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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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I pulled all nighters all the time in college, though I usually did it when writing term papers and the like rather than cramming for exams. I would say that for exams it's probably better to study ahead of time and get more sleep, wheras papers you can power through and not have to worry about remembering anything afterwards. My weapon of choice for staying awake was usually Vault. I'm not sure if Coke still makes it, but it was like mello yello and energy drink mixed together, so it was basically an energy drink that didn't taste horrible like a lot of energy drinks do. 3 or 4 of those would get me through a night. I didn't like to powernap because, for me, trying to wake up and break through the grogginess afterwards pretty much canceled out any cognitive benefits of getting a little bit of sleep.
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Don't bother with energy drinks, all the caffeine will probably do you more harm than good. Just keep doing work until you finish. Whenever I was awake for more than 24 hours running in college, you reach a point where your desire to go to sleep just sort of disappears and your body rolls over to the next day. Reasonably often I'd be doing work in my room, I'd notice the sun was almost coming up, and rather than go to sleep for 2 hours or so, just keep doing work. I would always feel just fine for the rest of the day, and then crash around whatever time I'd normally be going to sleep anyway. The next morning I'd be more or less unable to function until noon or so, though. The hard part isn't not sleeping, the hard part is getting up again once you do sleep.
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I have done many all nighters, using different types of foods and drinks. I would recommend against energy drinks. I find that the hyperactivity from energy drinks is counterproductive to studying. My best all night food is tea and trail mix. It keeps you strongly focused at the task at hand and keeps you awake.
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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.
You don't convert to polyphasic sleep schedules in a day. If it's your first day trying at a polyphasic sleep schedule it won't pay off.
Polyphasic sleep sucks for having a normal life, too. :p
My all nighters consist of a playlist of mellow and water.
Using the bathroom keeps you awake. I don't bother with coffee. When I'm desperately tired I'd get a NOS, those things are pretty crazy. But you will crash, so no good for what you actually studied for. (I use energy drinks mostly for essays, then I can be brain-dead for the actual day and it'll be fine) You could consider an energy drink right before the exam however, to keep you awake. After that, you can get knocked out. :>
I think you want 2 hours of sleep - allnighters themselves aren't that great. However if you take the 2hr sleep option your sleep inertia may hit you hard esp since you haven't done this before? First allnighter is rather risky, esp. since it's an exam (mainly, recollecting facts you learned several hours before is not the same as writing a paper which is what I spend all-nighters doing)
For chem/phys/etc. not bio/math exams use units to check your answers for correctness, skim review, memorize deceptive equations, you're set, right?
GL on your exams!
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IMO, all-nighters are almost always a bad idea if you're studying for a test. Now, for projects I think they can work. It isn't too hard to keep doing good work into the morning hours, but by noon the next day your brain won't work well anymore. I pulled a lot of all nighters for projects during school, especially if they were the last thing due at the end of a finals week.
The only time it might be a good idea to stay up all night for a test would be if the test allows a cheat-sheet where you can write down everything you know. Sadly I took some classes that were like this, and since they never tested on things outside of lecture you could copy everything down. If your test involves much critical thinking or math I wouldn't recommend it.
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Don't do it brah, you will feel like shit when you take the exam, won't retain information very well, and will probably end up doing worse as a result  .
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Caffeine is bad.
Guarana will save your day (nights).
Basically caffeine makes you extremely awake for a short amount of time (30-40 minutes, depends on the person) and afterwards you're sleepier than before. Guarana keeps you awake for 4-7 hours. Kinda like black tea, just stronger.
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If you've never pulled an all-nighter before, I recommend you first test your willpower before staying up all night before an important exam. One way to test willpower is by pulling all-nighters; another is by attempting to watch a clock (and do nothing else) for five minutes straight. Basically you need to know what you will choose to do when your entire body becomes tired. Will you give in and sleep, potentially becoming nocturnal for a few days? Or will you choose to stay up for 30+ hours, sleeping around 4pm (or just after your exam is over) and waking early the next day?
Something you can try if you're new to this is just pull the all-nighter, but at 3 or 4am, drink some tea or coffee just before napping for 25 minutes. If you gulp down the tea and then set the alarm, it will wake you up a bit before the alarm goes off. Powernaps are good when you're trying to stay up for a long time. The tea can interfere with your sleep though so your nap quality won't be as good as it could be without it.
