THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CHATTER => Topic started by: MadassAlex on 14 Aug 2009, 21:37
-
Sometime, we pull all-nighters. This is mostly a poor idea and the following day is mostly filled with misery, or sleep. And unless you want to become nocturnal, you better prepare for some misery.
What methods do we use to stay awake during a day following an all-nighter? Here are some of mine:
- Drink lots and lots and lots of tea, but this might interfere with your stomach if you overdo it.
- Rock the fuck out as hard as you can. Works for a while, but is ultimately tiring.
- Those funny-tasting guana drinks.
- Force your eyes open.
- BY SHEER FORCE OF WILL.
- Play a scary video game. Movies won't work, you will fall asleep.
- Get sexually aroused, but don't have sex or masturbate! If you either of those things, you shall fall asleep.
- Get into an argument.
- Get into an argument on the internet.
- Have a cold shower.
- Get things done that you said you always would but never got around to.
- Make a thread about it.
-
Freq Nasty.
-
Freq Nasty puts me to sleep.
Err, it should be pointed out that effects of orgasm differ from person to person. For some it makes them sleepy, but for others it keeps them up.
Arguments work pretty well.
Also, those 5 hour energy things.
-
Cocaine.
-
eat. anything and everything
read through tv tropes
-
The more time you can spend in the sun around people (assuming temperatures are bearable and you've taken care of necessary sun cancer protection issues) / the less in dark, quiet rooms, the better. Sit by a window in class; have lunch on the patio. Light exercise can help, too--adrenaline and whatnot. When I'm really sleepy and find myself drifting off while at work or school, I take a deep breath and stare at a light for a few seconds without blinking.
Also, it should be noted that of drinks not specifically designed to be energy drinks, espresso still packs the biggest punch (http://www.energyfiend.com/the-caffeine-database) (that is, a full 43.8 mg/oz more than black tea... I mention this because there have got to be people out there other than me who cannot stand most energy drinks).
-
Light exercise is probably the best, I'd say. Getchya adrenaline a-flowin'.
Or if you're the type of person who can't sleep when there's stuff on your mind, stay engaged. Keep active.
That's my two-cents.
-
Alcohol, for whatever reason, seems to work for me. At least, it used to. I would have a bottle's worth of mixed drinks and stay up until 9 the next morning. Haven't tried it since, but I can still say the drunker I am the less prone I am to sleeping voluntarily, because I do not like sleeping drunk.
-
In the army we pull 24hr shifts sometimes where we have to stay awake no matter what for a full day. My ticks have been: playing with my cellphone and updating facebook and QC forums. Texting all day in pointless conversations. Doodles on scrap paper. Talking about the dumbest of things with whoever else is stuck there with me. Can't think of anything else. Luckily i i only have to do this once a week or so.
-
The Internet, internet arguments, hating on yourself.
-
Cocaine.
-
Cannon coffee!
when you make coffee and you have old coffe beans in there normally you throw them away but i this case you dont you just but new coffee bans top if it and make some cannon coffee, yes it taste like poo but it will keep you awake.
-
hating on yourself.
Oh, does it ever!
-
hurting yourself every once in a while. Helps if you are a klutz!
-
Wu Tang medleys.
-
Shoot over six hours of HD video footage over a weekend and then self-administer the task of editing it into a hopefully watchable two hour film.
jesus
on the plus side at least you aren't the folks who made DiG!
-
Also, those 5 hour energy things.
These work by virtue of the fact that you cannot sleep while you are puking your guts out.
-
Ok, if I'm pulling an allnighter and need to be awake and useful all the next day I do something like:
Get a good nights sleep the night before (ideally)
Eat a good breakfast that day
Eat a good lunch
Go to subway, get something like turkey and ham with every vegie, throw that sucker in the fridge.
Get two or three cans of sugarfree Red Bull, sugar free because you don't need that sugar and it'll only make you want to walk around and not do whatever it is you're pulling an all nighter to do.
Eat a good dinner with plenty of carbohydrates and protein and so on. Something like a tuna and mushroom soup pasta bake is quick to prepare and doesn't need tending to while it's cooking and you also inevitably make too much so you've got a tasty snack waiting for you later on. Have a can of red bull with dinner.
Drink Plenty Of Water
At around midnightish have half your subway and the second can of red bull.
Stay Hydrated
Go for a short walk at maybe 1:30, 2ish.
