Sugary snacks give you a quick energy boost followed by the sugar вЂњlows,вЂќ when low blood sugar produces mental fogginess and lethargy. Look away from the screen for a few minutes periodically to relax your eyes. Give Your Eyes a Break to Avoid FatigueД¬ontinuous fixation on a computer screen can cause eyestrain and worsen sleepiness and fatigue. Siebern, PhD, a fellow at the Stanford University Sleep Medicine Center in Redwood City, Calif. вЂњIf you canвЂ™t nap, even resting quietly with your eyes closed for 10 minutes or so will help,вЂќ says Allison T. Sleeping at your desk is usually not a good idea, but many companies now provide nap rooms for employees. If you need to nap at work, do it during your break and use a vibrating alarm clock, if necessary, to make sure it doesnвЂ™t spill over into your work time. If you must take a late nap close to bedtime, make it a short one. ItвЂ™s best to nap about six or seven hours before you would normally go to bed. вЂњNap between five and 25 minutes,вЂќ says Barry Krakow, MD, author of Sound Sleep, Sound Mind: Seven Keys to Sleeping Through the Night.

There are two things to remember about naps: DonвЂ™t take more than one and donвЂ™t take it too close to your bedtime. Take a Nap to Take the Edge Off Sleepiness Whether you take a walk outside or just in the building where you work, it will make you feel more alert and refreshed. At meal breaks, walk to a restaurant or, if you bring your lunch, head for a nice spot to eat it. If you work at a desk, get up frequently for short walks. ThatвЂ™s because walking pumps oxygen through your veins, brain, and muscles. The 10-minute walk increased energy for two hours. Though the candy bar provided a quick energy boost, participants were actually more tired and had less energy an hour later. In one well-known study, Robert Thayer, PhD, a professor at California State University, Long Beach, studied whether people were more energized by eating a candy bar or taking a brisk 10-minute walk. But on the occasional day when that doesn't happen,В try some of these 12 jitter-free tips to take the edge off sleepiness. You need to do that for good health, as well as feeling rested. How can you stay awake naturally? The most obvious thing is to get enough sleep and practice good sleep habits, sometimes called 'sleep hygiene.' For instance, you probably know that it's best to go to sleep ad get up at the same time every day, power down your screens ahead of bedtime, keep your bedroom dark and cool.

Caffeine can also reduce your sleep time, alter the normal stages of sleep, and decrease the quality of your sleep. The java jolt that helps you stay awake can take up to eight hours to wear off. But consuming caffeine to combat sleepiness can lead to a vicious cycle. (1997).В Fatigue, alcohol and performance impairment.В Nature, 388, 235.With more and more of us getting less and less sleep, itвЂ™s tempting to reach for an energy drink or an espresso when we feel sleepy at work. So just when should you cut off the wakefulness and think about getting some sleep?В Back in 1997 a research team from Australia compared cognitive psychomotor performance after long periods of wakefulness to performance after drinking alcohol.В What they found was that if you stay awake for 17 hours, your hand-eye coordination would be about the same as if you drank enough alcohol to bring your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level to 0.05%.В At this BAC, it is illegal to drive a car in many areas, but people drive after being awake for 17 hours all the time!Д«efore you get to 17 hours, start thinking about safety and getting some shut-eye. I remember how hard it was to stay steady on the ladder as I finished the paint job.bordering on dangerous I would now argue. When I started working at the Royal Ottawa Sleep Disorders Centre, I was completing my undergraduate degree in psychology.В True to being a student, I could go to school all day, take a nap before work and then stay up all night at the sleep lab.with the help of a good dose of coffee.В But I would crash hard afterwards.В There was the odd summer day when I had to head to another job as a painter right after my sleep lab shift.В I might have made it to 32 hours with only a nap, but my performance was poor.

The longest well-documented period without sleep that I have ever heard of is 264 hours and 12 minutes.about 11 days.В The 17 year old Randy Gardner broke the previous record of 260 hours for his high school science fair project.В This was in 1965 and I haven't read or heard of anything like it since.

Longest person to stay awake