How useful are all nighters...really?

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jr doctor in sd

jr doctor in sd

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Ok so i have my O-chem final for the class in which I may receive my worst grade thus far in my collegiate career.

I was wondering when studying for a test that's hugely impacting you...how useful is staying up all night and popping open a red bull in the morning?

I've pulled 2 all nighters ever...1 ended with me being 100% exhausted on an exam missing tons of little tricks and getting a horrible grade (C-). The other ended with me getting lucky reviewing a practice test very very similar to our real test and the repetition made me very strong at it so i did well (A-).

I was not about to pull an all nighter for the beast that is ochem though, haha. I only had 4 hours of sleep though 🙁 i feel pretty tired and hope it doesnt affect me.

So yes how do you all deal with messing up your sleep cycles for times like these? 😛
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I've only ever pulled all-nighters for papers and assignments that are due the next day but I will not be tested on. I couldn't imagine pulling that for a test, as I'm not sure how conscience I'd be after 24+ hours of no sleep, running solely on Amp.

And breaks are for making up sleep, making money, and blowing off steam doing whatever else makes you happy.
 
jr doctor in sd said:
Ok so i have my O-chem final for the class in which I may receive my worst grade thus far in my collegiate career.

I was wondering when studying for a test that's hugely impacting you...how useful is staying up all night and popping open a red bull in the morning?

I've pulled 2 all nighters ever...1 ended with me being 100% exhausted on an exam missing tons of little tricks and getting a horrible grade (C-). The other ended with me getting lucky reviewing a practice test very very similar to our real test and the repetition made me very strong at it so i did well (A-).

I was not about to pull an all nighter for the beast that is ochem though, haha. I only had 4 hours of sleep though 🙁 i feel pretty tired and hope it doesnt affect me.

So yes how do you all deal with messing up your sleep cycles for times like these? 😛
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I did a few back in college but I never did well with the lack of sleep. I'm not much of a crammer. Some people do the all-nighter pretty well but I'm not one of those people. From my experience, all-nighters are better for exams that require large amounts of memorization or writing papers. If I had to take an exam that included analyzing something, or figuring something out mathmatically, the all-nighter wouldn't do me any good. That's just my opinion
 
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if u feel u have the juice in the tank for that, go for it. I used to do it all the time. some people feel that u are doing yourself a disservice by not sleeping or that u cannot learn the material "if u don't already know it by now." the sleep part, maybe true. but the latter is bullshT. if u learn something even seconds before the exam, well then u learned it. if u care enough about the exam, adrenaline will get u through it at test time.
 
In my first few 2 years of college, I'd skip class all the time, and, as a result, would be forced to cram the material within a few days, oftening requiring me to pull 'all-nighters.' In general, it worked well for me, except for calculus.
 
I've never done the literal all-nighter. But I have studied until 4am, and then napped for 2 hours, studied for another 2 hours, then went to take an exam, lol. I find the little nap helps. Sleeping is supposed to consolidate newly acquired information, not to mention, a nap break helps you feel refreshed. And yeah, usually these pseudo-all-nighters are for classes like genetics where there's just a lot to memorize, and it helps to have crammed just before so that all the minutia is relatively fresh in my head. Never really did all nighters for physics or calc since classes like that are very concept based.
 
I think that what you did was the best balance I could find. Getting a minimum of 3 hours of sleep (as long as you made sure you had a couple alarms set so you wouldn't oversleep!) was my optimal performance threshold. I agree that all-nighters helped for writing papers or doing projects...and I was pretty successful doing them senior year for a class like psychology where all that really mattered was reading the entire book and lecture notes...

...But a class like orgo...or an upper level bio...where you have to analyze or discern between tricky answers...that disoriented feeling of not having slept put me off way too much to be able to do that. I think what you did was probably the optimum way you could have prepared.
 
I don't do well if I don't have at least a few hours to let my brain rest before the test.

