All nighters @_@

[Minibit]

so, I didn't sleep last night. Mostly just lay in bed hoping to.

I'm pretty hungry and may actually eat a voluntary breakfast (rare for me), but aside from that I feel ok. I'll probably need coffee soon.

How do you guys handle all nighters?

 

[Kagayours]

I feel like not being able to fall asleep (but wanting to) is different from an "all-nighter".

I've always defined an "all-nighter" as deliberately keeping yourself awake, typically to get stuff done.

And by that definition, all-nighters are... well, I have mixed feelings about them. I've definitely done them in the past for sake of productivity, but they're usually something I plan out beforehand. Like, I'll pick a night when it would cause the least amount of problems for me to not be functioning at my best the next day. That said, when I do pull all-nighters, I tend to feel kind of amazing during the thick of them, because I always feel like I'm getting so much done and, for some reason, I'm more productive than I would've been if I was trying to get that work done during the daytime (although, I suppose it's worth mentioning that my prescription medication has the side effect of keeping me wide awake, so actually staying up really isn't hugely difficult when I want to).

That saaaaaid I always seem to kind of regret it the day afterwards because of just how drained I feel. @_@ But, it's still useful for getting ahead, so long as you aren't given a ton more work to handle the next day...

AS FOR STRAIGHT-UP INSOMNIA, THOUGH, well, that just sucks. I don't know what else to say about that.

 

[Minibit]

I feel like not being able to fall asleep (but wanting to) is different from an "all-nighter".

OK, here's an idea; no matter what I refer to it as, y'all are gonna nitpick semantics, so I'm just gonna use my extra-special bold red font to define the topic!

HOW DOES IT GO FOR YOU WHEN YOU PASS A NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP?​

 

[Kagayours]

OK, here's an idea; no matter what I refer to it as, y'all are gonna nitpick semantics, so I'm just gonna use my extra-special bold red font to define the topic!

HOW DOES IT GO FOR YOU WHEN YOU PASS A NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP?​

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I only felt it important to mention because I feel like the two are rather different experiences, at least for me.

 

[SkyStar14]

All-nighters for me are usually due to schoolwork, especially during finals wekk. However, I do have times when I'll choose a good book or a TV show over sleep, which I sorta did last night 'cause I made a bet with my friend that I could watch every episode of Death Note in two days. And I have now come to regret tbis descision very much; I can barely keep aleet and am not being much of a help to the store's customers (thank the stars this job is only part time!). So, as said, I'm cool for the night - and the early morning, too - but around midmorning, I'll inevitably feel like a daft little moron for forgoing sleep. *Sigh* Break's nearing a close, so its back to the sales floor for my sleep-deprived self now...

 

[Jorick]

OK, here's an idea; no matter what I refer to it as, y'all are gonna nitpick semantics, so I'm just gonna use my extra-special bold red font to define the topic!

HOW DOES IT GO FOR YOU WHEN YOU PASS A NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP?​

You thought that was enough to deter semantic nitpicking? Hah!

I work graveyard shift. Technically I pass every night without sleep because I go to bed in the early afternoon and wake up shortly after sunset. I don't have any special problems because doing the all nighter thing is my norm. :P

But for serious, in the meaning of just foregoing sleep and ending up staying awake for more than 24 hours, they usually go decently for me. I go through cycles of dead tiredness and groggy energy, so I just have to fight off the tired half of it (usually by doing physically active things) and then coast through the energetic parts. It's pretty similar to times when I get only a few hours of sleep, actually. I have a lot of practice at working through tiredness thanks to a youth spent playing video games long into the night, so it's not really anything special to me now.

 

[Alan]

When I was working, prior to the eye injury, I had a long standing policy on this: If I'm still awake an hour before my alarm goes off, I settle in for the morning routine. Coffee, shower, breakfast, etc.

With as slow as work had become in the years leading up to the eye injury, I just ended up catching a nap at work. Working in a small IT outfit has its perks.

 

[Midian]

I never pulled all-nighters as a student; my first one was as a professor and grad student. I strangely do really well in the morning, crash around lunchtime, and then have a small second "life support" wind to get me home. Then I crash, eat, and crash again.

Wheeeeeee!

