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[MadassAlex]

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.

[MrBlu]

Freq Nasty.

[KvP]

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.

[mberan42]

Cocaine.

[Blue Kitty]

eat.  anything and everything
read through tv tropes

[Elizzybeth]

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 (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).

[imapiratearg]

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.

[Dimmukane]

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.

[Aurjay]

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.  

[Drill King]

The Internet, internet arguments, hating on yourself.

[mberan42]

Cocaine.

[Dollface]

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.

[Tom]

hating on yourself.

Oh, does it ever!

[JD]

hurting yourself every once in a while. Helps if you are a klutz!

[ViolentDove]

Wu Tang medleys.

[Johnny C]

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!

[calenlass]

Also, those 5 hour energy things.

These work by virtue of the fact that you cannot sleep while you are puking your guts out.

[McTaggart]

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.

[scarred]

Fucking!

[Inlander]

Forward planning. Prevention is better than cure!

See also: avoiding altogether things that have to be done "urgently".

[Trollstormur]

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

[Zingoleb]

Also destroying pyramids!

[Nodaisho]

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.

[iamiam]

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

[Merrick]

Have a friend come round and have him slap you round the face if you look like falling asleep. 

[tania]

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"

[tania]

that is the show i was thinking of too!

[Ozymandias]

Man that is instantly the show I thought of.

Fuck.

That the best show.

[Jimor]

I just archive binged like that on Burn Notice, a season per night. 

[Ballard]

Adderall.

Unfortunately.

Also what Matt said.

[squawk]

arrested development and clone high

bitter dismay

being productive! like cleaning the house for no reason

bubble spinner or building bridges

[Malek]

- BY SHEER FORCE OF WILL.

Yes. This is the man way of men.

[Alex C]

Civ 2 or 4

[Yunior]

Yeah, none of those shows are better than 30 Rock.

The reason is Alec Baldwin.

[Jimmy the Squid]

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.

[bainidhe_dub]

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.

[tania]

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

[bbq]

- BY SHEER FORCE OF WILL.

This is how I'm gonna be handling tomorow.

[öde]

circadian rhythm

Get a job in a bar to utterly destroy this phenomenon.

[tania]

no way, working 2.5 part time jobs which are nowhere near each other is bad enough

[bainidhe_dub]

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.

[est]

Meth!

[Jimor]

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.

[Jace]

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.

[öde]

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?

[snalin]

I can usually use real loud music. Can't fall asleep to that. A whole-nighter? The In Flames discography.

[Mr. Doctor]

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

[bbq]

For some reason, I feel absolutely fine after my all nighter.

[tania]

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.

[Barmymoo]

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.