Most of my classes in college were those short answer/essay tests, so while memorizing details is helpful, I really needed to be refreshed to be able to analyze/think up responses.

My favorite question from microbial ecology:

Which environment, soil or ocean, is better for microbial growth and why?

We never talked about this and there was a whole page for the answer.
 
i did an all nighter here or there in college - then my last semester i ended up doing like five of them right towards the end. It was a rough semester.

A steady stream of caffeine is helpful, lots of reviewing what you just learned, and planned study breaks to walk around and get your blood moving.

Another thing i found really helpful - i went down to the nutrition store and bought a bottle of tyrosine caplets. Tyrosine is a precursor to dopamine and epinephrine. i found that popping one or two grams helped me to stay alert and not stress as badly.
 
I've only pulled one all nighter back in May. No Red Bull:scared: I'm never trying that. Just coffee and small naps in between.

For me, if I study then nap on it it sticks. So I studied. Took a 1 1/2 nap then studied more then another 1 1/2 nap.

Reading through everything right before I go to sleep helps me remember. I really do wake up and I'm remembering stuff while brushing:laugh:
 
I have never stayed all night to study. Granted I am only a freshmen. I just go to bed around 12am weather I am done or not and get up around 3am after a nap and study.
 
I'll never understand this behavior. Primarily because its not necessary at all, just plan your week better and you'll easily be getting the grades you want and have all the restful 7-9 hours you need every night.

That said, I think I probably have stayed up a little late to finish papers or something. But not to study for tests.
 
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VoiceofReason said:
I'll never understand this behavior. Primarily because its not necessary at all, just plan your week better and you'll easily be getting the grades you want and have all the restful 7-9 hours you need every night.

That said, I think I probably have stayed up a little late to finish papers or something. But not to study for tests.
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Shrug, people differ in study habits. Just do what works for you. I've found that I like pseudo-cramming more than I like doing the long grind, and it worked well for me, while still allowing me to do all my extracurriculars, hang out with the boyfriend, and party with my friends more than was perhaps reasonable...heh.

Note that I'll be changing that study habit in med school more likely than not, I'm not naive about the work load, lol.
 
for myself personally, i do fine pulling all-nighters for memorization-heavy courses (like my bio 102 class!) because then during the test i'm not really required to think so much as spit out stuff i just crammed. for something like orgo tho, i would never pull an all-nighter because i would have to be functional during the exam. i know someone who did... she fell asleep during the final. ouch.
 
VoiceofReason said:
I'll never understand this behavior. Primarily because its not necessary at all, just plan your week better and you'll easily be getting the grades you want and have all the restful 7-9 hours you need every night.

That said, I think I probably have stayed up a little late to finish papers or something. But not to study for tests.
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You don't understand that a lot of people are procrastinators?
 
You can even procrastinate a little and still not have to be up all night. I think the real issue, actually, is that I LOVE MY SLEEP. Sleep deprivation pains me enough that I will actually plan and take steps to avoid it.
 
I've never pulled an all-nighter (at least not for the purposes of studying). If I feel I'm not ready for an exam, I'll just get up at 5 AM or so the morning of the test and review for 3-4 hours.
 
Sleep = happiness. Sleep deprivation tires your body, increases stress, and ultimately causes release of cortisol. You'll notice that you feel a happier when your sleep dept is low. Also, a messed up sleep schedule prevents you from going into deep sleep, which is important for memory. All-nighters only allow you to store info into short-term memory just for the sake of the examination. After that, you'll forget most of it. It's better to store info over an extended period of time. Also, don't drive (or operate on a patient) if you feel sleepy. A large # of accidents can be attributed to sleep deprivation. In conclusion, SLEEP OR DIE, fools.
 
I wouldnt pull a complete all nighter if I were you. I would work until like 3 AM, then take a 3-4 hour snooze until 8ish and then get back to it. Trust me, those 4 hours of sleep are really refreshing, and will help you more than just studying during that time and being completely exhausted when u take the test.
 
i've tried it twice thus far, both in chem.. ended up bombing both tests.. with that little sleep i found it really hard to concentrate and think clearly.
 
