# Staying awake



## Sh0rtbUs (27 Apr 2004)

I was just wondering if any of you guys have any tips or "tricks of the trade" when it comes to staying awake.

Im going on a FTX for my last week of SQ next week to Borden, and we are only getting 4 hours of sleep every 24 hours. And many many of these 24 hours are going to be spent sitting in the dark with my rifle in a trench, and to be honest...I can take the pain, I can work under stress and exhaustion is just a sign that im alive....but I absolutely suck at staying awake when im asleep. (I‘ve actually fell asleep on my feet at 0700 at the Armouries).


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## D-n-A (27 Apr 2004)

hmm, have coffee or a drink with caffenine in it

or suck on coffee grinds

some surplus stores sell US Military issue caffenine gum, might be somthin to look into


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## portcullisguy (27 Apr 2004)

Get some motivation and drive into your body, troop.

No, seriously, I find it REALLY hard to stay awake, and on my SQ ex, I mostly just chatted with my trench mate quietly.  We took turns manning the C9.

Eventually we were allowed to rotate guys an hour at a time back to the hooches we set up in the pl hide, and of course, around 0300 came the obligatory "arty arty arty!" and stand to, with the requisite arty sim.  Sleep with your boots on.

You may not be allowed open flame in the defensive, so hot coffee/tea won‘t be an option.  Try sucking/chewing on the freeze dried IMP coffee, or just train yourself to sleep VERY lightly.  I can‘t sleep well in the field anyway, and the slightest noise wakes me up.  If buddy is on the gun or on stag, you might get away with a quick snooze and hopefully he‘ll nudge you awake if he sees any MCpl‘s coming your way.

Good luck.  SQ was a worse bag-drive than BIQ, I thought.


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## Slanker (27 Apr 2004)

I leave for my SQ FTX in Shilo on April 30. My PL comander says the hes allowed to gives us only 4 hours of broken sleep a day. We get there on Friday. Do our C9, C6 shoot Saturday. Grenade range and all the lessons we need to know on Sunday. Then on Monday morning we start our war scenerio which goes till Friday. Should be fun!


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## chrisf (27 Apr 2004)

Coffee packets in the IMPs... don‘t start drinking coffee till the second day or so of the ex... and even then, if you don‘t need the alertness boost, don‘t start drinking it, it dehydrates you somewhat... then start drinking a cup with every meal, and saving the second packet... toss this into a pocket... later, when you‘re in the trenches, toss the powder in your mouth, take a swig from the canteen, and down it goes... not pleasent, but it does the job.


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## Padraig OCinnead (28 Apr 2004)

Short term solutions are things like slowly stretching the large muscle groups in your body in a rotation. You can do this without much movement. Lots of water. Coffee is good but the rebound from the caffeine high will cause more fatigue. It‘s also a diuretic which can also lead to fatique. Keep small amounts of food or chew gum if you can get away with it.

Long term solutions are simple. Stay in top shape. High levels of physical fitness will help prevent tiredness. But after 3 days and more of little or no sleep the only thing that will help is sleep.

Slainte,


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## combat_medic (28 Apr 2004)

Things like chewing gum or having something small to eat will help. Keep hold of the IMP gum, mini oreos and crackers and pop one open every now and then. Even the action of chewing will help a bit.


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## meni0n (28 Apr 2004)

What I did was bring some power bars and chewed on them on those night stand tos or just when you‘re manning the section OP at night. Gives a certain energy boost.


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## Brad Sallows (28 Apr 2004)

An article on caffeine in Canadian Military Journal:

 http://www.journal.dnd.ca/engraph/Vol4/no4/military-meds_e.asp 

The aforementioned advice to be fit, reasonably fed, and to maintain a high fluid intake (and output) is all sound.

If you allow yourself to sleep while on sentry, you fail yourself and your mates.  The point of working in pairs is mutual security and to keep each other awake, not to sleep in shifts.


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## Jarnhamar (28 Apr 2004)

"Keep hold of the IMP gum, mini oreos and crackers and pop one open every now and then."

I hear if you give your section commander all your snacks the chances of someone else in the section having to do an OP shift instead of you is greatly increased    

I always tell guys not to rely on stuff like coffee or caffine pills. It‘s better to train your body to stay awake than rely on pills or anything. They work in the short term but if you need to stay away and you don‘t have access to any of the fix‘s you‘ve been using your going to really pay for it.

To keep awake I snack by either chewing beef jerky or granola bars. I find its way better to always have a little something in your stomach so you constantly have energy.

