How to watch all-night election coverage and cope with sleep loss

Shift workers may be laughing their way through this piece thinking, “What a bunch of lightweights!”

If you had a long run-up you could try shifting your body clock so you’re awake at night and asleep for the day, but it’s probably too late for that now.

Some people do attempt a different strategy to the all-nighter, though.

The idea is to stay up to watch the exit-poll projections, which give you the first hint of the result when it is released at 22:00.

Then have a sleep for a few hours while the ballots are being counted, and wake up early in the morning to catch the peak of the action.

This does hit the problem of sleep inertia we mentioned earlier, but Prof Foster says older people will find this easier to pull off.

Sleep patterns change as we age and older people will “have more fragmented sleep” so it is easier for them to wake and feel okay.

On the other hand, young people who are woken by an alarm “feel groggy and crap”.

“People will know what works for them,” he says.

The other idea is to sleep on Friday morning if you don’t have any commitments.

Just be careful you don’t KO all day and then can’t sleep on Friday night, throwing your whole weekend out of kilter.

Dr Hare says: “If you do have to make major decisions then get whatever sleep you can, even if it messes up your following night’s sleep, otherwise power-nap through it.”

So good luck, brave election adventurers – whatever you do, you should be fine by Monday. See you on the other side!