WinterLights said:
Go to bed at 4pm, wake up at midnight and get to work.
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This might actually work, since you'll be awake when everyone else is sleeping. That'll get rid of any distractions. You can get in a good 9 hours of non-stop studying.
 
Well, driving without sleep is supposed to be similar to driving drunk. Would you take a test while intoxicated? Try to find a way to get sleep.
 
VoiceofReason said:
You can even procrastinate a little and still not have to be up all night. I think the real issue, actually, is that I LOVE MY SLEEP. Sleep deprivation pains me enough that I will actually plan and take steps to avoid it.
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Me too, in med school. Sleep is good 🙂, and if I get a decent amount of it my studying is more productive and my retention of information seems to be much better. I was a crammer in undergrad, but even then I had a personal rule of stopping studying by 8pm the night before the test so that I could relax a bit and be in bed at 10pm. In med school I tend to stop studying by about 6pm the night before the test and just watch a movie or something that evening. And one test I did something very risky...I stopped studying two days before the test because I knew the information and was just done, mentally. Oddly, I only missed one question on that entire test, ha.😎
 
skyeblue0610 said:
I've only pulled one all nighter back in May. No Red Bull:scared: I'm never trying that. Just coffee and small naps in between.

For me, if I study then nap on it it sticks. So I studied. Took a 1 1/2 nap then studied more then another 1 1/2 nap.

Reading through everything right before I go to sleep helps me remember. I really do wake up and I'm remembering stuff while brushing:laugh:
Click to expand...

Is it considered an all-nighter if you take naps?
 
The only time I've ever stayed up all night before a test was when I took the MCAT. I had started a good sleeping schedule the week before, exercised the day before, didn't eat before bed, etc but still couldn't sleep. I just laid there thinking "this sucks I'm not gonna be able to focus" but I ended up being very happy with my scores so I guess it worked out.

Any other exam that I'm unprepared for; I'll study until 2 or 3 then become apathetic and just go to sleep.
 
I did an all nighter for 3 nights straight. The results were disappointing and I even fell asleep during one of the finals. I remember struggling to keep my eyes open then waking up again with a bunch of squiggles on the page.
 
lack of sleep makes me apathetic. So it doesn't work for me. Manage your time well and don't tackle more than you can handle and you shouldn't have to stay up all night.
 
VoiceofReason said:
You can even procrastinate a little and still not have to be up all night. I think the real issue, actually, is that I LOVE MY SLEEP. Sleep deprivation pains me enough that I will actually plan and take steps to avoid it.
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Oh yes! I feel exactly the same way. Do you feel like you get enough sleep in med school? How do you do it? If you plan in advance and organize your time well, can you manage to get 7+ hours of sleep a night, at least in years 1 and 2?
 
Dendrite said:
Is it considered an all-nighter if you take naps?
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I guess not techinically. My last nap was at about 3:00 and I stayed away with coffee until my 8am. I honestly don't think just studying non stop does any good. You have to sleep on it just a little bit for that information to get embedded then wake up and add some more
 
chizledfrmstone said:
All nighters are worthless for me, I never get work done and never retain any information. For this reason alone I just force myself to study beforehand.

I've only pulled an all nighter once and it was for a paper.

But I have to say that taking a nap between 11-3am sounds good.. I've done that once and I was alert as hell... (don't think that counts as an all nighter)
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The nap really does help, I agree
 
pulling a true all nighter has resulted in failure every time- if I do that my brain doesn't get enough rest and then the test is a blur. I can study til 2-3am then sleep til 7 or 8 and then go take an exam. But the nap is GREAT!
 
Dendrite said:
Is it considered an all-nighter if you take naps?
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Yeh, I do this sometimes. Take a "nap" in the middle of the night, 2 to 3 hours or so. I have only done two real all nighters in my life. One in college and one in high school.
 