I‘ve seen a lot of guys get hooked on coffee and if they dont have it first thing in the morning they are zombies. (Look at the line ups infront of timmies)


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## chrisf (28 Apr 2004)

Agreed... as I said above, don‘t consume any coffee at all for the first 24 hours, even if you need it.


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## mattoigta (28 Apr 2004)

Man on my 5 day defensive at the end of SQ, they gave us 4 hours of sleep for the entire 5 days - and it was all in one go, on the second day. Consider yourself lucky!
You‘ll do fine.


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## McInnes (28 Apr 2004)

Do not take  caffeine pills or anything of the sort. They will work well for awhile, and then you will go down...hard.


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## portcullisguy (28 Apr 2004)

You will forget how tired you are anyway when you are on the move or doing something.  It‘s tough in defensive, because you are sitting there and waiting.  But when there is activity, you don‘t notice it as much.

During our ex to Fort Drum in March, I don‘t think I got more than 3 hours kip the whole weekend.  But it was only a weekend, and we were pretty active the rest of the time.  You hardly noticed being tired.  I mean you felt tired, but there was always something to do, something to prep for, dry runs in the FIBUA site or helo loadn/unload, and you had no time for sleep.

At most you got a few minutes or eyes-shut rest between activities, or on the ride on the HL.  But even that was a stretch.

Like Ghost778 said, train your bosy to stay awake no matter what.  You will be much better off.


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## Spr.Earl (29 Apr 2004)

> Originally posted by Sh0rtbUs:
> [qb] I was just wondering if any of you guys have any tips or "tricks of the trade" when it comes to staying awake.
> 
> I‘m going on a FTX for my last week of SQ next week to Borden, and we are only getting 4 hours of sleep every 24 hours. And many many of these 24 hours are going to be spent sitting in the dark with my rifle in a trench, and to be honest...I can take the pain, I can work under stress and exhaustion is just a sign that I‘m alive....but I absolutely suck at staying awake when I‘m asleep. (I‘ve actually fell asleep on my feet at 0700 at the Armouries). [/qb]


It‘s a mental game against your own body!
I have never had any probs because I came from the Merchant Seaman‘s world and we live odd hours.
I can rack out and put in my mind say 03:30 and I‘ll be awake 10 min. before.
It‘s a MENTAL GAME WITH YOUR OWN DODY to over ride it‘s natural instinct‘s.
That‘s all I can say,it takes practice


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## pte anthony (29 Apr 2004)

> Originally posted by portcullisguy:
> [qb] You will forget how tired you are anyway when you are on the move or doing something.  It‘s tough in defensive, because you are sitting there and waiting.  But when there is activity, you don‘t notice it as much.[/qb]


I was standing to in a four day defensive ex on the fourth night with about 2 hours sleep. I called a G.R.I.T on a hallucination of what I thought was encroaching enemy. Boy, did I hear it for that one   :blotto:


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## bradley (29 Apr 2004)

Well, from my experience on the job, just don‘t try to get comfortable and make sure you don‘t doze off once, because as soon as you do, it becomes twice as hard to stay awake. Also, try to keep your mind on something.


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## meni0n (29 Apr 2004)

Monger.. I called a stand to on hallucinations thinking that I saw smoke being poped.. but it was just moon reflecting off the grass... Then same night I kept calling ennemy at the Pl Op. Instructors had to come and tell me to quit calling them.


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## mattoigta (29 Apr 2004)

> Originally posted by meni0n:
> [qb] Monger.. I called a stand to on hallucinations thinking that I saw smoke being poped.. but it was just moon reflecting off the grass... Then same night I kept calling ennemy at the Pl Op. Instructors had to come and tell me to quit calling them. [/qb]


For two hours I thought the carrying handle on my C9 was an enemy soldier crawling across my front, I must have looked real goofy yelling the challenge at nothing, and i must have popped 5 para flares over those 2 hours...


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## Spr.Earl (29 Apr 2004)

> Originally posted by meni0n:
> [qb] Monger.. I called a stand to on hallucinations thinking that I saw smoke being poped.. but it was just moon reflecting off the grass... Then same night I kept calling ennemy at the Pl Op. Instructors had to come and tell me to quit calling them. [/qb]


Been there and have had the same but your brain must also be awake and how to recognise your own limits!!
You will learn your own limits on Ex. but you must recognise your limits because if you go over you may hurt yourself or others.


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## Pte.Nomercy (29 Apr 2004)

I was on a ex in which I must have had 1 hour of sleep, what made it worse was it rained all the bloody time and it was in late fall, needless to say once you got wet...you didn‘t get dry or warm! As a result, I was in the early stages of hypothermia and was seriously messed up! 

