How do you stay awake?

[Epic Reine 0]

I don't get a lot of sleep during the week, with school and work in the way, I only get about 5-6 hours of sleep per night before I have to be up bright and early at either 6:30 am or 8.

 

Now, with the lack of sleep, I'm constantly falling asleep in class, during my school activies, while hanging with my friends and even sometimes at work. I miss vital information because of this and it upsets me. Latley though, it has become a lot more noticable and people have been complaining and teasing me for falling asleep in awkward places (at the audio board in my school's TV control room, about to give a presentation, on my buddy's futone etc.).

 

So honestly, how do you do it?

 

I've tried going to sleep earlier but even that doesn't help because I guess my body isn't used to getting up so early. i've tried drinking coffee but the shit is so awful tasting that i can't take it. I've tried Red Bull, but everytime I drink it, I end up with a huge stomach ache. Do energy drinks in general help?

[Ravenbomb 0]

...dude, you get 5-6 hours of sleep and you're complaining?

[Nighthawk 0]

Well, you're supposed to get eight hours, theoretically, but six should be enough for most adults.

 

I do have a suggestion, though. Take caffeine in pill form. It'll work, but you'll likely develop an addiction, so try to take them only in the morning, at the same time every day, and don't increase your dosage over time. This was very common when I worked in construction.

 

I was always drinking energy drinks myself, but they don't work as well as coffee. What was good are those 5 hour energy shots. But, like the name implies, you'll crash after a few hours. Or try to get some Redline. You have to get it online or at a vitamin store like GNC. It'll buzz you like crazy. Tastes terrible, but you can slam it really quick, unlike coffee.

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

Apparently you don't live as long if you have 8 hours though.

[Toshiaki Koala 0]

Apparently you don't live as long if you have 8 hours though.

 

I've read that. The statistics probably have more to do with the fact that people who are sick (and thus more likely to die) tend to sleep more.

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

Vigorous exercise is the best thing for sleep/wake regularity. Especially if you need to be alert. Caffeine is a really strong diuretic and sugar will just crash you. Speed is a good short-term solution. Finals week and the like.

[Copper Feel 0]

I'm pretty much your polar opposite: I find it hard to get to sleep, but once I'm no longer awake I can usually stay that way for 10 hours or so. Although, now I come to think of it, I do take sleeping pills, so yeah.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

I just finished my second all-nighter in three days. This essay is pretty kickass, so I guess it was worth it. But I still feel pretty shitty right now.

 

I just drank coffee and tea.

[Lt. Al Giardello 0]

Cocaine (I'm being serious).

[King Kamala 0]

Cocaine (I'm being serious).

 

tsk tsk Carlito Brigante itsk tsk

 

If you're talking about the energy drink, than you are a laff riot!

[Cran Da Maniac 0]

Cocaine (I'm being serious).

 

 

I hear that's a hell of a drug

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Cocaine is a pretty bad option. It's really expensive, will keep you wired for maybe an hour at most, and you feel horrible right after and will need more.

 

Speed is like ten bucks a pill, and will last for hours and hours. I don't recommend either of these options by the way, especially if you have to keep up with this schedule on a regular basis. Not even the caffeine options. I'd suggest either adapting to it, or finding a new schedule, because if you have to depend on some kind of drug to get through it, you're only fucking yourself in the future. I guess coffee is not that bad, but it's still worse then doing it au natural.

[Just call me Dan 0]

Will working out in the morning really keep you awake during the day. I don't care how much or how little sleep I get. 1 or 2 p.m. means I want a nap. Drives me nuts

[TSA09 0]

Jolt Gum from the makers of Jolt cola. 2 pieces of their gum is equal to 1 cup of coffee. Take a dozen or two add a mountain dew code red or a cappuccino and you are all set.

[Guest Pizza Hut's Game Face]

You'll also piss like a horse with a tumorous prostate.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Manage your time better and get more sleep. The easy fixes only work for so long.

[Darthtiki 0]

Insomnia, seriously I usually don't get to bed until around 1:30 or 2 (As I write this, it is 1:05 PST).

[Nighthawk 0]

Jolt Gum from the makers of Jolt cola. 2 pieces of their gum is equal to 1 cup of coffee. Take a dozen or two add a mountain dew code red or a cappuccino and you are all set.

 

Or you could wash it down with, y'know, an actual Jolt. There's a couple new flavors out, too.

 

Now the gum, that's interesting. A caffeine overdose is supposed to be one of the most agonizing ways to die, but it's pretty difficult to do. Still, just taking too much is obviously extremely unpleasant. Seems like a gum would make that easier.

 

I remember hearing about a guy who was arrested for erratic driving after he drank 20 Red Bulls. Apparently I could drink 170 of them. You can check here.

 

The gum's on there too. 1074 pieces to kill me.

[Jingus 0]

I forget the exact term for it, but there's anti-insomnia too, a tendency to sleep way too much. I've got that, and every single day if I'm not woken up by an outside source (alarm clock, phone ringing, other person, whatever) I'll sleep 10-12 hours straight, period. Yet even sleeping that much doesn't make me feel refreshed or energized during the day. I've never been able to go to a sleep specialist doctor for it, so I don't know how or even if it can really be treated.

[snuffbox 0]

Insomnia, seriously I usually don't get to bed until around 1:30 or 2 (As I write this, it is 1:05 PST).