 

[Windsong]

I'm an adult with adult things to do! Need my masculine rest!

Tried to do all-nighters with my wife on long weekends occasionally. Normally despite the best efforts of coffee and caffeine she dozes off and I get bored with whatever it was that had me most excited to stay awake for. Then we crash and sleep in most of the next day.

As a kid I used to do it regularly. Mostly by finding a TV station that didn't fall to infomercials at 3am and watching that until the sun came up.

Speaking of the sun. If I did miss sleep or purposely remained awake. Stepping outside for just five minutes and seeing the sun usually helps me beat the tired groggy feeling.

Right now it's pouring rain and most of the Bay Area is in a flood watch. All I want to do is nap!

( and play Planetside2)

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

All nighters were common for me growing up being a gamer and all.
To the point a nickname I gained in High School was "Two Nighter" because I stayed up for 48 hours straight once.

Every single All Nighter I've had though has been the result of gaming, or marathoning an anime or TV show.
I've never struggled enough academically or work wise that staying up the night to finish the work was required.
The latest I usually end up staying up for the sake of work completion is midnight.

Hell when Mass Effect 3 came out I convinced my Mom to let me skip school for the day so I could Marathon that game. Bought it right after school, went straight home and played, played it that whole night and the entire 24 hour day that school was skipped, and then straight into the morning of the following day where I had to get going to school again.

The following day the effects vary depending on what the day consists of.

If the following day is me at home? I'm generally fine, my computer helps keep me to the end of the day (if I desire it to), but often times I'll hit the hay just out of convenience.
If the following day is out with friends? We'll normally do fine, until we sit down anywhere for an extended period of time, then I fall asleep... I have no idea why this happens in social situations specifically.
If the following day is school? I'll still get by ok, but I won't be paying 100% attention to the teacher, it'd be closer to 60-70%
If the following day is work or placement? My performance and awareness is lacking and I get droopy eyed. Not so good when working with children. I'll get through the day ok, but my performance would be very lacking in comparison to my well rested self.

 

[Fluffy]

Being up all night usually means I'm having insomnia. I'll end up laying on the couch watching cartoons for several hours and get to bed by about 6am so I can get at least a small nap in before I start the morning routine with my little one. It can be frustrating but ah well, shit happens. I'll be functioning at a minimum level but that's better than not being functional at all.

I haven't pulled a deliberate all-nighter for roughly 7 years now. I do not miss doing that. High school had some huge demands of me, yet when I got into college I had no problem just getting all my studying and homework done during the day so I could do whatever I wanted with my evenings.

 

[redblood]

I tend to handle both voluntary and involuntary (insomnia) all-nighters pretty well. I might need one nap during the day, but I can usually manage without one if I have to as long as I'm not too still during the day and eat properly. I tend to do all-nighters quite frequently. Often to finish an anime series or a game or because I have a horror movie marathon. Sometimes I do an all-nighter once a week and sometimes it can take a few months between them. I don't think I've had any involuntary all-nighters since high school, I always tend to fall asleep around five AM if I don't stay up deliberately.

 

[fatalrendezvous]

I have kind of different experiences here. In undergrad, I'd frequently pull all-nighters to get things done.

It's not so bad. The hardest part of the day is when you're supposed to be asleep or just when you're supposed to be waking up, which is when I always felt the most exhausted. Once it hit roughly noon, my body seemed to almost "forget" that I'd pulled an all-nighter and I was mostly functional, especially if I'd managed to get caffeine in my system.

Usually I'd just crash out really hard the night after an all-nighter and then try to catch up on the rest of the sleep in the nights that followed.

NOWADAYS, THOUGH, I don't really pull all-nighters, but what I like to call half-nighters. Because of my cramped work / grad school schedule, it's common for me to be awake until about 3 or 4 am. I have to wake up at 7, so I really only get half of the sleep I should be getting.

In a lot of ways, I find this tougher because it's not like I can choose to knock the fuck out unless it's Friday or Saturday night, since I know that the next morning I have to go to work. So I drag myself out of bed running on perpetual 3 hours of sleep, and it's awful. Like, really really awful.

So really, most days I just pound a Monster and get on with my day. Other days I'll sacrifice the study time and just pass out after getting home from work and sleep for like twelve hours until work the next morning.