All nighters work well for some, not so well for others. If you are new to the game or have had a bad experience I would not recommend it, but speaking from personal experience I have had some of my best test performances on no sleep what so ever. There is also something to be said for sleeping from 10pm-2am then hitting the books till game-time.
 
I took g-chem over the summer a few years ago and would pull all nighters every Thursday for subsequent exams Friday morning. I would chug like 3 Red Bulls over the course of the evening to make due. Needless to say I will never pull an all nighter again unless I absolutely have to and I can't stand the smell of Red Bull now either. It's certainly not a healthy thing to do.
 
TarHeel55 said:
Oh yes! I feel exactly the same way. Do you feel like you get enough sleep in med school? How do you do it? If you plan in advance and organize your time well, can you manage to get 7+ hours of sleep a night, at least in years 1 and 2?
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Hey sorry I realize my tag is misleading. I'm not actually in medical school yet, I won't start for another 7 months, but I've been accepted and I changed my tag in my excitement. I found that I really only needed to look ahead 2 or 3 days in undergrad in order to keep myself on a good sleep schedule while still getting everything done. I anticipate that I may have to plan a little further in advance in medical school but from what I read I'm pretty sure we'll end up with plenty of time to sleep. I mean, you don't even really need to go to class at a lot of schools.
 
shook33 said:
All nighters work well for some, not so well for others. If you are new to the game or have had a bad experience I would not recommend it, but speaking from personal experience I have had some of my best test performances on no sleep what so ever. There is also something to be said for sleeping from 10pm-2am then hitting the books till game-time.
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I agree with this. I am one of those people that need sleep badly also and will not catch little tricks or things like that on tests if i don't.

And the reaction here is surprising or different for me. I pulled 2 near-all nighters - the one for genetics (which people thought'd be the better choice for cramming info) i got a bad grade on and the ochem one today of analyzing and tons of tricks (prof likes to use em) i feel like i did VERY well. And yes, i did well and do not just think i did well because the last two tests i felt bad on after leaving and got under the curve while this one i felt very strongly about 😀.

And to those posts about "you dont need to procrastinate; do it before"


The only reason i procrastinated this time around was because I tried harder for test 2 in ochem (in advance in terms of preparation) and got a worse grade by over 15 points out of 100. I had 2 final exams before O-chem, and i spent about ~2-3 hours prepping for each of those.

The entire 10th week here (at least 7 hrs/day) and all of finals week (Sun-Wed at least 10 hours each day) was spent studying ochem. I wouldn't consider it procrastination technically because I spent over 60 solid hours studying for it. The problem is i had read 2 out of 9 chapters this quarter and done roughly 1/10 of the homework problems. So i went back, skimmed easier chapters, read verbatim the long hard ones, re-skimmed hard ones, did all the homework (hard problems over again), did practice tests, etc.

I still, however, felt like it was the kind of material you could not study enough to feel prepared for. Like I would continually think "what oxidizes alcohol again?" or "you can't use organometallic reagants when...?". So i spent those last few hours memorizing small little concepts for some easy points on the test haha.

Now i have a physics final in about 16 hours which i haven't even started preparing for 🙁. I hope that the sacrifice is worth it. I may have just accepted an A- instead of an A in one class i didn't study for, and if i don't do well on the physics final a B+ in that instead of an A-.

But i guess an A-/B+/B/(lab-A) is better than a C-/A/A-/(lab - A)
 
Wow, I can't believe most of you!

I pull complete all-nighters ALL THE TIME. Usually 1 for each exam I have. It's kind of sad that I'm such a chronic procrastinator but I still get the highest grades on exams so I'm reluctant to change my habits.
😴
 
shook33 said:
All nighters work well for some, not so well for others. If you are new to the game or have had a bad experience I would not recommend it, but speaking from personal experience I have had some of my best test performances on no sleep what so ever. There is also something to be said for sleeping from 10pm-2am then hitting the books till game-time.
Click to expand...

