value. The hyper kid thing is bullshit. The kid's hyper because it's a kid who's been told it's about to get hyper under mitigating circumstances; the kid is not hyper because of the sugar.

Finally, expect to work slower and make more mistakes. I found that it's far more productive to just sleep regularly because when I worked 16-19 hours a day, my working hours weren't worth as much as they used to be. Eventually I got to a point where I was getting four hours' worth of work done in nine hours.

Long story short: our culture doesn't place much value on sleep. This is one of those areas where our culture is absolutely and irredeemably full of shit. Pay no attention to it and do what your body is telling you to do instead. I've been there (5 hours a night or less for two or three weeks) and I'm here now (8 hours a night), and I can tell you that here feels better and is more productive.

It's not that your wrong, but that you don't seem to understand what he's talking about. He has a project that's due. Of course he'd rather sleep, but that's no longer an option.

As someone who has written every single essay at university, for three years now, overnight on the last possible night, I can sympathize (and no obviously that's not a good idea, and I don't want to do it that way, I just have not yet become able to force myself to work on something ahead of time. Knowing that I can research, write, and format a 2000-3000 word essay in 12 hours certainly doesn't help me force myself to start any sooner).


Anyway, the walking thing is great advice. I usually go outside for a half hour walk around 3am. I also always drink an energy drink (usually NOS or Rockstar) but I save that until I am at the point where I can't focus, or read, or keep my eyes open any longer.

Also eating helps but stick to protein. Simple sugars just mess with your blood sugar levels, and complex carbs may well make you sleepy as your body digests it. But lean protein like jerky or something is good.

Other than that good luck and godspeed!

 

[Riverwolf]

First of all, NEVER PUT YOURSELF IN A POSITION WHERE YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO DRIVE IF YOU'RE GOING TO PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER!! Driving while sleep-deprived is just as dangerous, if not potentially more dangerous, as driving buzzed. Your life, and the lives of others, are more important than college.

I would actually suggest limiting caffeine and sugar intake, since overdoing it on any stimulant can be incredibly dangerous(they may be legal, but it's far too often forgotten that both sugar and caffeine are drugs). I'm not saying avoid them altogether, but be mindful of your intake. Loud, fast-paced music is definitely good, though set it up so there's about 5 seconds between songs so there's some reshock when the next song comes. Walking around helps keep the blood flowing. Don't EVER lie down or sit in a comfortable chair; keep yourself in a state of physical discomfort. If you have time to take little naps, make sure you set up an annoyingly loud alarm to wake you up 20 minutes later(though if you're in an apartment, and this applies for the music as well, be mindful of the neighbors so you don't get the police called on you).

Beyond that, absolutely listen to what McMullen wrote. All of that is very true. The past couple of days I haven't really been able to get a full 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and I've been generally more tired, distant, and unfocused than I was when I had better sleep.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

Before you ask how to get through a two-day all-nighter (are you MAD?), you should think hard about just how much of your health you're willing to sacrifice for this project. Sleep deprivation is NOT the minor inconvenience that people treat it as. You are impairing nearly every system in your body, and doing damage, some of it possibly permanent or long-lasting, to your cognition, memory, and all those subtle processes that separate you from insanity. Also, people die from it, usually indirectly but sometimes directly, and sometimes as a complication with other problems (like those people in internet cafes you hear about every few years).

If you're already short on sleep, you probably shouldn't do it.

Caffeine works, but only up to a certain point, and then it just leaves you feeling drained. Also, it causes irregularities with your heartbeat, which you've already noticed. Also, eating sugar is bad advice based on a myth that has been discredited for at least a decade. Complex carbohydrates (breads and starches) might be helpful, but simple sugars are not. The body's usual response to a spike in blood sugar is to increase the amount of insulin in the blood, bringing it back down, possibly below the starting value. The hyper kid thing is bullshit. The kid's hyper because it's a kid who's been told it's about to get hyper under mitigating circumstances; the kid is not hyper because of the sugar.

Finally, expect to work slower and make more mistakes. I found that it's far more productive to just sleep regularly because when I worked 16-19 hours a day, my working hours weren't worth as much as they used to be. Eventually I got to a point where I was getting four hours' worth of work done in nine hours.