 

Not insomnia.

[Guest Pizza Hut's Game Face]

Yeah. that's just staying up late. I don't think it's insomnia until it becomes an inability to sleep that infringes on your daily life. I think I had actual insomnia for a while. Now I just stay up late and don't sleep enough.

[Maztinho 0]

Manage your time better and get more sleep. The easy fixes only work for so long.

 

In this vein when I had a crazy hectic schedule at school, I'd find little 15 minute increments to power nap (lay down with something in your hand that you can drop) and try to fall asleep when you drop the item you'll wake up and feel refreshed, good to go for another 5-6 hours. Hell I'd do it in the Music Hall's Lobby and people just got used to seeing me sprawled out on the black loveseat at different times of the day during the week.

[Craig Th 0]

I NEED atleast 7 hours of sleep, sometimes more. If I don't, I'll become a zombie by mid day.

[Brett Favre 0]

That's pretty scary.

[TSA09 0]

Jolt Gum from the makers of Jolt cola. 2 pieces of their gum is equal to 1 cup of coffee. Take a dozen or two add a mountain dew code red or a cappuccino and you are all set.

 

Or you could wash it down with, y'know, an actual Jolt. There's a couple new flavors out, too.

 

Now the gum, that's interesting. A caffeine overdose is supposed to be one of the most agonizing ways to die, but it's pretty difficult to do. Still, just taking too much is obviously extremely unpleasant. Seems like a gum would make that easier.

 

I remember hearing about a guy who was arrested for erratic driving after he drank 20 Red Bulls. Apparently I could drink 170 of them. You can check here.

 

The gum's on there too. 1074 pieces to kill me.

 

I've got to have my caffiene, normally I'll go into Starbucks and get a cappuccino in the morning. The gum also curbs my sinus headaches, which stops them from going from bad to worse. They hate the stuff at work because it does make me hyper

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I function fine on 6 hours. I've been told that went I sleep, I absolutely don't move.

[King Kamala 0]

I NEED atleast 7 hours of sleep, sometimes more. If I don't, I'll become a zombie by mid day.

 

I'm that exact same way.

 

Mildly OT, but I quit drinking caffeine about ten days ago mostly to see if I could do it and to cut 99% of my soda intake out of my diet and I'm definitely more alert during the day now. I think I'll keep up with it. I've been sleeping like a baby too.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

For a long period of time, I could function off two hours or less per night. No problem.

 

About the time I started college a few years ago, I started trying to get more sleep. For a time I had a really good sleep schedule going, but that's long past.

 

I normally cannot get lasting sleep anytime before one AM. If I try before that, even with sleeping pills, I will wake up and be unable to get back to sleep. In the last few months, my sleep schedule had completely fucked up, meaning even with a full day's worth of work, and staying up the entire day, I can't manage to fall asleep no matter how hard I try until four to five AM or later.

 

The weird thing about this, is when I wake up I'm a zombie. I'm tired, I have no energy, I'm usually in some form of pain. By midday no matter how much sleep I've gotten, I'm ALWAYS dead tired and even a nap won't help...and yet if I survive that, by about...ten, maybe eleven, something in my body clicks. I suddenly have energy, even if I'm on 20+ hours of straight being awake. It's the weirdest thing. I think I've conditioned my body to get a second surge of energy in that time period, since that's when I normally write essays and the like. By about three to five, it usually wears off, but sometimes not enough for me to go to sleep.

 

A few weeks ago, I had an insane case of insomnia. I could not sleep no matter what I did. I took sleeping pills when I went to bed, and I'd just power through them. I went five straight days of litterally maybe an hour or less of sleep, while still trying to do school work and other shit. I was a MESS by the end of it.

 

Anyway, the best way to get going during the day is activity. Lift some heavy shit. Go for a run. Do something like that, that gets your body going. It won't last forever, but it can help you get through tough parts.

 

Another solution: Slap yourself as hard as you possibly can. Pain wakes the body up, and the pain will shock you into not feeling tired. If you hit yourself hard enough, you wont' feel tired for a good while. Because your cheek will hurt like a sonofabitch for a pretty long time.

[Guest Vitamin X]

A lot of people, particularly those forced to wake up in the mornings when their bodies are more adapted to working nights or vice versa, tend to have undiagnosed sleeping disorders. I have DSPS (Delayed Phase Sleep Syndrome) for instance, which is best summed up in this wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome .

 

That's part of the reason I would prefer not to work a traditional 9-5. No matter how long I do it for, I will never adjust to that kind of sleep schedule. Stick me working 12-8pm every day and I could probably manage that, but 9-5 kills me every single time and I will always be tired until around 2-3pm. I'm a lot more productive and do better in class after that time, usually.

[NoCalMike 0]

With me, I can usually start the day off fine with not getting enough sleep. As long as I am physically moving around and staying busy I am fine, and can just crash when I get home.

 

Where I run into trouble is the downtime at work. Once I hit break or lunchbreak and I am sitting/doing nothing for more then 10/15 minutes, my body crashes like a ton of bricks, and it is hard for me to recover from that phase for the rest of the work day.

 

Also, once it happens a few times, it is like your body thinks it is supposed to be a regular routine, and it kind of adjusts to know to do it at the same time everyday....