Marathon Gaming Session Guide! (In preparation for launch)

[Amagicalman]

I don't take credit for the original guide, but thought some people here may want to see it if they missed it on the official forums.

Link to original: https://forums.wildstar-online.com/f...urvival-guide/

Copy-paste of guide:

So with a number of games launching in the upcoming future, and with our tendency to go super hardcore, here is a guide to keeping yourself healthy, awake, and alert during the launch day marathons.

0. Water:
The obvious. Drink a lot of water. It's kind of amazing for our bodies and will help you stay awake, prevent fatigue, prevent injury, etc, etc. Drink lots and lots and lots. It's really hard to overdo this without the intent to. Besides the frequent bathroom breaks are good for you (see Exercise).

1. Caffeine:
This is the big one. We gamers are stereotyped for drinking energy drinks for good reason. Science lesson!
Caffeine is a highly addictive substance (although it's a weak addiction) that inhibits our brains ability to become tired. Most people believe caffeine wakes you up (ala coffee/energy drinks), but this is not true. When taken in the morning you are merely satisfying a craving, you just woke up your brain shouldn’t be all that tired. When taken at night, its often taken in conjunction with sugar, which wakes you up (where then caffeine can prevent you from getting tired again), however sugar is the culprit of most “crashes”. Caffeine works by essentially preventing the “tired” chemical from signaling the brain. However, it cannot retroactively do this, therefore once you are tired, straight caffeine won’t do much. Sugar is taken here, because it will retroactively wake you up, but the crash is undesirable. So we need to make sure we are taking regular doses of caffeine in order to prevent us from getting tired, because once we are tired, it's simply too late.

Caffeine lasts in the body for around 6 hours. This can be further extended via grapefruit juice. It reacts with the caffeine (when taken at the same time) and extends its duration by about 50% to around 9 hours. So we need regular doses of caffeine approximately every 4~5 hours. However, it is also incredibly easy to have an acute caffeine overdose (nonlethal), or simply “caffeine intoxication”. While 10g is the LD50 (poison level), the acute overdose level is only 300mg. To put that in perspective: 100mg is roughly a cup (8oz) of coffee, and ~60-70mg is 8oz of energy drink (small red bull, half that of most can sizes). An acute overdoses has some pretty simple side effects that most people have experienced, here is a list from Wikipedia: restlessness, fidgeting, anxiety, excitement, insomnia, flushing of the face, increased urination, gastrointestinal disturbance, muscle twitching, a rambling flow of thought and speech, irritability, irregular or rapid heartbeat, and psychomotor agitation.[67] In cases of much larger overdoses, mania, depression, lapses in judgment, disorientation, disinhibition, delusions, hallucinations, or psychosis may occur, and rhabdomyolysis.
So some guestimating shows that we cannot do more than 1 large energy drink every 4.5 hours, or 1 cup (and that's an 8oz cup) of coffee every 3 hours. This is without grapefruit juice. If we factor in the juice its: 1 energy drink every 6 hours, 1 cup of coffee every 4.5. If not we risk unhelpful side effects. However we need to ensure a steady intake, and we cannot risk going more than 5~6 hours with a dose.

So some conclusions. Drink caffeine every 5~6 hours. It should be a sugarless source (either sugarless cans, 5 hour energy, coffee, etc). If you do start to get tired, you can hold it off via sugary energy drinks, however this is only temporary and you will eventually crash.

2. Sugar
Basically this is the bane of marathons. While the rush is great, it will cause a crash, and you will fall. Avoid sugar in all forms in every single way. Only use it as a last resort once you start to get tired. It won’t fix anything, but it will delay your inevitable collapse.
Note: Grapefruit Juice is loaded with sugar. I generally only drink a shot or so with my coffee every morning. Doesn’t take much.

3. Food:
Think running a marathon. Healthy as shit the day before. Complex carbs the night before, and a well balanced healthy diet. Include a multivitamin supplement to ensure your body has everything it will need before you begin to stress it.
During the actual marathon you will want to maintain the healthy food kick. Unhealthy fast foods can lead to drowsiness, and more importantly: malnourishment. If you begin to run out of resources your body will essentially begin to fail. A number of different side effects can occur, with tiredness being the most prevalent. The easiest snack you can have here is nuts. Nuts of any type will provide plenty of energy/calories/protein to help get you through the marathon. Basically, avoid simple carbs (sugar), sugar, and sugar. Do this and you should be fine.

4. Sleep:
We all like sleeping, and our bodies kinda need it. The goal of this entire guide is to completely avoid sleeping. So yeah, we are fighting ourselves here. So we are going to get ourselves nice and well rested. Basically, get good nights sleeps (minimum 8 hours) for a few nights leading up to the main event. This will get your body well rested and recovered from any short nights or long days. Try to dedicate a full 10 hours on the night before. However, you should try to get up a few hours before the main event (get your body moving and grooving), and simply take a 20~30min nap (no more, or you will enter a full sleep cycle) right before the event start.

