Mid-Term Crunch Time: How to Responsibly Pull an All-Nighter

By Amelia Woolard

Cold sweats. Heavy breathing. An unexplainable feeling that something terrifying lurks just around the corner. No, we’re not talking about Halloween frights, but something much, much worse: that mid-term you forgot about until now, a mere 16 hours before the test. Talk about a real-life horror show!

While unfavorable, there are numerous times when, as a college student, you may have to do the unthinkable and pull an all-nighter. We hear you – just the thought of foregoing an entire night’s worth of precious sleep to stare at your computer screen and (hopefully) master the material you’ll be tested on the next day is enough to make you want to throw in the towel altogether— but don’t give up hope just yet!

While we certainly don’t condone pulling regular, all-hours study sessions, there are plenty of ways to make the most of your all-nighter. With that in mind, uCribs has composed a list of our top 5 tips that will make your all-nighter productive, successful, and most of all, worth every ounce of lost sleep.

First, prepare for chaos.

Okay, so maybe pulling an all-nighter isn’t the most chaotic thing you could be doing this week (Halloween parties, anyone?), but given that your body is about to sacrifice sleep in the name of academic success, you may want to prepare ahead of time in order to soften the blow. One of the best ways to do so? Spend the afternoon prior to your all-night study binge stocking up on what will soon be some much-needed sleep.

Although it seems like clocking in an extra hour or two won’t do much now, you may be surprised how much easier it will be to stay energized and awake until the wee hours when you re-up on your precious zzz’s beforehand. Think of it as building out a reservoir of energy for your body to dip into when needed.

Plus, it’s hard enough to stay up all night while you’re rested – just think about how much harder it will be to transition from a full day of classes and extracurriculars to a full night of studying with no break in between. We will politely skip the expletives and just say, “No thanks!”

Keep distractions at bay.

Sure, staying up all night to study isn’t exactly fun, so we can’t blame you for getting a few kicks where you can. But let’s be honest with ourselves. How many times have social media feeds or hilarious YouTube videos derailed our productivity plans? It may be ultra-tempting to kick off your study session with a few cute animal footage reels, but once you’ve been sucked into a continuously streaming playlist loop for an hour, you may think differently. Your time – and more importantly, your grade – is precious, so don’t waste your minutes when they matter most!

Luckily, there’s an easy fix for when your mind starts to wander, and your Facebook alerts begin to beckon. Website-blocking apps— both for your computer and smartphone— are super effective and cost-efficient ways to reduce unwanted screen time. Most are even free.

Give Self-Control a try if you’re a Mac user, or StayFocused if you work heavily with Google Chrome. For smartphone users, Freedom or Cold Turkey is great for eliminating mindless smartphone check-ins.  Each program or app will block specified websites or applications, so that you can get your work done within a distraction-free environment.

Schedule a few activity breaks.

Depending on how severe your situation is, you may believe you have absolutely zero time to dedicate to anything other than intense studying. However, it’s in your best interest to step away mentally here and there—even if it’s just to move around the library and throw some figurative punches at your exam schedule… Hey, whatever works, right?

But in all seriousness, don’t forget to squeeze in physical activity between overloading your brain with pertinent information for your midterm. We probably don’t need to remind you that being physically active does wonders for your mental threshold, creativity, and productivity as well.

Even twenty minutes of activity immediately before an exam has been proven to boost test scores. Chalk it up to increased blood flow, which inevitably makes its way to your brain, and your basic evolutionary responses. Your early ancestors knew to run from danger when “stuff” hit the fan, and as a result, being active during crunch time tells your body to stay alert even when it really wants to curl up under the covers and take a nice, long nap.

Have the right snacks on deck.

It’s pretty much an established fact that snacks make even the most mundane task a little more rewarding. I mean, how many times have you sat through an otherwise snooze-worthy meeting in the name of free pizza and/or doughnuts? Probably more times than you can count, right? It’s no secret that our culture equates food with satisfaction and entertainment, and this especially applies to college students, who are on already tight budgets.

Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but that extra-large cheese pizza has no place anywhere near your study zone during an all-nighter, and here’s why. Carbohydrates are widely equated with energy, but most people don’t realize that carbs prepare your body for energy exertion only after you get moving. If you’re not planning to exercise shortly after consuming carbs, the carbs will instead release a stream of serotonin into the brain.

Unfortunately, too much serotonin will result in lethargy, which is just a fancy word for feeling like an 11 on a 1 to 10 fatigue scale. So, instead of reaching for carbs, stock up on proteins, healthy fats, and vitamins, which will keep you feeling full, energized, and motivated while aiding your brain as it works overtime. Try staples such as almonds, beef jerky, protein shakes, or Greek yogurt, then simply go from there.

Make sure you’ll have enough time to recover.

Few things are worse than sacrificing a full night’s worth of sleep without being able to recuperate effectively. Despite the initial feeling of euphoria you may experience after completing your much awaited exam, don’t kid yourself into thinking that your body won’t miss sleep from the night before. We won’t go into the gritty (and sometimes gruesome) details of what can happen to your sleep-deprived body, but let’s just say that it includes mood swings, weight gain, and increased risk of physical injury.

Pulling an all-nighter on Monday? Do yourself a favor and cancel that afternoon intramural meeting on Tuesday. Then, make it a point to go to sleep early the next night, or schedule time mid-day to catch up on a few depleted zzz’s. Even sneaking a 20-minute cat nap can do wonders for your mental and physical state.

No chance of napping? Well, don’t go crying your sleep deprived tears just yet. You will recuperate eventually, but for today, just take it one step at time. When exhausted, your body tends to maximize the effects of any physical and mental activity, making your jog from one class to the next feel like a half-marathon, and your two-paragraph reading response feel like a 10-pager. So, do yourself a favor and relax when and where you can – after all, you deserve it!

Staring down the barrel of an all-nighter? Relax – you totally got this! Whether you avoid all-nighters like the plague or have mastered the art of all-hours studying long ago, these tips will make your temporary stint as a real-life member of the walking dead a bit easier to handle. Now, go forth and get that A you’ve worked so hard for!

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