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Nobody likes skimping on sleep, but chances are you've done it. Whether to study for an exam, finish a tough project, or simply because you got stuck in an airport, pulling an all-nighter happens.
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But with all that in mind, there are steps you can take to minimize the damage and treat your body (and brain) as well as possible under bad circumstances. Here's how to survive the night—and recover ASAP.
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1. Bank sleep ahead of time.
2. Get any amount of shut-eye.
3. Bring on the lights.
4. Keep your room temperature moderate.
5. Skip the sugar and snack on protein and carbs.
6. Drink a little coffee—and a lot of water.
7. Get up and walk around.
The article also has tips for surviving the next day after an all-nighter. Do Soylentils have any techniques not listed to help them through all-nighters?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 05 2015, @11:56AM
Do Soylentils have any techniques not listed to help them through all-nighters?
Yeah, lie.
I do stuff at a high enough level (not very high, but high enough) that I know from experience I'll be utterly useless after maybe 12 hours. I also know from experience in the military that I can march, shoot, fill sandbags, stuff like that for a couple days (months?) on almost no sleep, but I don't operate at that low level of mental performance anymore. I wonder how many soldiers get killed due to lack of sleep, probably a lot... You ever read serious military history and wonder, here I am just an average dude how could General XYZ or Admiral ABC have been such an obvious dumbass and gotten tens of thousands killed? Well he probably had not gotten a good nights sleep since deployment started, so ...
So just lie. Some jackass needs to show off to his boss so he can show off to his boss that things are being taken seriously so someone must be described as "working all night" and ignorant mismanagement BS like that. So, um, I printed out the database schemas and configs and analyzed them in between a late night dinner and breakfast so tell the execs I'm working on this all night, oh who am I BSing I got about 7 hours of sleep and ended up doing four days work in two calendar days, whereas if I had gone all nighter it would probably have taken a week.
Same thing with profs and exams and tests. Need to psych out the competition in a curve graded class? Yeah I was studying o-chem all night for the last three days, as they look at me horrified that they only stayed up late one night. Then I crush them on the test because I got 8 hours of sleep and two hours of exercise so my brain is clear and operating at 100 mph and all they can do is barely read the writing on their starbucks cup. Or "Uh sorry prof about not finishing that programming assignment I was up all night working on it", I mean what adult having contact with teenage kids is dumb enough to believe some BS like that?
So yeah, just lie. Unless you're doing brainless manual labor that should be automated or mechanized, in which case you're sleepless AND dumb for getting in a position like that.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @12:17PM
Believing or not, I cannot imagine the reaction to be anything substantially different from "well, maybe you should have started earlier."
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 05 2015, @01:14PM
"Well, he's mostly a good kid and I was young once so I know for a fact he was getting drunk and/or having sex, although the dishonesty about pretending to work all night is slightly concerning. Oh well, whats the minimum I can do, to make it sound like I give a F while I think about getting that grant application approved, and I gotta stop at the food store on the way home, wait that girl in the second aisle, is she not wearing a... oh wait what is the kid saying again, er uh yeah, well those things happen bring it in tomorrow I'll only take 2% off try not to do it again mkay?"
A big deal to the student, is almost certainly not a big deal to the prof, and its a rare prof that wasn't once a kid.
(Score: 4, Funny) by dyingtolive on Wednesday August 05 2015, @01:56PM
I'm not even sure most of the CS professors I had were people, let alone kids once.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!