A Comprehensive How to: Pulling an All-Nighter

A Comprehensive How to: Pulling an All-Nighter

  We all have those nights where no matter how hard we try we cannot finish the brutal amount of work put in front of us. Or we just procrastinated too much. (Which is basically me every night.) Either way, here is a comprehensive guide on pulling an all-nighter.

  The first thing to know is: don’t pull all-nighters unless you absolutely have to! Who cares if it’s 2 am and you haven’t started a thing yet. Start your work immediately so you can sleep instead of procrastinating on your homework another two hours. If you have many breaks the next day, consider doing your homework the next day instead of not sleeping to do work. All-nighters are detrimental to your memory, concentration, focus/attention span and immune system.

  If you absolutely need to pull an all-nighter, here is how.

Gather Everything You Need:

• If you live in place internet shut off (aka my school), open up all the websites you need on your computer. Either that or get an internet hotspot.
• Surround yourself with your textbooks and notes that you need.
• Get drinks and snacks. Drinks will keep you hydrated throughout the long night ahead, making it much easier for you to stay awake. Snacks will fight off those midnight munchies but most importantly it will give you energy to fight through your mounds of homework.  Make sure your snacks aren’t just candy or junk food. Good nightly snack foods include apples and sandwiches. A big bowl of salad is also quite appetizing.  
• Caffeine. If you decide to have caffeine, make sure to drink more water than soda or coffee so you can stay hydrated. Also, make sure you intake caffeine constantly so you don’t crash. (Unfortunately, caffeine doesn’t work in giving me energy; I highly recommend Rockstar in Coconut and Peace Tea in Georgia Peach though. They’re delicious.)
• Set many alarms. You might not make it through the all-nighter and you don’t want to wake up realizing you overslept most of your classes. If you’re desperate, have someone call you in the morning to make sure you’re awake.
• Plan your outfit for the next day if you’re one of those people who plan out their outfits daily. If you just throw on whatever, skip this step. Remember, just because you pulled an all-nighter, doesn’t mean you have to look like you did. What I do is that I just change into the outfit I’m going to go to school in and pull an all-nighter while wearing it.   

How to Stay Awake:

• Eat food and drink water constantly.
  
• Stand up and walk around every hour. 
• Pinch or poke yourself. This sounds uncomfortable and that’s exactly the point. Getting too comfortable means falling asleep and you wouldn’t want that!
• Sitting down is better than lying down. If you sit down and do your homework you’ll probably be more productive than lying on your stomach and doing your homework. Also, if you lie down on your stomach while doing your homework you’ll probably fall asleep. A good idea is to pile items like your dirty laundry or books on your bed so you won’t be tempted to climb into bed.
• Keep your lights bright to keep yourself awake.

Being Efficient:

• Plan your night. Write down a list of what you have to do, in what order you should do it in and how long each thing will take you. This way, you will know how to start and complete your work.
• Just start your homework. Force yourself not to procrastinate.
• If all you are doing is wasting time on the internet,disconnect so you would have to focus on your work.
• Don’t decide to take a short nap and then finish your homework afterwards. You’ll probably end up sleeping through the night. Only sleep once you have finished everything.
• If you know you work better in the morning, you should just go to bed early  

The Next Day:

• Wash your face with cold water.
• Put in eye drops so you won’t look like a zombie. According to Urban Dictionary, Rohto eye drops are “God’s true gift to stoners.”
• Eat breakfast.
• Bring water and snacks so you’ll have energy throughout the day and not fall asleep.

Pulling two all-nighters in a row is not advised. It would probably result in Zombieitis.