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This is my third year at university and so far I have never had to pull an all nighter. However, in the past few weeks, I've really had alot of school work pile up on me including 3 exams this week and I'm done studying for one of the exams and I feel like if i study the rest of today and all day tomorrow I'll be in good shape for the 2nd one as well. But then I'll only have one day to study for the 3rd one and was thinking about pulling an all nighter that day.
However, I'm pretty new to all nighters and since alot of us at TL are/used to be college students I just thought I'd ask a few questions here and see if there are any techniques that are good in staying up all night or if I should just sleep for two hours and wake up feeling like crap. But I reeeally wanna stay up and study if I can.
Of course I can't ask about all nighters without mentioning redbull but my question is do they really work? I'm asking this becuz like I said I never had to pull an all nighter yet so consequently i never needed a redbull so I never tried it. Does it only work for a couple hours then you have to drink another can? I also heard that after two hours of drinking it, u crash and I'm scared I might sleep through my alarm or something.
Is there an energy drink besides red bull that works better for all nighters? Or it doesn't have to be an energy drink, what are some of the things you guys do to stay awake all night? Any suggestions that have worked for you in the past are welcome.
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On March 20 2012 10:33 MaRiNe23 wrote:Of course I can't ask about all nighters without mentioning redbull but my question is do they really work? I'm asking this becuz like I said I never had to pull an all nighter yet so consequently i never needed a redbull so I never tried it. Does it only work for a couple hours then you have to drink another can? I also heard that after two hours of drinking it, u crash and I'm scared I might sleep through my alarm or something.
I'm in grad school now and have never needed to pull one. Usually I get like 8 hours of sleep.. rough weeks is 6. Do they work - certainly they could if you can stay focused and attentive and absorb information continuously for hours straight. I suspect you'll probably end up tired, irritated, distracted, etc. and your productivity will drop drastically as you get more and more tired. Some people get by with them though so I'm not going to say they can't work. More of a personal thing I would say. It seems to be common sense that you're not going to learn well when you're tired though.
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Australia8532 Posts
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One thing that helped me through my all nighters was to convert to a polyphasic sleep schedule/20 min nap every couple hours for that day. Since there was always the possibility that I wouldn't wake from an alarm, I had a friend (on the same assignment) call me after the 20 minutes.
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If you have a test the next day, it will probably be better to sleep so you will be able to focus. If you feel like shit and can't remember anything because you're tired, staying up all night to study won't have done any good. I never had much luck with all nighters, and if you're not used to it, it will be really, really difficult, especially if you're doing something as boring as studying.
I have no experience with energy drinks, so I don't know.
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Is this medication easy to get ahold of at like say like the pharmacy department at Walmart or something? I'm probabaly wrong in this but I think I heard from somewhere that taking adderall is illegal(?)
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Australia8532 Posts
Yeah prescription medication without a prescription is generally illegal.
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The first time I had an energy drink was an AMP or AMP'D or something like that. They're pretty much all the same stuff. I, like you, had never had anything like that before, never drank coffee, etc. I was pretty wired for like 6+ hours, and then just slowly calmed down with no crash. It worked well for me, I got a ton of studying done.
Also, don't necessarily "commit" to an all-nighter unless you actually need it. Remember that a night is a long time, and you might find that you only need to stay up until 2 or 3 or 4am to prepare adequately for an exam. If that's the case, get some sleep!
What day and time of day are your exams? I would say don't pull an all-nighter until the night before the last one, and only if it's in the morning, since you might risk just being too tired if you pull an all-nighter and then are up during the next day until the afternoon.
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On March 20 2012 10:41 MaRiNe23 wrote:Is this medication easy to get ahold of at like say like the pharmacy department at Walmart or something? I'm probabaly wrong in this but I think I heard from somewhere that taking adderall is illegal(?)
United States: The United States Drug Enforcement Agency classifies Adderall as a Schedule II substance. According to the US DEA, these are substances with a high potential for abuse, but with legitimate and accepted medical uses. This makes it a criminal offense to possess Adderall without a valid prescription and limits the amount a medical provider can prescribe to a 90 day supply, which must be three separate prescriptions, each for a 30 day supply and with instructions to the pharmacy for when the prescription may be filled.
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On March 20 2012 10:41 MaRiNe23 wrote:Is this medication easy to get ahold of at like say like the pharmacy department at Walmart or something? I'm probabaly wrong in this but I think I heard from somewhere that taking adderall is illegal(?)
You need a prescription for adderall but lots of college students have it and lots of ppl were selling it etc in my college (at least in my experience) Personally, I would rather get at least a few hours of sleep rather than staying up all night and feeling like a complete zombie.
