I am moving home today and it is too late for proactive harm reduction like “get plenty of sleep in the days before the all nighter”. I tried to look for advice online, but just found loads of articles telling me how harmful and unproductive it is to go without sleep. I get it, I’m fucked. I’m not in this situation by choice though, so now I just want to get through the day as well as I can. I have plenty of help, so I don’t need to do much physical exertion, but I will need to direct people and organise the last packing stages. Fortunately I don’t need to drive anywhere, but I do somehow need to survive this. By the end, I’ll have been up for around 48 straight hours, and I was pretty tired even before then (so tired that my R regular ADHD meds barely woke me up)
So I was wondering if anyone had tips that helps them when they’re exhausted beyond belief but still need to function. When you’re in a situation where you know it’s unhealthy to push through, but it’s too late to change that, is there anything that you find lessens the blow of the combo exhaustion at the end of it all? Staying hydrated is already on my list, as is getting some rest if you can (because even if you don’t sleep, some shut eye rest can be good); I’m getting an hourish rest after posting this question. I’m typically not someone who naps, because I wake up even groggier afterwards. I know I’m foolish for hoping for some neat trick or tip to make today magically tolerable, but I figured it was worth asking.
From what I’ve heard (and it agrees with my anecdotal experience):
One of the things that takes the most strain when you skip sleep is your heart. Sleep is one of the times when your heart muscles get to rest a bit more, so it can struggle to pump blood when you don’t rest
Along those lines, drinking plenty of water and staying hydrated can help make your blood consistency a little thinner and easier to pump.
I’d also consider trying to eat foods that aren’t too high in fat, and don’t have too high of a glycemic index. Lots of fat all at once can make you feel heavy and tired, exacerbating tiredness, and foods high in glycemic index that contain more simple sugars and less fiber will spike your blood sugar, resulting in a crash that I would also expect to exacerbate tiredness.
The last thing I’d add is to keep in mind that people are extremely bad at assessing how much their sleep deprivation is affecting them. Studies have shown that people are genuinely dogshit at it, and will consistently think they’re performing about average while producing horrible results in cognitive tests. Remember that even if you feel like you’re doing fine in terms of ability to think, objectively you aren’t and are operating at a significantly diminished capacity, and you just can’t tell.
Tldr, stay hydrated, eat foods without a ton of fat and that are lower glycemic index, and remember that your brain is really dumb when you don’t sleep, even though it often won’t feel like it