Long story short: our culture doesn't place much value on sleep. This is one of those areas where our culture is absolutely and irredeemably full of shit. Pay no attention to it and do what your body is telling you to do instead. I've been there (5 hours a night or less for two or three weeks) and I'm here now (8 hours a night), and I can tell you that here feels better and is more productive.

It turned out in the end to not require a double all-nighter! I finished before I expected and managed to get some shut eye last night. I imagine it was not enough, as I still feel reallllly tired, but I was surprised and happy to get any.

It's not a method that I am endorsing on any reasoned basis, just trying to get my work done in the time I have. I really shouldn't of left it so last minute, but I wasn't even aware until a couple of days ago that this particular project was due a month before the other two, so had to take drastic measures.

To be honest, after the 3rd/4th can of energy drink, I really couldn't bear the idea of drinking them anymore and actually stopped midway through a can. I couldn't make myself have any more of it, so the last few hours I did 'sober'.

I will make a concerned effort to be less of an idiot next month and not to do this to myself again.

After a certain point, you will stop being tired. A similar phenomena happens when you choose not to eat or go to the bathroom - the urge to fulfill your bodily functions goes away.

At this point, you're living on borrowed time. Streamline everything: Get your work done as quickly and efficiently as possible, hand it in as soon as possible, do EVERYTHING you need to do immediately. As soon as everything is taken care of, go to bed immediately, tired or not.

The "Sleepy Rebound" is a truly terrifying and soul-killing experience (especially if you're prone to night-terrors - think of the "micronap" moments in the newest Nightmare on Elm Street), and it can strike at any time after you've stayed awake for so long that you're no longer tired. The only way to survive it unscathed is to be asleep when it hits.

Warning: You'll feel like you got hit by a truck when you wake up. It'll go away eventually.

To be honest, I'm not sure if I ever felt this serene stage of no longer being tired. I felt happy and fulfilled once I had finished and that was a nice refresher, but I knew I was still needing of sleep, so turned in asap. Not quite the double all-nighter I was expecting.

It felt awesome to get into bed, almost worth doing more all-nighters just to recreate that feeling, but I definitely am feeling it this morning, as I did get some sleep, but evidently not enough.

Done this plenty of times myself. Avoid sugar, and only caffeine when absolutely necessary. If you need increased alertness for possible danger or finishing up/editing.

Take a few minutes to turn off stimulus and determine if it is worth continuing. Often it is not.

This really beats up your body. I quit doing it last year.

It got to the point where I couldn't stand having any more of the sugary/caffeine energy drinks. Couldn't stomach the idea of any more of them, so had like a few hours of nothing, before turning in and getting some sleep.

I think the coffees are actually a better move than the energy drinks, but for some reason I have a thing in my head that tells me to get energy drinks in for project nights and it has become part of my prep, so I have to do it. I still have half of the cans "undrunk", but had to do the act of buying them.

 

[McMullen]

Before you ask how to get through a two-day all-nighter (are you MAD?), you should think hard about just how much of your health you're willing to sacrifice for this project. Sleep deprivation is NOT the minor inconvenience that people treat it as. You are impairing nearly every system in your body, and doing damage, some of it possibly permanent or long-lasting, to your cognition, memory, and all those subtle processes that separate you from insanity. Also, people die from it, usually indirectly but sometimes directly, and sometimes as a complication with other problems (like those people in internet cafes you hear about every few years).

If you're already short on sleep, you probably shouldn't do it.

Caffeine works, but only up to a certain point, and then it just leaves you feeling drained. Also, it causes irregularities with your heartbeat, which you've already noticed. Also, eating sugar is bad advice based on a myth that has been discredited for at least a decade. Complex carbohydrates (breads and starches) might be helpful, but simple sugars are not. The body's usual response to a spike in blood sugar is to increase the amount of insulin in the blood, bringing it back down, possibly below the starting value. The hyper kid thing is bullshit. The kid's hyper because it's a kid who's been told it's about to get hyper under mitigating circumstances; the kid is not hyper because of the sugar.

Finally, expect to work slower and make more mistakes. I found that it's far more productive to just sleep regularly because when I worked 16-19 hours a day, my working hours weren't worth as much as they used to be. Eventually I got to a point where I was getting four hours' worth of work done in nine hours.