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On March 20 2012 10:38 affinity wrote:
One thing that helped me through my all nighters was to convert to a polyphasic sleep schedule/20 min nap every couple hours for that day. Since there was always the possibility that I wouldn't wake from an alarm, I had a friend (on the same assignment) call me after the 20 minutes.
wow usually it takes me ~20 minutes to fall asleep lol... i've never pulled an all-nighter either... i tried once and it backfired because i fell asleep at my desk at like 6 am and almost missed my exam...
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On March 20 2012 10:44 Diader wrote:
What day and time of day are your exams? I would say don't pull an all-nighter until the night before the last one, and only if it's in the morning, since you might risk just being too tired if you pull an all-nighter and then are up during the next day until the afternoon.
Exactly how you wrote it. On thursday at 11:10AM. Was gonna stay up the night before the last one since the exam is in the morning.
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As someone who's pulled quite a few all nighters (never for school related reasons though), I can safely say that once you enter a sleep deprived state (even with red bull) your learning efficiency will drop dramatically, especially if you aren't used to it. It will also mess up your sleep schedule pretty badly which you don't want right before / during exams. This happened to a lot of my friends in the IB program back in high school; a lot of my classmates would pull all-nighters to get in last minute studying, I would sleep and go to track practice even if I wasn't completely confident in the material. I got the best scores of our year.
My advice is to make getting proper rest a priority unless you have absolutely no knowledge about what will be on the exams. As long as you've been paying attention in class, having the mental acuity and working memory of a well rested mind will outweigh the knowledge you get from pulling an all nighter..
However, if you are dead set on pulling an all nighter, buy 1-2 energy drinks and lots of snack food. Make sure you have access to music that wont disrupt your roomates (assuming you have some). If you have a really comfy chair, you'll want to replace it with a hard wooden one if possible. Stretch every 30 minutes or so once you start to get tired and drink water often. You'll want avoid the energy drinks (or any caffeine) until you're getting withing an hour ot 2 of your classes because they will make you crash.
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All nighters do more harm than good: you generally remember less and in poorer quality than if you had slept.
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On March 20 2012 10:44 zOula... wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 10:41 MaRiNe23 wrote:Is this medication easy to get ahold of at like say like the pharmacy department at Walmart or something? I'm probabaly wrong in this but I think I heard from somewhere that taking adderall is illegal(?) You need a prescription for adderall but lots of college students have it and lots of ppl were selling it etc in my college (at least in my experience) Personally, I would rather get at least a few hours of sleep rather than staying up all night and feeling like a complete zombie.
Yeah it's pretty easy to get on any US campus and works fucking miracles. You will discover newfound productivity.
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Depends what kind of exam you're sitting. Is there a substantial amount of material that you need to know, and apply in the exam? Or is it more like a history/English style essay question?
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Stay away from energy drinks, go with sources of caffeine with light/no sugar; snacks are a good idea, but make sure they're the right snacks to help you study and curb hunger, peanuts and bananas are great, both possess a lot of things that really help jump start your brain. Any fruit in general is a good study snack though.
Someone posted above that a short nap every 2-3 hours will help, and it really does. I think it's a great idea to try and catch about 1 hour of sleep 2-3 hours before the exam as well.
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If it's like your 1st time doing it, don't do it. x_x;;
I used to stay up like at least once a week cause I HATED wasting time and slept like 4 hours everyday but I can tell you for sure, if you're sleepy every like 10 mins, you're just wasting your time trying to study.
I dunno about red bull, never tried it to stay awake, but I used lots and lots of coffee. lol
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I'm a high school student.
I pull gaming marathons and study sessions as all-nighters really often.
Don't do it. Get sleep, because you will not feel sick the next day.
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As a connoisseur of all-nighters, I'll agree that food is incredibly important. As noted, nuts and bananas are both high in the stuff you want when you're staying up all night, and the act of eating itself can also help you stay awake. In my experience, the most I've ever been 'wired' was on a mix of 5 hour energy and the 'Energy' version of Vitamin Water. This also has the benefit of all the good stuff that's in vitamin water, in addition to the water itself which shouldn't be overlooked.
All these things said, even with the best preparations it can be pretty unpleasant and counter-productive if you aren't used to the feelings associated with all-nighters. Too much caffeine at once will do strange things to you, but it's certainly possible to push through and get stuff done. One thing you might not expect comes from the fact that Caffeine is a diuretic, which means that even if you didn't overhydrate a little (which you probably should) you'll have to pee more often than usual. In addition, you'll probably end up with the traditional 'jitters', but as long as you have the willpower to stay focused, it's not impossible to keep being productive.
The other two pieces of advice I have are, like someone else said, if you have the time try to get at least a little bit of sleep, even if it's just 1-2 hours. This can be dangerous if you don't trust yourself to wake up to your alarms, so I always set multiple ones, but in my experience it makes a world of difference. I've also found that getting up and going for a 15 minute walk does wonders. I can be on the edge of sleep, go for a walk for a bit, and come back to 2-3 more hours of good productivity.
Whatever you decide, good luck with your exams!
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EPT