Make Sure You Keep Your Fluids Up
Eat the rest of your subway, drink the last of your red bull at four or five.
Make Sure You Don't Get Dehydrated
Go for a short walk as the sun comes up.
Go about your day as usual, making sure you eat and drink well.
Since you're not really running or doing anything strenuous it's really easy to get dehydrated and not notice. Drink Plenty Of Water! If you don't need it you can just piss it back out.
-
Fucking!
-
Forward planning. Prevention is better than cure!
See also: avoiding altogether things that have to be done "urgently".
-
surgery
panning for gold
sacking carthage
having sex with your sister, anne bolyne
signing the hague convention
not signing the hague convention
building the pyramids
-
Also destroying pyramids!
-
The Internet
This.
Thankfully, there tends to be spots where you can get your second wind, you aren't tired for a couple hours, and you can actually be doing something useful.
-
Overall, MaiAda exposes enough breast to make her an obvious Zia McCabe.
you said if i showed some T&A you'd make me a star
-
Have a friend come round and have him slap you round the face if you look like falling asleep. :-)
-
watch your favourite comedy television show starting from the first episode of the first season
if you are anything like me you will sit in front of your computer or television for a minimum of seven hours straight before you finally say "okay this one is REALLY gonna be the last one and then i'm going to do something else or go to bed for serious"
-
that is the show i was thinking of too!
-
Man that is instantly the show I thought of.
Fuck.
That the best show.
-
I just archive binged like that on Burn Notice, a season per night. :-o
-
Adderall.
Unfortunately.
Also what Matt said.
-
arrested development and clone high
bitter dismay
being productive! like cleaning the house for no reason
bubble spinner (http://www.deadwhale.com/play.php?game=774) or building bridges (http://notdoppler.com/cargobridge.php)
-
- BY SHEER FORCE OF WILL.
Yes. This is the man way of men.
-
Civ 2 or 4
-
Yeah, none of those shows are better than 30 Rock.
The reason is Alec Baldwin. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTj47rcuM-4)
-
When I was at uni I would pull all nighters through use of giant glasses of water all the time (having to pee constantly keeps you up), smoking cigarettes and then keeping myself on a really big sugar high (I don't really like the taste of anything with caffeine in). Usually I would do this by going to the cafe at uni and buying a large chocolate milkshake, a slice of the chocolate mudcake, a brownie and a caramel slice. I would then usually spend the rest of the day bouncing up and down in my seat as I worked.
The aftermath was not great however and I would recommend avoiding all-nighters whereever possible.
-
Ok I must admit. I don't understand the benefit of something like the internet or a tv show for an all-nighter. If you're staying up all night, have decided that you NEED to, then doesn't it mean you have something you need to DO? Maybe I'm just utterly too responsible, but I only stay up until all hours doing nothing (aka the internet) if I know I don't have to get up in the morning. I only pulled all nighters for school, at the point where all the motivation I need is OH SHIT THIS PAPER IS DUE AT 10AM OR I FAIL. At which point, all I can do is stare at my computer and try churn out any bullshit so long as it sounds vaguely related to my subject and might be hammered into something slightly logical after my next 15-minute catnap. Anything that doesn't aid me to that end can't be justified, except occasionally updating FB with my progress, which isn't really justified, but I have bad self-control sometimes.
Anyway I think what I'm saying is, if you stay up all night watching 30 Rock, that's not really an all-nighter. You just didn't go to bed, you could have, but you didn't.
-
i think what the original poster was asking about was not how to pull an all-nighter, but rather how to stay awake the day following one so as to not fall asleep during the day and mess up your circadian rhythm
-
- BY SHEER FORCE OF WILL.
This is how I'm gonna be handling tomorow.
-
circadian rhythm
Get a job in a bar to utterly destroy this phenomenon.
-
no way, working 2.5 part time jobs which are nowhere near each other is bad enough
-
how to stay awake the day following
ohhhhhhh. yeah i run on sheer will and feel like i've got 10x the worst drinking hangover i've ever had. lots of caffeine.
-
Meth!
-
circadian rhythm
Get a job in a bar to utterly destroy this phenomenon.
Pfft, at least a job that's all nights, or all mornings or whatever lets you have a rhythm. For a while in my last retail job, I had a schedule that was 7am-3:30pm on Mon and Tue, Wed off, 3:30-midnight Thu, noon-8:30pm Fri, 3:30-midnight Sat, Sun off. I still have no circadian rhythm and can match my sleep pattern to whatever I have to do on whatever day. At least jet lag is never a problem. Flying to Tokyo from the west coast actually put me ON a normal sleep schedule at the time.