Then about an hour or 90 minutes before you want to stop studying and "wake up" or start getting ready for the day, set a bunch of alarms 10 minutes apart. This is easy to do on most modern cellphones. Then get in your bed and try to go to sleep. When the first alarm goes off, you wake up and do whatever (but move your body, don't just sit still, you can roll in your bed or walk around or exercise) until the second alarm goes off, at which point you attempt to sleep again. Continue this pattern for an hour or so, but make sure the number of alarms you set is odd, otherwise, you might forget how many you set and end up sleeping waiting for the next alarm to get you up.
Then about 25 minutes before your exam starts, drink an energy drink. Depending on the length of the exam, you should have just enough time to finish before you start feeling the crash. I recommend against chugging one just before you walk in as this will make you jittery and the sugar rush could really ruin your concentration. Good luck!
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One kid I know pulls all-nighters almost without a problem. For most of us, it's heavy hit on brain power. If you've never done an all-nighter before to figure out whether you can actually function after one, it's probably not a good idea to start the day of your final. For energy drinks/coffee the idea is the same; I don't think coffee really works for me at all (tried it a few times this quarter) and I suspect there could be negative effects w/ jitters, etc, for some people.
In any case, make sure you get an hour of sleep right before your exam, in my experience that tiny bit of sleep helps me be much more alert the next day. You might feel like shit after sleeping for an hour, but you feel infinitely shittier after not sleeping at all. Again... the best idea is not to pull an all-nighter in the first place - I had three exams within 24 hours last week during finals and I had to stay up all night to study for the third one (math) after staying up pretty late studying for the first two the night before. I actually fell asleep during the final for a few minutes and after getting my final grade back today and dropping from an A to an ungodly grade let's just say I've made a resolution not to pull another all-nighter for the rest of the year. Don't make the same mistake!
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United States369 Posts
All-nighters are really more for getting last minute work done, not cramming for tests. At some point in the night, you're just going to be too tired for the information to stick in your head very well. If you really have to do it, try to make the time to get at least 1-2 hours of sleep when you just can't look at your notes anymore.
Good luck with your exams!
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On March 20 2012 12:45 r.Evo wrote:
Caffeine is bad.
Guarana will save your day (nights).
Basically caffeine makes you extremely awake for a short amount of time (30-40 minutes, depends on the person) and afterwards you're sleepier than before. Guarana keeps you awake for 4-7 hours. Kinda like black tea, just stronger.
If you stagger caffeine intake (~two cups of coffee for a night), you won't crash until 30 minutes after your last dose. Which might be during the exam, unfortunately.
Don't pull all-nighters for exams. You'll feel like shit and also more than likely underperform on the exams.
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For exams, all nighters make you do worse than not studying at all the day before.
For essays, it's college standard.
If you're not used to all-nighters, don't do it. For example, my current sleep schedule is: don't sleep for about 20 hours (8am to 4pm the next day) , then sleep about 16 hours straight (next day, 8am), due to end-of-semester work load. It aint healthy, and i have no clue how i'm going to wake up for finals.
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On March 20 2012 13:48 Fishgle wrote:
For exams, all nighters make you do worse than not studying at all the day before.
For essays, it's college standard.
If you're not used to all-nighters, don't do it. For example, my current sleep schedule is: don't sleep for about 20 hours (8am to 4pm the next day) , then sleep about 16 hours straight (next day, 8am), due to end-of-semester work load. It aint healthy, and i have no clue how i'm going to wake up for finals.
So what you're saying is that you sleep 16 hours during 2 days. Aka 8 hours per day. How does that enable you to do MORE WORK? =P
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Protip: chew gum the whole night. It will keep your jaw and mouth moving which will keep you awake
( just make sure not to fall asleep with gum in your mouth :3 )
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On March 20 2012 12:35 Ktk wrote:Show nested quote +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.
You don't convert to polyphasic sleep schedules in a day. If it's your first day trying at a polyphasic sleep schedule it won't pay off. Polyphasic sleep sucks for having a normal life, too. :p
Ah, I didn't mean to convert to a polyphasic sleep schedule, just adapt an uberman cycle for the day instead of staying up all night.
I've done it couple times. I found it to be more effective than simply staying up the whole night because it gave my mind a break. Then again, I'm pretty used to taking naps/falling asleep fast.