While on a patrol we were told to go prone and wait for a rendezvous with another group that was doing the patrol with us. While lying next to a tree, I began to hallucinate, and a nice fluffy white duck appeared and waddled up to me and started harassing and taunting me! I was just about to hit it when I "woke up."

To prevent something happening again, I drink allot of water and I also chew gum. I find eating makes me more sleepy so I don‘t eat allot when it gets late. 

What I find that works best, especially in classrooms, is to breathe in deeply through the nose to get the brain some needed much air which freshens you up. That usually helps me.


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## scm77 (29 Apr 2004)

I don‘t know if you would be allowed to do this but I‘ve heard that if you put one of those pine scented car air fresheners around your neck, the smell can help you stay awake.  Although people would probably be able to smell you from pretty far away...


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## Ex-Dragoon (29 Apr 2004)

And the enemy will be able to home in on your position....


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## 48Highlander (29 Apr 2004)

just keep yourself busy.  in the defensive it‘s easy:  improve your trench.  in the OP, chat quietly with a buddy, bring a rope and learn to tie fancy knots, do some friggin‘ origami if you want.  just do something other than staring through your sites all the time.  this will not only keep you awake, but will make halucinations less likely.  the human body can handle 72 hours without any sleep, if you start halucinating before then it‘s usualy because your brain is starting to shut down.  keeping it busy and focused will help avoid that.

    when I joined we had to go through a 72 hour sleep deprevation exercise without any sleep at all.  if you fell asleep an instructor would come around and boot you in the head, so I think only 6 guys actually managed to get 15 minutes of sleep.  the rest of us prefered not to have a sore head.  now because of regulations we have to give you 4 hours every 24, so if my whole platoon could handle 72 with no sleep, there‘s really no excuse for anyone on the new courses to be falling asleep.  4 hours of sleep a night is enough to keep you going for months at a time.


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## The_Falcon (29 Apr 2004)

My course, during the defence, we had a total of about 6-8 hours over about 6 days.  By the end it right up to the final attack, myself and those in my trench started seeing the grass and bushes in front of us as people, and we lit the suckers up with everything we had.  It didn‘t help that there were real people out their attacking us.  We could not tell the difference between our imagination and reality, it was bloody surreal.  What do we learn from this? Keep your mind busy. Don‘t let it wander.


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## Sh0rtbUs (30 Apr 2004)

thanx for all the help. i wrote alot of them down, and I spoke to a Sgt. I met on the range today.

he told me some interesting things..

One thing he told me was chewing tobacco. He told me a great way to stay awake is swallow it, and another more (slightly painful) method is to take a small dab of it and put it into the corner of your eyes. he said he doesnt know how..but it works.

As well..licorice. You can get a bag of the stuff for 60 cents at zellers. He said buy alot, stuff my pockets and chew on the stuff whenever im tired. I geuss that would fit in with the before ideas of the IMP snacks. 

Im really looking foreward to it.


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## Redeye (30 Apr 2004)

Don‘t swallow chewing tobacco, your body will keep you awake only to keep puking.  It is an effective stimulant, but it‘s also a disgusting and dangerous habit.

Chew gum, get a bag of sunflower seeds, whatever, if you keep something going on it will make it easier to focus.  Also, to the extent that you can, keep moving, stretching, etc, to keep blood circulating.  I find deep breathing exercises (yoga type stuff) helps too - breathe deep through your stomach.  It will oxygenate your blood more and make the wait a little better.

Remember not to engage the Energizer bunny until you‘ve woken up the rest of your section first.


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## willy (1 May 2004)

Oh my god!  Ridiculous!

I‘ve found that nailing my testicles to the walls of my trench helps keep me awake.  Maybe you should try that.

As an afterthought, Shortbus, I think that this particular Sgt may have been ******* with you.  One of those, "go get me a box of grid squares" kind of things.  Don‘t believe everything you hear.  And for god‘s sake, don‘t put any chewing tobacco in your eyes, you dumbhead.


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## Redneck052 (9 May 2004)

The best "trick of the trade" that I find is to simply keep your mind active.  Regardless if your are on OP, in a trench, at a VCP, or just on CP watch.  Just keep your mind active.  Go through IA‘s, Drills, just keep the cogs moving in your head.  However in doing this, don‘t forget to check your area of responsibilies.  About the caffine...not bad for short term, but you‘ll find that prolong use could cause DT like symtoms.  Sweats, shacks and alike when you ‘come down.  Best of luck.      A pocket full of toothpicks to keep your eyelids open helps sometimes.


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