-
circadian rhythm
Get a job in a bar to utterly destroy this phenomenon.
schedule
You guys remember when I was working at the first hotel, the one that sucked? My schedule: 6am-3pm/3pm-11pm/6am-3pm/11pm-9am/1pm-11pm/6am-9am then 1pm-11pm/6am-12pm
That'd be an average week. Sometimes I'd get a day off. Never got overtime though because they had me working at "different rates." My schedule is still fucked from that and that was almost a year ago. Of course, after that I went to an overnight job that kept fucking with me.
-
Pfft, at least a job that's all nights, or all mornings or whatever lets you have a rhythm.
But I work nights and mornings!
How do you have two and a half jobs, tania?
-
I can usually use real loud music. Can't fall asleep to that. A whole-nighter? The In Flames discography.
-
I can't use the load music idea... I don't really know why but I find loud and violent music such as Grindcore or Black metal extremely relaxing at times [Sometimes I put a cd of that genre to fall asleep]
Taking walks is one of the best things imo. I've done it when I was in the woods with some friends. We just walked for hours and hours and it was really cool. Just try to always move.
Wash your face with lots of really cold water, works for me at least :)
-
For some reason, I feel absolutely fine after my all nighter.
-
How do you have two and a half jobs, tania?
one job in markham, one job in north york, and a one day a week thing in etobicoke depending on when i have free time. my hours vary from 7am to 11pm and because i don't own a car i commute by bus 90% of the time. etobicoke is about a 2 hour commute from markham.
it could probably be a lot worse but still, man, i miss having a real job.
-
I've just spent a week pulling almost-all-nighters each night (twice I went to bed at half five and got up at half seven) and it was awesome. The way I stayed awake was by PLAYING TUNES and drinking some excellent coffee.
Last night I was in bed by three and slept til ten thirty today though so I guess I hit the tired. I wasn't any more tired than usual during the week, though.
-
I got wrecked for quite a while when I did a stint at the BBC on the following rotation: 8am-4pm, 8am-4pm, 10am-6pm, 12am-8pm, (next day) 8pm-8am, (next day off).
-
I don't pull all-nighters. I just go to bed at 5 and sleep for two hours before being forced to wake up at 7 to take my mother to the hospital for a checkup. But of course, the next night, I go to bed at 6pm and wake up at noon.
Staying Awake:
coffee and a bright screen in front of you. that is all I need.
-
Usually when I've pulled an all-nighter and it affects me badly the next day, it is difficult to stay awake from one moment to the next. In between coffees and munching on food, I tend to resort to biting my hands.
-
A bout of insomnia brought on by anxiety over having to meet a ladyfriend's mother today has rendered me incapable, baggy of eye and in a right headstate. Lord knows what the old dear will think of me now.
In short: best thing to keep you awake is nagging but not too acute stress, level yet incalculable.
-
Man I do not know how loud music keeps people awake. I think I am just weird in this, but I hit a certain point of exhaustion and become almost narcoleptic. Like, I could be in the middle of a live Marilyn Manson concert and just drift off, or someone could be trying to carry on a conversation with me and I am suddenly incapable of holding my eyes open. It is really weird.
-
Like, I could be in the middle of a live Marilyn Manson concert and just drift off
you say that as if its odd
-
I've almost fallen asleep at a pep rally. That shit was boring.
-
Dogg they are loud though. And fans can get violent.
-
My friend had to punch me in the shoulder.
-
Ok fine how about some example of something else that is ungodly loud and potentially violent, which was the point.
-
http://windward.hawaii.edu/facstaff/nuckols-j/KentState.jpg (http://windward.hawaii.edu/facstaff/nuckols-j/KentState.jpg)
I don't really know what the joke was you were going for here, but I've changed your image to a link because I don't think people should have to be confronted with a picture of a injured or dead guy and a highly distraught woman from the Kent State massacre when they click in this thread. Or just about any other thread, for that matter. - Inlander.
-
That pep rally was loud, I was just smashed from a previous night. Was that unclear?
PS GWAR is ungodly loud and potentially violent.
-
DON'T DO METH, just saying...