I never wake up when I try to do the whole "I'll just sleep for one or two hours". If I'm staying up, I'm doing it with absolutely no shut eye.
 
Thurinus said:
I never wake up when I try to do the whole "I'll just sleep for one or two hours". If I'm staying up, I'm doing it with absolutely no shut eye.
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ditto on that.. except im always confident enough to actually convince myself to go to bed thinking i can wake up in a couple hours.

I was 0/4 on that philosophy this semester...
 
Kthanksbye said:
lack of sleep makes me apathetic. So it doesn't work for me. Manage your time well and don't tackle more than you can handle and you shouldn't have to stay up all night.
Click to expand...

Definitely. Lacking sleep makes nothing in the world really matter. It reminds me of the end of 1984. Once you cross that trheshold all you care about is your own comfort.
 
jr doctor in sd said:
Ok so i have my O-chem final for the class in which I may receive my worst grade thus far in my collegiate career.

I was wondering when studying for a test that's hugely impacting you...how useful is staying up all night and popping open a red bull in the morning?

I've pulled 2 all nighters ever...1 ended with me being 100% exhausted on an exam missing tons of little tricks and getting a horrible grade (C-). The other ended with me getting lucky reviewing a practice test very very similar to our real test and the repetition made me very strong at it so i did well (A-).

I was not about to pull an all nighter for the beast that is ochem though, haha. I only had 4 hours of sleep though 🙁 i feel pretty tired and hope it doesnt affect me.

So yes how do you all deal with messing up your sleep cycles for times like these? 😛
Click to expand...


I just finished my ochem final today. I studied for fourteen hours straight, from 2pm in the afternoon to 4am the next day. Then I went to sleep for five hours, woke up feeling fine, reviewed some more and took the final. What worked for me was lots and lots and lots of coffee or redbull during the study session. Then when I passed out and woke up, the caffeine was all up in my system.

I don't like all nighters at all. I try to get some sleep before the test so that my brain can process all the crap I've been trying to cram into it. Also, when I don't get any sleep for the night, my brain works at about half the speed. It's very very bad. Anyways, that's just my two cents.
 
Thurinus said:
I never wake up when I try to do the whole "I'll just sleep for one or two hours". If I'm staying up, I'm doing it with absolutely no shut eye.
Click to expand...

I have this down to a science. I purposefully set my alarm 15-30 minutes earlier than when I need to get up, and when it goes off, I reset it for 15-30 min later and go back to sleep. That way I get to "sleep in" alittle more but still get up on time. And yes, I love my sleep that much that I feel it necessary to do that. 😛

I never saw the purpose to all nighters though. Honestly, how coherent can you be for a test if you're exhausted from not getting a decent night's sleep? Taking a test is purely mental. Convince yourself that you know the material; don't study all night but instead know that you're going to do well on the test. Having confidence in yourself is a lot more efficient than the all nighter.
 
Physiologically speaking, enzymes that prevent consolidation from working to long-term memory accumulated with massed practice (i.e. cramming), whereas they do not for repetition over long periods of time.
 
i wouldn't trust my performance after an all-nighter. While i've never pulled an all-nighter, I would only consider staying up to finish an essay.
 
TheLesPaul said:
Physiologically speaking, enzymes that prevent consolidation from working to long-term memory accumulated with massed practice (i.e. cramming), whereas they do not for repetition over long periods of time.
Click to expand...

Thats ****in' interesting, man. *lebowski*
 
TheLesPaul said:
Physiologically speaking, enzymes that prevent consolidation from working to long-term memory accumulated with massed practice (i.e. cramming), whereas they do not for repetition over long periods of time.
Click to expand...

Enzymes, hu? You realize that this is the same reasoning used by certain ultra-affectionate dog owner to justify French kissing their pets, don't you? Enzymes apparently do a lot of things.
 
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