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Personally I don't feel energy drinks did anything for me, and when I tried 5 hour energy it actually made me more drowsy. So I recommend not using either. Stick with water/tea/snacks, and try to get at least a little sleep. I've found sleep is just so important not only for your intellect, but also for your mood.
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Usually I go with 2 red bulls for an all nighter but try to put off using the first one for as long as possible. I'd only ever do it for essays though (you don't need much brain function to hand it in), you'll do better at exams by studying as much as you can the night before then getting a decent sleep and revising in the morning/on the way to class.
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It's a bad idea to ask other people how your body will respond to an all-nighter, lol. Some people can't function at all, some people need energy drinks, and some people just need a cup of coffee. It kind of sucks to test it out now.
Anyway, keep all the lights on, turn on some music, and if you are looking at a screen that's even better. You want to distribute caffeine as evenly as possibly instead of gulping it down and crashing fast. It's also a good idea to take breaks and get up and walk around outside for a few minutes as the night progresses. Staring at one thing for too long can start to make things go in one ear and out the other. Don't eat too much food during the night as this can make you drowsy. Just get something with a little sugar to snack on (trailmix/mms/etc). Once daylight hits, continue to pace your caffeine, or if you feel really awake, bring some caffeine with you in case you start to crash. I hit a point the next day where I feel very focused and alert (some people don't but you won't know til you try). You may not be able to go straight to sleep after your test.
Some of these things other people have said, but the more people tell you, probably the more likely it is to be true for you? I guess? GL.
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Loud/fast music, energy drinks, coffee, light, food, heat (I get tired if I'm hungry or cold, maybe I'm weird). Have a 5 hour energy before you go to take the tests, don't even think about passing out until you're done with your shit.
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I've come across a lot of studies on the impacts not sleeping has on your cognitive abilities in my research and stuffs. So as far as an empirically supported view point the general idea goes something like this: all nighters are good in the sense that while sleeping would be great, it's better to sacrifice that and actually LEARN the material than sleep and know nothing. However, if you can get ANY sleep in at all (im seriously talking even an HOUR here) it will be beneficial for you. This is cause REM cycle happens at least once every hour (a bit more often but 1 hour of sleep will cover one cycle) and this is when your neurons that you've been cramming full of information 'wire' together and solidify that material you studied wayy more
tl;dr: study as much as you feel is useful but reaaalllly try to get as much sleep as you can even if that's just one hour.
And for keeping you awake, besides energy drinks and caffeine just eat any food you can in small portions over the all nighter (keeps your metabolism high and makes you not want to sleep) and also give yourself nice doses of a pure white computer monitor to trick yoself
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On March 20 2012 13:50 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 13:48 Fishgle wrote:
For exams, all nighters make you do worse than not studying at all the day before.
For essays, it's college standard.
If you're not used to all-nighters, don't do it. For example, my current sleep schedule is: don't sleep for about 20 hours (8am to 4pm the next day) , then sleep about 16 hours straight (next day, 8am), due to end-of-semester work load. It aint healthy, and i have no clue how i'm going to wake up for finals. So what you're saying is that you sleep 16 hours during 2 days. Aka 8 hours per day. How does that enable you to do MORE WORK? =P
It's not more total work, the work just gets done sooner (The next day by 8am.) It works well when you only have class every other day of the week (MWF).
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All-nighters are great for finishing off assignments and such. I use them quite regularly, but after I finish the assignment, I'm useless for the rest of the day (and maybe the next too). Not so great for exams though, in my experience. I find that a good night's sleep will at least help me answer the bits I know coherently, instead of doing a shitty job on slightly more of the paper (slightly more of the paper, not all).
Also, don't take any substances that you haven't used before and you don't know how to manage. Your body can react differently to it from other people's, and now would not be an ideal time to experiment. Conversely, don't forget to take what you usually take (if any). I'm addicted to coffee, drinking 4-6 long blacks everyday, and can't function without a coffee or two in the morning, and always have one before an exam.
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From personal experience and in agreement with most of the posts in this thread, all-nighters before exams are a bad idea. Save them for getting projects/labs done and preparing your room for inspection like I am right now, fffuuuuu-
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Caffeine and B Vitamins are good for staying up, I do all-nighters once/twice a week. Coffee, red bull, and 5-hour energy all worked for me. The problem comes tomorrow when you start getting the shakes.
