Desperate Chinese students tie their hair to ceiling to stop themselves falling asleep as they Read Through the night.

A Chinese university student has found an interesting way of staying awake when pulling all-nighters and writing essays.

Chen Tang, 20, had struggled to fit her workload into the daylight hours and together with her roommate Huang Lu, 21, sought a solution to her problem.

The two students at the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in Fuzhou, in Fujian province, in southeast China, took inspiration from ‘historic scholars’ to fight the urge to nap.

Chen Tang, 20, has found a novel way of pulling an all-nighter when studying for her university exams - by pinning her hair to a clothes dryer

Tried-and-tested ways of staying awake through the night include caffeine hits, cranking up the air-conditioning and push-up breaks, but Chen and Huang looked to the history books instead.

Chen remembered two famous Chinese scholars of legend who chose more painful methods to ensure their minds stayed alert.

One would stab himself with needles every time he started to fall asleep and the other would tie his hair to a beam in the ceiling so that it was pulled every time he started to nod off.

Huang, who posted the pictures of Chen said: ‘Chen is so keen to succeed that she decided to give the hair trick a try, as you can see her hair is more than long enough.

‘As we didn't have a beam in our dorm, she used the clothes dryer and claims it worked really well.’

According to Chen it helped to keep a clear mind and she plans to use it again to help focus.

‘The preparation is so boring, but the hanging hair practice makes it interesting and I really feel much more energetic by studying in this way.’ said Chen.