5. Hygiene:
Showers help to wake you up. Feel free to jump in them during your breaks. Make sure you are clean before the event starts, hell even get dressed into more “normal day” clothing. State of mind matters a lot, and hygiene has been shown to have an effect on that. And if you have a significant other, you prolly won't get any motivational “favors” if you smell like shit.

6. Exercise:
Deep Vein Thrombosis. Basically, sit around enough and you risk blood clots forming in your legs. When you stand up, they go to your heart(heart attack) or brain (stroke) and you then die. Don’t die to DVT. Prevent it by simply standing up and moving around every hour or so. Literally a walk to the bathroom, hell standing up and dancing a bit while still using your keyboard (so you don't have to stop gaming) will work. Basically ****ing stand up every so often.
A quick aerobic workout (like 20min) before release is also a great way to get going as well. Get your blood flowing and your body ready for your nice fun extended sit session.

7. Stretches:
Repetitive Stress Injury and/or Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, or simply fatigue. We are planning on sitting at a computer for hours. Stretch regularly to prevent this, here is some tools:
-http://www.youtube.c...h?v=SSbf4mBKq-o
-http://www.powerballs.com/
-Stress Balls
Stretch often, and you shouldn’t have any issues. Use wrist pads if you have them.

8. Eyes:
LCD screens are hell on our eyes. Tired eyes suck. They hurt and are annoying. Prevention tips: Eye drops will keep your eyes moisturized, they even make ones specifically for tired eyes. Lighting is important as well, if you are in a dark room, you are basically eating the brunt of the LCD harshness. Keep your room well lit with a more natural light (yep open your windows if its daylight), this will help a lot.
If you have glasses for things such as computers, use them (duh).

9. Brain:
Keep yourself doing something. This is easy because you will likely be playing the game. If you are involved and actively engaged, you tend not to get tired. Having people to talk to and socialize with will help even more. There is a reason we do leveling groups other than simply min/maxing exp/hour. Be on mumble, talk to people. Don’t let yourself get stuck grinding for too long. Monotony = boredom = not engaged = tired. Switch up grind spots, switch up dungeons, do quests (they are designed to prevent this), do fates, etc. Don’t get bored, and you won’t have a problem.

10. Temperature:
Pick a temp that you like, however slightly cool should keep you awake a little bit longer. We get lethargic as we get warm. However, ice cold will have similar issues. Comfortable cool is ideal (66~68 degrees Fahrenheit, 18~19 degrees Celsius). A fan can help here too, the moving air is nice as well. However be aware that it can dry out your eyes (if pointed at face) so you may need to use more frequent eye drops.

11. Music:
Basically its like you are exercising. Play something that has decent bpm (beats per minute), so something like electronic/metal/etc. But also make sure its something you enjoy. I personally listen to quicker paced classic rock (my favorite genre), because I really enjoy singing along to my music (keeps me active too).
You could also watch a comedy or action movie. Basically fast paced flashy fun. Nothing slow and drama like. It should be something you’ve seen as it will be a background to the game, not your primary focus.

12. Recovery:
First and foremost: sleep. You haven't had it, and you body desperately needs it. Let yourself sleep with no alarm in the morning. GIve yourself a recovery day. If it means sleeping 16 hours then so be it. You’ve been fighting your body so that you can run the show and play the game, its now time to let your body take the lead, let it tell you when to wake up. Keep eating right and sleeping well for another night or two and you should be well and fine. You also haven’t really done an actual workout since the start, so going for a jog or something is probably a good idea as well.. Then resume junk food habits if you so desire.
This is also a great time to purge yourself of any caffiene addiction you may have. Its an easy addiction to get, but also just as easy to break. Withdrawal is about 2 days without caffeine, usually the symptoms are no worse than a bad headache (combat with acetaminophen or ibuprofen). After that you should be over it, however it takes about a week to lose any accumulated caffeine tolerance as well. (nifty trick for when 1~2 cups of coffee stop cutting it for work)
Go see your friends, your family, your S.O. etc. Chances are you didn’t stop till you hit max level, so guess what, you're still max level. Go catch up on responsibilities and shit. You're a big boy you don’t need me to tell you this.

That's all that I can think of for now. I’ll add more if I think of it, or if other people have suggestions I can add those too.

As always, these are just some guidelines to help you stay healthy. If you want to disregard them, thats fine. However, please at least follow the Exercise section. None of us want to find out someone died playing with us. That would suck.

[Nevodark]

An interesting read.

[Jadd]

Please cite the source when copying large posts.

http://eminentls.guildwork.com/forum...-48-hours-plus