Long story short: our culture doesn't place much value on sleep. This is one of those areas where our culture is absolutely and irredeemably full of shit. Pay no attention to it and do what your body is telling you to do instead. I've been there (5 hours a night or less for two or three weeks) and I'm here now (8 hours a night), and I can tell you that here feels better and is more productive.

It's not that your wrong, but that you don't seem to understand what he's talking about. He has a project that's due. Of course he'd rather sleep, but that's no longer an option.

I know what it means to have immovable deadlines, and I know he'd rather sleep and that he thinks it's not an option. I wasn't arguing that. The point I was getting at is that diminishing returns apply, and after a day without sleep, you're not actually saving any time by continuing to work because your efficiency will be so drastically reduced. You're also probably not likely to be producing good quality work. It's far better to get at least a small amount of sleep or take short naps.

EDIT @OP:
Glad it worked out for you. Good luck on not getting in that position again, and if your school schedule allows it or you can get to sleep early enough, I recommend leaving the alarm off for a week.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

Before you ask how to get through a two-day all-nighter (are you MAD?), you should think hard about just how much of your health you're willing to sacrifice for this project. Sleep deprivation is NOT the minor inconvenience that people treat it as. You are impairing nearly every system in your body, and doing damage, some of it possibly permanent or long-lasting, to your cognition, memory, and all those subtle processes that separate you from insanity. Also, people die from it, usually indirectly but sometimes directly, and sometimes as a complication with other problems (like those people in internet cafes you hear about every few years).

If you're already short on sleep, you probably shouldn't do it.

Caffeine works, but only up to a certain point, and then it just leaves you feeling drained. Also, it causes irregularities with your heartbeat, which you've already noticed. Also, eating sugar is bad advice based on a myth that has been discredited for at least a decade. Complex carbohydrates (breads and starches) might be helpful, but simple sugars are not. The body's usual response to a spike in blood sugar is to increase the amount of insulin in the blood, bringing it back down, possibly below the starting value. The hyper kid thing is bullshit. The kid's hyper because it's a kid who's been told it's about to get hyper under mitigating circumstances; the kid is not hyper because of the sugar.

Finally, expect to work slower and make more mistakes. I found that it's far more productive to just sleep regularly because when I worked 16-19 hours a day, my working hours weren't worth as much as they used to be. Eventually I got to a point where I was getting four hours' worth of work done in nine hours.

Long story short: our culture doesn't place much value on sleep. This is one of those areas where our culture is absolutely and irredeemably full of shit. Pay no attention to it and do what your body is telling you to do instead. I've been there (5 hours a night or less for two or three weeks) and I'm here now (8 hours a night), and I can tell you that here feels better and is more productive.

It's not that your wrong, but that you don't seem to understand what he's talking about. He has a project that's due. Of course he'd rather sleep, but that's no longer an option.

I know what it means to have immovable deadlines, and I know he'd rather sleep and that he thinks it's not an option. I wasn't arguing that. The point I was getting at is that diminishing returns apply, and after a day without sleep, you're not actually saving any time by continuing to work because your efficiency will be so drastically reduced. You're also probably not likely to be producing good quality work. It's far better to get at least a small amount of sleep or take short naps.

EDIT @OP:
Glad it worked out for you. Good luck on not getting in that position again, and if your school schedule allows it or you can get to sleep early enough, I recommend leaving the alarm off for a week.

Hahaha. Sadly not. It's a work schedule and it starts at 6am everyday, no shifting that.

Hopefully, once I am qualified, I'll be able to quit. Hence college.

 

[karma9308]

Ah! My specialty. Granted, this comes more from I have a natural resistance to sleeping that is actually incredibly annoying (it's 6 am here and I haven't slept in 24+ hours...yay). Energy drinks are great but use sparingly! If you drink them on a regular basis you're screwed unless you find something that has double the normal concentration. Try and take several breaks to focus on something that gets your mind off things and something to give your brain something to focus on that you like. If you can, find someone that can chat with you as a friend is great for keeping you distracted during down moments.

A double all nighter though? After working? No matter how much pills or energy drinks you consume, you just have to have a lot of willpower to get through it. Always focus on the now, don't try and lose focus and let your mind wander, that's your main enemy as it will lead to daydreams which will tire you out.

tl;dr: Keep your focus on the task at hand, energy drinks, breaks, talking to someone (or yourself).

 

[Vicarious Reality]

Energy drinks will take your energy from you