I currently going to school and work 10 hour night shifts after 5 hours of straight classes.. Luckily I ca--should be able to get 7 hourish of sleep, however like a douch today I didn't sleep so i'm suffering what you are all talking about at this very moment. I have taken 1 5 hours energy shot the whole time. I'm a little spacey right now and things are going by at an amazing rate, like i'm fucking superman or something I dunno. I'm gonna go try to pick up cars on my next break to test my theory. Also, DON'T FUCKING DO METH!
never done cocaine, but not opposed to people doing it. However, I truly believe if there is anything that should always stay illegal that is meth(even though you can pretty much get the prescription equivilant of such medication from where I work and other pharmacies
-
drinking water and keeping active. Also having music or the TV on helps too while staying active. If its too quiet and I am trying to stay awake I might fall asleep.
-
That pep rally was loud, I was just smashed from a previous night. Was that unclear?
PS GWAR is ungodly loud and potentially violent.
I once dozed off sitting in front of the speakers at a metal show. I can sleep through just about anything though so I was the only one who wasn't really surprised by it.
-
Yeah I did that once at a rave. Then some girl dressed in a leather bikini woke me up by making out with me. ah good times
-
Was this back in college by any chance?
-
fuck you
yes
-
man I cant wait to go back to college in 2 weeks. :mrgreen:
-
fuck you
it was last night
FYP
-
I stay awake by keeping my mind occupied
with how long it is gonna take me to do all this cocaine.
-
i stay awake by trying to go to sleep. it's fucking frustrating.
-
T3h internet and the caffeinated beverage of your choice.
It's what I do anyway.
-
I find with too much caffeine I start to act exactly like a squirrel.
-
i stay awake by trying to go to sleep. it's fucking frustrating.
-
drive all the way to your friend's birthday party in another city an hour away to see old friends and relax and right before falling asleep, have two of the drunken residents of the house you are staying at get into a screaming violent freakout fight literally all goddamn night before you then have to wake up the next morning and drive another hour all the way back to the city you came from to work all day
not that this happened to me last night or that i'm bitter or anything
-
You don't sound bitter at all
-
adderall.
definitely adderall.
my friends used to go on adderall binges and stay up for like two and three days without meaning to. not my cup of tea (i can sleep on adderall, i am the super-sleeper), but whatever works.
-
How about not letting things pile up to the point where you have to pull an all-nighter?
-
How about not letting things pile up to the point where you have to pull an all-nighter?
..........Nope. I'm not getting it.
I just use coffee. Once I had to go to a way out-of-town gig, leaving really early and getting back late at night. I drove the whole way there and back. I barely made it back, too. Coffee was absolutely necessary.
-
I've always had problems sleeping so I don't really have too much to contribute. Coffee or pop is always suggested and is usually a great idea. Start drinking it during the middle of the day and then you won't really feel tired at all. Avoid energy drinks as much as you can, the crashes from those are absolutely horrible when you're trying to pull any kind of all-nighter. The only time I'd suggest using energy drinks to fuel that is when you only need to stay up for maybe another two hours or so, then feel free but when you crash, you'll probably fall asleep.
I've heard that singing out loud helps. My old roommate used to do that and woke me up at 4-6 in the morning constantly.
If you have friends in radically different time zones than you try calling and talking to them, that can really help as well (skype is your best friend for this). If you don't have friends in radically different time zones see if you have a friend who's kind of in the same situation as you are and stick with them.
Snacking also helps. Go to the store and pick up like, a 12 pack of pop, a couple bags of chips, and some cookies. If you snack periodically you'll be able to keep going. Just don't eat a huge meal.
-
Man I do not know how loud music keeps people awake. I think I am just weird in this, but I hit a certain point of exhaustion and become almost narcoleptic. Like, I could be in the middle of a live Marilyn Manson concert and just drift off, or someone could be trying to carry on a conversation with me and I am suddenly incapable of holding my eyes open. It is really weird.
I fell asleep at a Puddle of Mudd concert. When I woke up, I thought the washing machine had been loaded lopsidedly and wash shaking away from the wall - it was the band
-
also, it is pretty easy to stay up really radically late if you are playing the SHIT out of a video game.
see: final fantasy.
-
Final Fantasy always bores the crap out of me, but that's my feeling. I've just never enjoyed that style of game. Though, I do agree with you in principle. The day Mass Effect came out was the day before I was supposed to go visit my parents for Thanksgiving. Luckily, my roommate was driving. I stayed up until I had to leave, because the game was easily engrossing enough. It's exactly the type of RPG I like.
-
i don't play final fantasy either, but my boyfriend stayed up for days playing final fantasy seven when he was younger.
