How to Stay Awake while Driving

On a trip to Houston, Texas, I found myself slipping into unconsciousness. I was at the wheel. The roads had no barriers but  a fence of bluebonnets. Fortunately, the bluebonnets are still there, because I knew how to force myself to stay awake.  I didn’t stop for coffee or an energy drink, or crank up Metallica. Instead, I used a method that’s free, healthful, fun, and, if done right, safe:  exercising in the car.

I’m going to share these exercises, but with a proviso. It shouldn’t have to be mentioned, but it does. When exercising while driving, be CAUTIOUS. These exercises work best when you’re trapped in traffic or coasting on stretches of runway.  At least one hand on the steering wheel, both eyes on the road, and your attention on where you’re going and who could run into you.

A Quick Overview: The Key is to Have Fun

In any of the poses you’re about to learn, have fun. If you get bored pushing your hand against the ceiling, for example, run the hand in circles, trace stars, or the dimensions of your favorite golf course. The point is to use your own entertainment to awaken you. Self-produced entertainment—silliness—is the most powerful, free energy drink out there.

Silliness energizes because it is unpredictable. In a car, or wherever your car is taking you from, such as your job, the rules of the environment stamp out unpredictability. Improvisation is for the stage, not the cubicle. The client, the colleague, the customer need to know you’ll be here at this time, in this role, doing this thing. It’s the same with a car: you are tested on how well you follow the rules of driving. But the rules are made simple enough for nearly anyone to follow, which is the same as saying that most of us are too smart for driving. Our brains shut down, so little is needed for the task.

Silliness turns the brain back on. The part which acts out the routine does so while another part, the neglected one, begins to come alive as it is needed to concentrate on a new kind of task: being free spirited. In a car, start silliness by moving in a way you wouldn’t normally. Make yourself a bit manic. It’s your car for crying out loud, nobody’s watching! And if they are, good—nothing wakens the body like embarrassment. (Numbers 10 and 11 explains other unconventional ways to pep up.)

The Exercises

(Note: The best points are numbers 1, 9, 10 and 11. Of everything I want you to learn, those are essential.)

1. Hand-to-Anywhere. This hyphenation sums up a species of exercise: pressing a hand against a resisting surface. The technique is shockingly effective at exciting the whole arm, connecting shoulder, and corresponding side of the torso, and, if the opposing surface is another part of the body, such as your thigh, that area and its adjoining neighbors as well.

The following points offer some specific ways to create resistance through opposing forces of the body, using a hand. Seat grabs. Hold the seat with one hand, between your legs or wherever you feel comfortable. Grip the cushion, then relax your fingers. Do this repeatedly until you can’t anymore, then switch hands.

2. Hand-to-Ceiling. Keep one hand on the ceiling. First try doing this with your palm, then try with the back of the hand. You’ll find that the different positions work different muscles. Hold your hand against the ceiling for as long as you can, then switch hands. Besides working out your shoulders and triceps or biceps, this lift of the hand will also lift your heart rate. If the sensations in your shoulders are a bother, breathe into them to relax the tension building there. I’ve found that the farther along the ceiling from you the hand is, the harder it is. However, when pushing against ceiling behind you, the effect reverses.

4. Hand-on-Thigh. Press your hand to your quadriceps (i.e., the part of the thigh facing you), and likewise, your quadriceps to your hand. This countervailing movement strengthens your lower back and abdomen, two segments of the body most abused by a long drive. As usual, when bored or tired, switch sides, though with your right foot operating the car, you can’t easily involve the right leg in an exercise with an arm. If you can, good for you; if you can’t, promise yourself you’ll finish the right-side half of this exercise when you’re out of the car. Everything in work needs balance, especially the body.

5. Hand-on-Inner-Thigh. Rather than pressing upward with your thigh, place your hand on the inner thigh and press inward. The exercise strengthens your groin, pelvic region, abdomen, arm, and leg. Not bad for a tiny shift of the hand from position number

6. Hand-to-Outer-Thigh. Pressing against the outer thigh, you’ll feel you’re butt cheeks flare, and as drivers, we all know our butts could use a bit more attention.

