How to Stay Awake in Class Without Coffee

By: Antonia Le ‘22

We’ve all been there. You tell yourself that you’ll stay up a little bit to study for your midterm, but when it comes time to actually take the test, you find yourself wanting to doze off halfway through. Or maybe you had a great night’s sleep, but there’s that one professor whose voice just puts you to sleep.

However, you might not want to reach for that cup of coffee just yet. Drinking too much caffeine (or caffeine at the wrong time of day) can mess up your sleep schedule and send you into an infinite loop of feeling tired, reaching for a cup of coffee, and not getting enough sleep. Instead, try these tricks for staying awake in class!

1. Drink more water!

If you’re a college student already struggling to get enough sleep and eat healthy foods (come on, you know I’m not wrong!), it’s likely that you’re also not drinking enough water. Countless studies have shown that dehydration can often cause you to feel tired and fatigued, which can make you feel sleepy in class. To help combat dehydration and sleepiness, start paying more attention to your body and listen when it tells you that it needs water!

2. Replace your morning cup of coffee with a glass of orange juice

There’s a reason orange juice is a popular drink to have at breakfast. Low blood sugar can also cause you to feel tired, and orange juice’s high content of natural sugars can help raise your blood sugar level and help you feel more alert.

Moreover, some people find themselves being more alert when they’re cold or in contact with something cold, and the coldness of orange juice can give you an extra jolt. I know that whenever I get a hot coffee drink, it makes me a bit sleepy before the caffeine begins to kick in (which isn’t great), but orange juice always consistently picks me up! If you want to change your routine, maybe drinking more orange juice (or any other fruit juices) might be good for you!

3. Take a short nap before class!

As a college student, I know that it’s near impossible to get a full 8 hours of sleep, but there’s always room in the schedule for a 5, 10, or 20 minutes of shuteye between classes! Short naps have been scientifically proven to improve alertness. Additionally, some studies have shown that even if you don’t technically fall asleep during your nap and instead only just rest and close your eyes, you still get some benefits in alertness when your “nap” is over.

With benefits occurring whether you actually fall asleep or not, there’s really no reason not to fit a nap into your schedule! Your body will thank you!

4. Get moving

Whenever I couldn’t fall asleep as a kid, my parents would tell me to concentrate on keeping my entire body still, and if my body was still for long enough, then I would automatically fall asleep. These days, I apply that similar logic, but to help me stay awake instead!

If you ever find yourself zoning out during class, try to get moving. Whenever my classes start later in the day, I like to head to the gym in the morning to get my blood flowing and send endorphins rushing through my body so that I’m alert when I come to class.

Whenever I’m in the middle of class and I feel myself getting tired, I find a way to get moving discreetly. I’ll bounce my leg up and down under the table if I think that nobody is paying attention to me, or maybe I’ll casually stretch my arms up and outward. In my war against sleepiness, every little act counts.

5. Wake up your mind instead of your body!

Sometimes you’re not falling asleep in class because you’re tired. Instead, you’re zoning out because your class is just boring. In these desperate cases, I’ve found that I need to find something to do to force my mind to stay away, which often leads to multitasking. I know that this can be distracting, but in these cases, I genuinely believe that getting 70% of the information because I’m doing something else is better than getting 10% of the information because I’m too zoned out to process the information.

Now, this isn’t to say that you should open up Netflix in the middle of your lecture. Instead, find little things to do that require attention, but not deep focus, and this technique should only be used if nothing else works. For example, I’m the kind of person who always has a song stuck in her head, and I find myself typing out a quick line or two of a song in a new Google doc on my computer in the moments when I know that the professor isn’t saying anything pertinent and I don’t need to type any information down. The same effect can be achieved by doodling squiggles in your notebook while still tuning into the class.

Speaking of notebooks, I’ve found that one thing that has really helped me is switching back to writing things down manually instead of typing out notes. I type out my notes in most classes, but I know that typing can be robotic; it’s easier to zone out when you type than when you write because writing is more physical. The physical, more effort-driven nature of writing means you have to really concentrate on what you’re putting down on the page, which helps you stay awake. If you’re worried about not getting the information down, it’s probably no big deal; these days, most professors put their slides up online. My handwritten notes aren’t necessarily for studying; they’re to help me stay awake and accountable when nothing else can.

There’s a whole world outside of Starbucks Frappuccinos and Dulce drinks to help you stay awake in class. Not all of these tips will work for everyone, but I hope that you’ll find them useful and helpful in your everyday life!

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