(i got final fantasy and returned it and bought cooking mama.)
but i can say that left4dead has consumed far too many hours of my life, most of those being late-night and morning hours. that game can keep one up.
-
I stayed awake into the wee hours playing Halo 3. The thing is, I was studying for the Physics GRE that month (a month is not nearly long enough to study) and I had banned myself from playing video games. Then one of my friends knocks on my door and wants to try out Halo 3 (my roommate had bought it). I figured that I'd like to try it, and since I kind of hate how repetitive the story is in all of the Halo games, I never wanted to play Halo 3 again. So we kept playing until we beat it. I haven't touched the game since. Also, when I first started playing Half-Life 2, I kept saying "I'll stop when I get to the next stage." It was light out when I went to bed. Video games help keep your mind going. Well, some of them do.
-
Meth!
-
Not laying down. As long as I am sitting up in a chair, or standing, I can usually go on. [THE CHAIR CANNOT HAVE ARMS - VERY IMPORTANT]
Fucking and eating are both bad ideas, don't listen to them. :-P
-
Nothing more effective to me than having to finish a project for the next day :roll: No "artificial" aid used, ever.
In addition, I don't play it but World of Warcraft is a hell of a way to stay aaaaall night up. Some friends of mine have proved it several times.
Last time I spend a whole night up was this July, chating with two friends after a party. At 8 am my eyes began to close, and then what really worked was drinking one gulp of curdled milk (totally unintentional, but my brain and my stomach might took it as a threat, hehe).
-
Pulling an all nighter tonight cause I forgot I have a small assignment due tomorrow morning at 8 am and also I have to go to the dump at 6 am. I don't have an alarm clock lately so I find I've just been pulling all nighters to compensate for the lack of anything to wake me up that early.
It sounds bad just doing this shit because I'm too poor to go out and spend 10 bucks on a clock radio, but since I work nights anyway this isn't really a big deal. I'll probably hold off on caffeine until about 4 am when it might have a chance in hell of helping me achieve the things I have to achieve tomorrow.
The best part about this is I have work at 6am on Wednesday morning so basically tomorrow I will get home from uni at about 10am, fall asleep, wake up about 8pm and need to go back to sleep immediately to get back up for work again the next morning (I suspect another all nighter coming on!)
The worst work/sleep schedule I have ever had, by the way:
Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday: Work at 6 am, uni from about 12-6.
Thursday/Friday: Work from 8 am till 6 pm
Saturday: Work from 6pm til about 5 am
Sunday: My only day off: wake up at about five pm, get blind drunk until about 10 pm, go out clubbing till 5 am, roll into work still munted at 6am and repeat.
Basically a normal working week except slightly longer and with the Saturday night shift thrown in to keep me perpetually off balance. I do miss day shifts for one specific reason though, and that is because sleeping during the day in Summer is FUCKED.
-
I once worked a week of 6:30am til 10:30am, then 2pm til 10pm Monday to Friday, with the worst flu I have ever had in my life (I'm sure the not sleeping thing did not help the flu). That was fucking brutal.
My typical work week at the moment is
Mon: 2pm-10pm
Tue: 6:30am-10:30am + 2pm-10pm
Wed: Day off
Thu: 6:30am-10:30am
Fri: 6:30am-10:30am + 2pm-10pm
Sat: Day off
Sun: 2pm-7:30pm + 8pm-12am
I have often found that it is 4am when I am on Meebo, and I have no idea how.
-
POWERTHIRST!!!! :-D
-
Masturbate all goddamn night.
-
Doesn't work. At least for males. Your body is designed to get sleepy after ejaculation.
-
Go to sleep, all of you.
-
But seriously guys this thread is more about staying up throughout the day after the night itself.
I mean, an all-nighter isn't an all-nighter unless you can pull through the day, too, otherwise it's just delayed sleep and a fucked-up sleep schedule.
-
guiz they have caffeine in pills now. it's like 4 espresso shots in one pill and it works REALLY well.
-
4 espresso shots is way tastier than one pill
it's 6:20 am do I do the 'fucked up sleep schedule' thing or the 'this thread' thing
-
We are entering hour 24.
How is he doing?
I think he is fine for now, but is probably going to completely crash in the next two or three hours.
Hey I am describing my situation in italics.
