How to Stay Awake After An All-Nighter
Lack of sleep, and sometimes its complete absence, is common problem of many modern people. Due to rapid progress in all areas, rhythms of our lives become more intensive. Scientists have previously conducted numerous experiments and studies about negative effect of lack of sleep; I am not going to tell you how staying awake all night can harm your physical health, simply because you already know about this. Conversely, I want to help each one of you to feel better after all-nighter!
Just like any other person, I had faced necessity to stay up all night, and sometimes I still do. However, as time goes by, I started to notice that after years, as we grow older, it gets more difficult to stay awake after the all-nighter. Especially you start feeling it when you get a job. Haven’t you ever felt completely spaced out at work on Monday after sleepless Sunday night? I will never believe that someone can answer no. So I thought about what can I do to survive this “day after”? Below I will gladly share with you some of good ideas that hopefully will be helpful for you as well.
How to overcome fatigue?
When you spend a night on work, studies or other important things that require urgency, you don’t feel how tired you really are, vice versa, you get a sense of accomplishment and feel yourself more like a hero. But later, after sun rises and it’s time to continue your habitual schedule, all the enthusiasm seems to disappear and you realize that you desperately need to have some sleep.
Night without sleep affects the state of your brain, your reaction is slower, you can’t focus on something and, in the majority of cases, effectiveness and productivity of your work reduces. So how can we ease the day after all-nighter?
1. Cold water
When you wash your face with cold water or take cold shower in the morning it gives your body and brain an instantaneous jolt. If cold shower sounds like a little too much for you, then just wash your face. Of course, cold-water shower isn’t the most pleasant thing, but remember that it’s good for your health. It will help you to bring your thoughts in order and will give you some energy to take the following steps to stay awake.
Some of you can try to replace this step with eating some cold ice-cream, but the result won’t be so noticeable.
2. Go for a walk
Short walk in the fresh air improves blood circulation in your body and will help you to wake up and feel better.
3. Make coffee your friend
We all know that coffee is the most famous and working stimulant, so it’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you need to stay awake. But you should remember that too much coffee won’t make any good for you! So it’s important to stick to doctors recommendations and don’t exceed the dose of caffeine.
It’s a scientifically proven fact that couple liters of coffee invigorates as well as couple of cups, so quantity isn’t very important. The main thing is not to drink the whole dose of coffee at once. If you drink more than two cups of coffee right away, you will overload your nervous system and lose concentration.
Therefore, drink slowly a cup or two when you start to feel tired, and it will be even better if you can drink it with some kind of snack. Then, after several hours, you can drink some more.
You can replace coffee with other energy drink, but again don’t drink too much of it.
4. Eat more vitamins
Eliminate from your menu junk food. If you’ll eat fruits and vegetables, you will feel awake and will be able to make this feeling last longer. Fruits such as bananas can charge you with energy for the whole day. Read here more about which foods boost your energy levels.
If you want to stay awake and feel good after sleepless night, you should eat food, which is nutritious and rich on vitamins. Besides fruits and vegetables, choose food that contains a lot of protein. It can be chicken, fish, and dairy products; it’s also good to combine every meal with salad. Try to have 5-6 meals, this way your organism will be receiving enough energy.
5. Drink plenty of water
When you can’t have a good sound sleep, try to make adjustments to other processes in the body, which will contribute to better performance of your brain. Correct drinking regime will help you to cope with unpleasant fatigue.
6. Keep yourself busy
If you will be too worried about your tiredness, you will only aggravate your condition. If you will keep busy with some work, you won’t have time to pay attention to your fatigue, and you will feel more cheerful.
But try to avoid making important decisions or taking work that is too responsible or difficult. You must soberly assess your capabilities, and, after all, overloading your brain isn’t a good thing to do when you are feeling exhausted.
7. Create right environment for yourself
There are several things that can help to keep you awake:
- Bright light reduces the production of melatonin (the hormone responsible for sleep).
- Music stimulates our brain, it’s better if you can find fast and rhythmic melody.
- Ventilate the room, turn on air conditioning or fan. When person stays in the room where it’s cold, he can’t sleep.
8. Don’t drive
If you really want to survive the day after sleepless night, you shouldn’t drive. Studies prove that that sleepy driver isn’t any better than a drunk one. So if you fell had a sleepless night, ask someone to give you a ride to work, walk or go on public transport. And remember, until you can get at least four hours of sleep – no driving!
Sometimes staying up at night is a necessity that each one of us faces at some point. Reasons behind it can be different: big amount of work, studies, preparation for significant event (test, job interview, etc) or maybe stress before important day. As you can see above, there are ways that really work and can help you to survive the day after intensive night. However, there are some nuances. According to one of the most recent studies, sleepless nights have negative effect on your health, brain and body, so don’t make deprivation from sleep your habit, and try to avoid it if there is no critical necessity to stay awake!
