So I take it your a student. In which case you should have probably pulled an all nighter at least once in your life. If not then you should definitely start. Why? There are a number of reasons:

1. It’s pretty awesome
2. See number 1.

So now you want to pull an all nighter you’re thinking to yourself “Geez, how can I stay up all them hours?” Well my friend I, as the current record holder amongst the all nighter team for continuous awake hours, shall teach you.

Terminology

• All Nighter - The act of staying up for more than the normal 24 hour awake-sleep cycle. It can also refer to the act of staying up during the period from sun down to sun rise although it is generally acepted this is not a proper all nighter.
• Allnightee - A person undertaking the act of an All Nighter
• EHS Zone - The Early Hour Sleep Zone, between 3am and 6am, during these times due to lack of natual light, prolonged deprivation and general stress your body is more likely to crave sleep

Things to Avoid

• Bed - Believe it or not more people fall asleep on their beds everyday than any other piece of furniture. Take care to avoid.
• Lying Down - Again it’s amazing how many people fall asleep lying down these days. In order to stay awake you need to keep moving. Purchasing one of those chairs with wheels is a great way to encourage movement. If money is short swing backwards and forwards on a standard chair can be used to mimic moving.
• Heavy Food - Heavy or Greasy food can kill an all nighter in its tracks, being full makes you lazy and being lazy leads to sleep.
• Home - If you can help it being out and about prevents you from falling asleep. The instinctual fear of being unprotected will prevent you from falling asleep. Get out into a 24 hour computer lab and soak in the artificial lighting.

• Work - Work is boring and so may cause you to fall asleep unwittingly. Now the fact you are pulling an all nighter means you have some work to do so it is important to space out the work as much as possible throughout the night. I recommend James’s famous quad-10 strategy which involves 20 minutes of solid work followed by 20 minutes of complaining about the work to a fellow allnightee(Me) and then 20 minutes of a non work related activity. This provides you with the three of the five chemicals needed for an all nighter:
  • Workadone - Provided by the 20 minutes of Work
  • MetaWorkadone - Provided by the 20 minutes of Complaining - Simulates Workadone
  • Happydone - Provided by the other 20 minutes of non work. Makes you feel like the all nighter is worth the effort.

Things To Not Avoid

• Caffeine - Drink this stuff in quantities that would make a horse shit hippos. Caffiene is the fourth needed chemical for the all nighter.
• Chocolate - Chocolate has long been proven to stimulate the happy zone in your brain and is linked to serotonin increases which happens to be the fifth chemical brain thingy needed for an all nighter.
• People - People are essential in the production of metaworkadone in the brain (see things to avoid: work). They can also be a source of entertainment, help and motivation needed to get you through the EHS Zone.
• Alcohol - Well not just alcohol, alcohol has a very unique property when consumed in small amounts and combined with sleep deprivation - it acts as a stimulus and keeps you awake especially around other people. Warning: If you cross over the Alcohol to Caffeine ratio you will end up sleeping. Also high amounts of caffeine and alcohol consumption have been related to dickheadedness and Sensless Speech Syndrome (Jamie et al 2008)

At The End

So you made it to 5am. You are coming out of the EHS Zone and approaching sunrise, at this point it is acceptable to take a long break and to go and view the sun rise, this will stimulate your body into thinking you just got up early and will hopefully inspire you to complete another day.

My advice at this point is to:

• Go Home
• Take a Shower
• Get Dressed in New Clothes
• Have a Light Breakfast
• Get on with your Day

With the above technique (and ignoring all the avoid me rules) I stayed up for 42 hours, completed a 20 page report and wrote the best bulk of a Media Player. I then went out with my friend for an awesome end of term night out where I drank more than my fair share of alcohol. At the end of it (3:30am) I felt great and was up 8am the next morning and back in Uni to give my demonstration and hand in my report.