Sends an email to your account that you want Gmail to check more frequently. Run this in cron for a week or two.

email-ping.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

# for crontab
# */5 9-22 * * * /home/grin/bin/cronic /usr/bin/python /home/grin/email-ping.py
# */15 23,0-8 * * * /home/grin/bin/cronic /usr/bin/python /home/grin/email-ping.py

import smtplib, time, sys
from email.mime.text import MIMEText

from_email = ''
password = ''

s = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com:587')
s.ehlo()
s.starttls()
s.login(from_email, password)

msg = MIMEText("This should make gmail check your account more frequently. Ignore these emails.\nserver status: OK")
msg['Subject'] = 'Make a filter to ignore these messages. Server status '+time.ctime()
msg['From'] = from_email
to_list = []

for to in to_list:
  msg['To'] = to
  print msg.as_string()
  s.sendmail(from_email, [to], msg.as_string())

s.quit()
sys.exit(0)