I’ve written about this before and you can find the technical reasons why does my coffee makes me sleepy in my blog post here. But the bottom line is caffeine can trigger both sleep and wakefulness.

That’s because caffeine is not energy. Caffeine triggers adrenaline, not energy. If you have a friend that likes to play practical jokes and will jump out from behind corners yelling “boo” to watch you jump, you have experienced adrenaline in its purest form. It’s a hormone that triggers your body under times of stress to perform faster and stronger than usual.

Adrenaline is what allows people to perform super-human feats like lifting a car off an injured child or power through another boring meeting. Caffeine can’t make you a superhero, but it can trigger sudden alertness and muscle strength that allows you to perform better. But only for short periods of time.

Caffeine is not meant to be a constant source of alertness and motivation. It is supposed to a be a tool that helps you out when you need something extra. It is not meant to be constant because it is not giving you more energy. It is just borrowing from reserves for energy NOW.

When you abuse caffeine, it is often hard to get that balance back later. You borrow from your reserves with multiple cups of coffee during the day. But then you can’t sleep later when you are feeling exhausted, you are not able to rebalance your natural energy supply.

It happens when you are overstimulated from too much caffeine and can’t click the “off” button to relax when you are ready.

Too much caffeine late in the day and you will find yourself restless and unable to fall asleep.

Or maybe the quality of your sleep suffers so you wake up in the morning feeling exhausted like you never rested at all.