-
for someone who does not particularly enjoy coffee, pills are a nice option if I absolutely need to stay awake. also less expensive overall, four espresso would probably cost as much as the entire bottle, if not more. I generally try to avoid caffeine in general, but whatever, sometimes I need to stay awake. like for school or the like.
-
Break your heart into a thousand glass shards.
-
I'm serious, though, why do you have to stay awake? Just recently I had a lot of jetlag and ended up staying up for about 45 hours straight. I wouldn't recommend it more than once in a lifetime if it can be avoided. I'm a huge proponent of power naps - chug a caffeinated drink of your choice, fall asleep, and wake up 20-40 minutes later just as the caffeine starts taking effect. That and a shower, and I'm ready for whatever the day throws at me.
I'm still pretty young though, so words like 'circadian rhythm' and 'beauty sleep' don't often cross my mind. Basically I live (on the edge/like a feral creature).
-
Power naps always sounded like a misnomer to me.
-
Only because you've never experienced the power.
-
The caffeine nap
A caffeine nap is a short nap that is preceded by the intake of caffeine. In a driving simulator and a series of studies, Horne and Reyner investigated the effects of cold air, radio, a break with no nap, a nap, caffeine pill vs. placebo and a short nap preceded by caffeine on mildly sleep-deprived subjects. The last mentioned was by far the most effective in reducing driving "incidents" and subjective sleepiness. Caffeine in coffee takes up to a half-hour to have an alerting effect, hence "a short (<15min) nap will not be compromised if it is taken immediately after the coffee
-
i've also heard about how having coffee or tea right before a short nap is the best way to feel great after no sleep because the coffee takes a little while to kick in and you wake up right when it finally does so you get up feeling like a million bucks. or if not a million then, like, a hundred at least.
-
ok I completely fucked my sleeping pattern up doing this garage sale on Saturday
I got home from work at about 4 am on Saturday morning, set up for the garage sale, and wound up just staying up for most of the day so now I'm in this weird sleeping pattern where I don't really want to go to bed until about midday and I wake up at six pm, thinking about just staying up another 24 hours and collapsing at about dawn tomorrow morning to get shit back on track (it is 2 am here now)
alternatively thinking about setting up some kind of 28 hour day so doing days at uni during the week and work at night on weekends will be a bit easier.
-
My tiny baby daughter was born just a little while ago. So I have not been on these forums for a while, and I have been experimenting occasionally with very little sleep (usually she's pretty good, but sometimes...). But now I am back for a few minutes!
Though really, it's something I've done way too often anyway.... My body requires a fairly normal amount of sleep, but it hardly ever really *demands* it. I can pull one all-nighter without ever really feeling sleepy as long as I'm occupied... the only thing I notice is that my eyes feel dry. So I go without sleep every once in a while just because I'm wrapped up in something. Two nights without sleep and it gets painful, though....
My main trick is continuous eating -- avoiding large meals, avoiding junk food or anything that'll give me a sugar rush/crash. You're asking more from your body, so it's even more important to treat it well and nourish it properly.
Avoiding alcohol and caffeine. Seriously, I can't have caffeine if I'm going without sleep because it doesn't make me any more awake; it just really fucks with my mental cohesion... my thoughts just go flying every which way, and if I'm up because I'm working on something requiring focus (or driving...) the scattered concentration is bad. What's the point of being up if I can't think straight?
Things to do for dealing with the next day:
* make to-do lists. I'm noticeably a bit stupid with less sleep, and easily get sidetracked from whatever I ought to be getting done.
* take an extra shower when possible, and (gentlemen) shave if you have any stubble at all. It helps to feel clean and "normal"... dunno why, but avoiding feeling greasy and dirty really helps...
* light exercise (like walking the dog), doing some stretching. Spend more time standing if possible, as long as you're comfortable. Don't spend time in an uncomfortable position -- it might help keep you away for a little while, but it's also wearing you out more.
* as mentioned above, eat regularly, and also stay well-hydrated (not with highly-sugared drinks, though...).
* avoid tasks requiring extended concentration -- long-distance driving is the big one; the forced concentration starts to actually hurt after a while when I'm short on sleep. If I have to do this, I sing, loudly and constantly, and keep my body moving (drumming on the wheel, tapping feet, etc.), eat constantly, and stop for breaks whenever I can (maybe to nap, but more often just to walk around thinking nothing but getting the blood moving). I've had to go as far as slapping myself continuously in the face to stay on the road... that feeling truly sucks and driving while *that* tired should probably be illegal.
-
get some sleep, all of you