Over the course of the last 10 years I have done a lot of late night driving, but in the last 6 months I have done roughly 30,000 miles of it going back and fourth between my new job and my home in IL. As I walked through the following list last night I thought I would share with all my peeps (bad Easter joke, sorry).
Tips for staying awake while driving…
1. Drink as much water as you pack into your body over the course of 30 minutes and then don’t stop to go to the bathroom. I wouldn’t recommend this for people with weak bladders, like preggos, but that uncomfortable feeling is bound to keep you awake. Stay away from high caffeene drinks, they make you have to pee way quicker and give me eye twitches and then I crash like a 2 year old that ate too much sugar on Easter. At least she had fun!
2. Listen to music you can sing and dance along to, and do both at a volume just above annoying. Dont listen to books on tape/ cd, we are trained from an early age to fall asleep when someone reads to us. 5 minutes of a professional voice over artist and I am in a comma if the sun aint shining.
3. Make yourself as cold as you can without shivering. Shivering is a natural reaction that the body uses to stimulate muscles and warm you up. You are looking for that camping outside with the wrong equipment cold, just enough so you can’t sleep all night. God I love camping.
4. Keep your heart rate up and your muscles loose. This might get you some looks if anyone happens to roll up on you late at night, but I like to do pushups at all the stop sign crossroads I hit. However if you are not planning on driving from Dekalb, IL to Decorah, IA twice a week I would recommend some form of calisthenics every 30-45 minutes. Snap out 20 pushups, jumping jacks, Chinese fire drill, ding dong ditch car addition, tip a cow, whatever you want.
5. Chew on something. I like almonds and sunflower seeds, because I think gum is too repetitive. I realized repetitive gum chewing is slightly redundant but my drummer like mind instantly goes to chewing at 120 beats per minute and I don’t stop until I spit it out… damn marching band.
6. I have tried with little success to physically injure myself in order to stay awake. I have learned that I can slap myself pretty hard across the face, but all I end up with is a red mark and instant drowsiness. Plus if you are easy to bruise you might have some splainin to due to your friends and family.
Try these out the next time you sit up quick and realize you don’t know what happened to the last five minutes of driving. Be Safe!
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