How to Stay Awake in Class
I've been having trouble staying awake in class due to sleep problems, personal tendency, and other things.
Looking at various blogs around the internet I have come across a lot of tips for staying awake in class. Some are a little ridiculous. Most of them don't work for me.
Here are some tips for you to stay awake in class.
Avoid carbohydrates before class. This includes mostly refined starches and sugars. A bagel consumed in under 10 minutes will knock me right out. Think blood sugar.
Suck on candies during lecture. This is a little contradictory to the last tip. One blog I just read suggested sour candies keep you awake. Probably someone's personal experience. I used to use tootsie roll pops and try to make them last as long as possible.
Eat small snack items during lecture. This is better than candies. Here is a link to an easy garbanzo bean dried snack recipe: http://thecollegeveggie.blogspot.com/2013/01/roasted-garbanzo-beans-fee-fi-fo-fiber.html with nutritional explanation including talk about blood sugar spikes. Perfect for lecture - She brings them to class all the time.
Get enough sleep at night. Easy concept but nearly impossible in college.
Caffeinated beverages. This is contradictory to the previous tip. If you have trouble sleeping even when you have time, caffeine is one of the first things you should remove from your day. Vicious cycle. Everyone is different.
Sit in the front row. When I read this tip I almost laughed imagining myself falling asleep in front of the professor. It would probably motivate some people to stay awake. It would embarrass others.
Take notes. When I read this one I almost laughed also. Someone wrote that he had never fallen asleep in the middle of writing a sentence. I, personally, have finished the second half of countless sentences with a squiggly line that goes off the side of the page and onto the desk.
Doodle. While taking notes by hand, doodling in the margins is not distracting.
Do other things. I don't recommend this tip. It is not polite to your lecturer or classmates to be using your computer/device to surf the web or do other stuff. However, some people are good multitaskers and can absorb the lecture while occupied elsewhere. Knitting is a better example of an occupation that isn't generally considered rude (but a lecturer might still be offended) and was pretty common when I was in undergrad.
Turn the brightness up. I learned last week that, although turning down the brightness on my laptop saves batteries, when I turned it back up I felt more awake.