7. Hand-to-Abdomen. Move your hand to your stomach and press both against one another. Be sure when doing this to unclench your face, rest it, relax it, smile even. The face has nothing to do with the stomach or the hand, except, I suppose, when eating.

That’s it for exercises specifically using your hand, though I’m sure by experimenting you can find more. Sometimes I just squeeze my hands around the steering wheels and that pressure alone is enough to wake me up. Though some are better than others, any safe exercise is better than nothing at all.

8. V Pose or Boat Pose. Lift your back away from the seat. Just sitting up straight is a work out in itself. You can last longer in the pose if you think of sitting up straight as coming from your belly, the crown of your head, and your sit bones. Activate your belly by pressing it, mentally, toward your spine. That motion lengthens your back, making it easier to sit up without leaning back or curling forward. At the same time, lift the crown of your head to the sky, as though a rope were pulling it from above, while also pressing your sit bones into the seat, as though a rope were pulling them from below.  These actions lighten you, and direct the weight of the upper torso from the back muscles to the front.

9. Around-the-World. This exercise uses your entire body. Beginning wherever in the body you please, tighten and release one muscle or muscle group after the other, until each of your muscles has been cycled through. For example, I can first curl and uncurl my toes, then flex my feet, then activate the ankle and the calf, until I’ve reached the top of my head. By activate, I mean using your mind to squeeze the muscles of a particular structure against the bone.

The exercise has three perks: it works your muscles when you activate them; it works your mind when you have to focus on a particular muscle, distinguishing it from its neighbors; and it gives you a game–trying to move every muscle one after the other in a series–to play while in the car.

Body parts which move use muscles that move them. The technique isn’t to move muscles, it’s to activate them. That is, activate your knee rather than kicking it; activate the elbow rather than extending the arm; tense the knuckles rather than flaring the fingers. If you think of exercise as activation rather than movement, you’ll be able to exercise in places you can’t move, such as your car.

10. Monologue. It will be weird for some of you to talk to yourself. It will be weird for other drivers who see you talk to yourself. But the process works. You’ll stay awake. Even if the words are nonsense, drawing them up works your mind. In fact, nonsense may be a good thing, since it can bring you to discover new ideas and connections.

11. Laughter. An underrated animator. This exercise is simple: just laugh. My suggestion draws on the principles of Laughter Yoga, described by the official website of its founder, Dr. Kataria, as:

a revolutionary idea – simple and profound.  An exercise routine, [Laughter Yoga] is fast sweeping the world and is a complete wellbeing workout. It is the brainchild of Dr. Madan Kataria, an Indian physician from Mumbai who started the first laughter club in a park on 13th March 1995, with just 5 people. Today, it has become a worldwide phenomenon with more than 6000 social laughter clubs in 60 countries.


Laughter Yoga combines unconditional laughter with yogic breathing (Pranayama). Anyone can laugh for no reason, without relying on humor, jokes or comedy. Laughter is simulated as a body exercise in a group but with eye contact and childlike playfulness, it soon turns into real and contagious laughter. The concept of Laughter Yoga is based on a scientific fact that the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter. One gets the same physiological and psychological benefits.

Though “anyone can laugh for no reason,” we, traffic-clogged drivers, the bleary eyed and night noosed, have innumerable good reasons: to stay awake, aid digestion, relieve stress, work the coronary system, regulate breathing, and even improve one’s sense of humor.

Conclusion

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A place of solitude like a car can enslave you. But it can also free you. Will the drive crush you into an exhausting, exasperated mood, where every delay in your flight to the end brings you closer to rushing an escape, to speeding through traffic and risking sharper turns; or will the drive animate a segue to the rest of your day? Everything you’ve just read will help you choose the better of the two experiences: the hand exercises, the power of silliness and laughter, and the mind’s effort to surprise you in the dullest of all daily chores.