Keep Someone from Falling Asleep

Are you staying up for a movie marathon with your best friend? Perhaps you and a friend are trying to stay up all night, just to see if you can do it. Are you cramming for an exam with a study partner? Because extreme sleep deprivation can be a health hazard, only keep someone awake if they have asked for this help.

Steps

Keeping the Body and Mind Active

1. Stay awake yourself. This is key. By staying awake yourself, you will be able to observe when your friend is about to nod off, and you can intervene before he does fall asleep. Staying awake will allow you to talk to your friend and provide other support.
2. Keep your friend moving. Navy Basic Underwater Demolition and SEAL (BUD/S) candidates who have successfully completed “Hell Week,” in which they are awake for virtually five days, say that it is difficult to fall asleep when you are moving around. The candidates are constantly moving, exercising, and being yelled at by their SEAL instructors. You can use some of these techniques to help your friend stay awake:
   • Create an exercise circuit to keep moving. Try doing 10 pushups, 10 sit ups, 10 squats for as many rounds as you can.
   • Throw a football or play a game of soccer. Near the end of Hell Week, SEAL instructors have the candidates engage in fun sports to stay awake.
3. Talk to your friend. Try telling stories. Speak in a loud voice.
   • Tell your funniest story.
   • Tell a scary story.
4. Stay on your feet as much as possible. If you are studying late into the night, stand up to take your notes.
5. Nudge or gently shake your friend if you observe her nodding off. Have her move around or stand up immediately.
6. Yell loudly at your friend if he starts to doze off. This is common in BUD/S training. The candidates are constantly being yelled at by their instructors.

Changing the Environment

1. Find or create a cool or cold environment. BUD/S candidates say that when you’re freezing cold, it’s almost impossible to fall asleep. They are subjected to up to 15 minutes immersed in water that is barely above 60°F (15.6°C). Be careful, however, because exposure to extreme cold can lead to life-threatening conditions, such as Recognize and Assess Hypothermia.
   • Have your friend drink a cold beverage.
   • Make an ice bath for your buddy and have her sit in it for 10 minutes.
   • Adjust the air conditioning to make the room cool or cold.
   • Have your friend take a cold 10-minute shower.
2. Make your friend as physically uncomfortable as you can without physically harming him. People are less likely to fall asleep when they are uncomfortable, according to one military member who successfully completed Hell Week.
   • Get “wet and sandy." Jump into a body of water then roll around in the sand like BUD/S candidates do.
   • Sit in the most uncomfortable chair available.
   • Take away your friend’s pillow and blankets.
3. Turn on loud music. Loud sounds make it difficult to doze off.
   • Listen to rock, death metal, or upbeat pop. Avoid slow, lulling music.

Helping Your Friend Use Mental Tactics to Stay Awake

1. Help your friend write down a goal. Is her goal to stay up for 24 hours? For 48 hours? Studies show that writing down goals improves achievement of the goal.
2. Break down the goals into small, manageable chunks. Research shows that when people break their goals down into smaller chunks, they complete the goals more quickly and accurately.
   • Help your friend look at this challenge as an hourly goal or break it down even further, to minutes. Goals might be: Stay awake for one more hour, until 2am. When that goal has been reached, the next goal might be the same: Stay awake for one more hour, until 3am. Staying awake for one more hour (or 15 or 30 minutes) seems more manageable and easier to accomplish than staying awake for 24 or 12 hours.
3. Repeat or chant a mantra. Often times, repeating a mantra can help focus the mind on something other than the difficult experience at hand. Good mantras are short, encouraging, and rhythmic.
   • Make up a mantra.
   • Use someone else’s mantra and repeat it. Try out, “Feeling strong, feeling good," or, “Looking good, feeling good, oughta be in Hollywood.”

Consuming Stimulants or Other Drugs

1. Offer your friend some caffeine. Caffeine is a legal drug found in coffee, chocolate energy drinks, and in pill form. It is a stimulant, and it is more difficult to fall asleep while under the influence of a stimulant.
   • According to experts, up to 400 milligrams per day of caffeine is safe for most people. A cup of coffee has about 95 mg of caffeine. An energy drink has around 74 – 111mg of caffeine.
   • Children and teenagers should not consume more than 100 milligrams of caffeine per day.
   • Avoid over-consuming caffeine. In large doses it can be dangerous. Caffeine can cause increased blood pressure, increasing heart rate, dizziness, dehydration, and headaches.
2. Help your friend to avoid alcohol. Too much alcohol has a depressant effect on the nervous system (the opposite of the stimulant effect that caffeine has).
3. Make sure your friend avoids illegal drugs. Although some illegal drugs are stimulants (methamphetamine, cocaine), avoid using these as a method to stay awake. These drugs are harmful, illegal, and potentially deadly.
4. Make sure your friend avoids using legal prescription drugs contrary to how they are prescribed. Do not allow your friend to take someone else’s prescription drugs. Advise her to avoid taking her own prescription drugs in a manner that is different from how a physician prescribed them. Failure to follow the directions on the prescription label can result in severe medical complications and even death.

Tips

• Never, under any circumstance, allow your friend to drive or operate heavy or dangerous machinery while sleep-deprived.
• Be safe — if you and your friend are trying to stay awake but there is a chance you may fall asleep, make sure you are both in a safe place and/or among trusted people.
• If your friend consistently has trouble staying awake during “normal” hours, this could be due to a poor sleep schedule or a medical condition, such as narcolepsy. Advise him to speak with a professional if this is the case.

Sources and Citations

See also

• Know the Difference Between Sleepiness and Fatigue
• Sleep Naked
• Fall Asleep Fast
• Stop Drooling in Your Sleep
• Not Be Tired
• Be Nocturnal
• Condition Your Body to Need Less Sleep
• Stay Up For Three Days Straight
• Induce Sleep Paralysis
• Sleep While Sitting Up

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