Eventually, enough caffeine will make you jittery and anxious. That's when you have to cut back and go for water. STAY HYDRATED!
Also, you can take little walks/cold showers or do light exercises to pep yourself up.
Loud, upbeat music never hurts and I wouldn't suggest looking at the clock too often.
As advised, taking a nap for 1-2 hours to recharge before your exam can help. That's up to you.
GLHF
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Do not for the love of god pull an all-nighter for the sake of studying for an exam. You will blank-out, and you will be far worse off than if you stayed up until midnight studying and slept normally. Your recall is far better after a full nights rest, and I would personally sleep normally and not study over study and not sleep. The only occasion I would recommend pulling an all-nighter is for finishing up a project or report that's due the next day, since of course you can't sleep it off like you can with studying.
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Take 15 minute power naps every 1 hour. Works for me.
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Dont pull a allnighter the day before the exam esp if the exam is on morning. Better get some hours of sleep in so you have energy and your brain will work better in exam.
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i think it also depends on what kind of person you are... people have posted how food and short naps can help but none of that stuff really helps me.. i can't pull all-nighters for sh*t.. but i had roommates last year who pulled all-nighters all the time and would not eat or nap for days (literally, days)... they would just take adderoll and drink red bull to stay awake but they are probably on the opposite end of the spectrum from me
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Go read my Procrastination blogs HERE and HERE! The second one may answer a few questions about what its like. What I can tell you from ALL of the expierences I have had which is basically all the time, is that keep drinking things. Whether it's Red Bull or Water just keep drinking things. Secondly, if you can, listen to music. I can't stress how important it is to have some kind of noise while staying up. Lastly, All nighters do definitely work but if you're so insanely tired that you're struggling hard to stay up and study/do homework, just go to bed because I guarantee you that you won't retain any information. Hope this helps  and good luck!
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Turn off facebook, turn off skype and get your work done. If you remove distractions i guarentee you will never have to pull an all nighter for studying. Its a bit different for projects. Honestly the day before the test you should try to get at least 6 hours and wake up and hour and a half before the test. Take a shower eat breakfest drink coffee and make sure you are FULLY functioning before your test.
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All Nighters are effective for projects and other work where it's okay if your brain is wiped out the next day, because you just need to turn the project in. A quick short term boost. And sometimes working at night is great because there's so little distractions.
For exams though, they are not a good strategy, because being tired will make perform so much worse on the exam.
Even if the worst case -- let's say I start studying at 3AM for a test at 12 noon the next day, (9 hours away). You still want to use use 2 or 3 of those hours to sleep.
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When I was studying Architecture, pulling all nighters wasn't really a big deal. The stuff I had to do was mostly busy work since I figured out the intellectual stuff.
I would never pull an all nighter to study though, because taking tests when you're tired is a bad idea.
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United Kingdom38150 Posts
Prep for the next day - set alarms, get clothes out, etc. If you do finish early/fall asleep you need to be able to get going asap. You also don't want to be rushing around in the morning trying to sort things out.
Eat fruit!
Don't work anywhere too comfortable.
Keep fresh air circulating.
Stretch yourself out periodically (actual stretches or a walk around the house, w/e just move)
Most important - Do you have something important to do the next day (i.e. is your all nighter for a presentation or something similar)? If so drink a ton of cold water during the all nighter and DO NOT rely on caffeine products. There is nothing worse than working all night only to be having a caffeine crash the next day and being really subpar for what you stayed up all night working on.
Make sure you have time to shower before starting the day. Not only for the obvious reasons of cleanliness, but because it will really give you a boost for getting through the day.
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On March 20 2012 10:39 Cowpieguy wrote:
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.
^^ sorta what he said
Being an architectural major I have had all nighters two to three times a week. To do so you need to have a caffeine and be a customed to them... Not being a customed to them you have a hard time getting work Done and focusing... You should just work until 3 or so and call it a night better to have some sleep and some studying done then no sleep and do poorly on the test. If you start to make all nighters a habit drink something you like! If you don't like redbull don't force urself to drink it get something the you like and drink mass volumes of that. Go with your 3 tests
Yes I know this is one long sentence but I'm takig a break from hw at 4 am for my arch project due tomorrow.
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EPT
