Staying awake

[Sh0rtbUs]

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).

 

[D-n-A]

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

 

[portcullisguy]

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.

 

[Slanker]

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!

 

[chrisf]

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.

 

[Padraig OCinnead]

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,

 

[combat_medic]

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.

 

[meni0n]

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.

 

[Brad Sallows]

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.

 

[Jarnhamar]

"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)

 

[chrisf]

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

 

[mattoigta]

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.

 

[McInnes]

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

 

[portcullisguy]

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.

 

[Spr.Earl]

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

 

[pte anthony]

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:

 

[bradley]

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.

 

[meni0n]

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.

 

[mattoigta]

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...

 

[Spr.Earl]

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.