Stay Awake while Driving

I love to drive. In fact, there is practically nothing else that I look forward to more than hoping in the car and going on a nice long road trip, the longer the better. For me, the freedom of the open road is an experience that is completely unparalleled. Unfortunately, these road trips come with a slight drawback. That drawback is that after a while, I get sleepy. Driving and sleeping do not mix, at least they don't if you are the one doing the driving. That being said, there are a few things that you can do that is going to help you stay awake while driving.

If you happen to be driving alone, then one of the things that you might want to look at doing is play some music while driving. I find that music that gets my foot tapping are typically the best to help keep me awake while I am driving, this type of music for some reason gets me on the edge of my seat and makes me want to just go, often while singing along. It is pretty hard to fall asleep while singing, and if you start to find your song getting interrupted by yawns, you easily know that it's time to pull over.

Next thing that you can do is to eat sugar, and lot's of it. Be warned though, there is a major drawback to this, and that would be that all sugar high's come along with a crash. If you have never experienced a sugar crash before, be warned that these typically cause you to get sleepy really fast.

If you are driving along with someone else in the car, then you are in luck. I say that you are in luck, because you have a ready made source of entertainment right at your fingertips. With your car companions you can have hours of conversation. Something else that you can do is that you can play games, like "Eye Spy" or the "Alphabet Game." These games are participation based, and you need to pay attention and interact with another to be able to successfully play it. If you have never played the alphabet game, what you do is simply start with the letter "A", find something that starts with that letter, and work your way through the alphabet. The first person to reach the letter "Z" is the winner. Another great game to play while driving is what I call the "Music" or "Movie" game. Again, you start with the letter "A" and name a movie that begins with that like Andromeda Strain, then the next person has to name a different movie that starts with the last letter of the last word. In this case, you could use Nim's Island.

Finally, the best way to stay awake while you are driving is to get out every so often and stretch. If you get out and stretch your legs, you are going to be able to keep yourself from falling asleep. Stop somewhere, get out and get something to eat or drink. It is really hard to fall asleep while driving, if you are not driving.