Here’s how I understand it. Caffeine works by blocking adenosine, a metabolite of ATP, the primary energy molecule of the brain.

Basically my body adapted to idk – 800-1000mgs of caffeine every day by generating more adenosine receptors. This adaptation allowed me to consume vast amounts of caffeine and still experience what felt like pretty normal sleep. (It was still disrupted – just not so much that I’d initially notice)

Now that I stopped clogging up my receptors with a gram of caffeine every day, the receptors are able to clear adenosine pretty quickly because there are lots of them.

So what happens is I get really tired around bed time, crash out hard, and then the adenosine is cleared out by like 4am and I wake up feeling ok, except my body can’t speed up all of its other repair processes to match the shortened time interval that adenosine enforces.

Apparently it will take 10-14 days for my sleep to normalize – the first 3 days I cut back I had mild headaches all day. Now the headache is gone but I’m just wide awake by about 4 or 5 am.

I’m taking creatine in the meantime which can help when sleep has been impaired, and coq10 which can help recycle atp. I feel ok, not great, but hopefully once the adjustment period is over I’ll be feeling more rested.

So caffeine ruins my sleep, but quitting caffeine ruins my sleep. I did not see that coming.