If it blocks adenosine, why can’t it block it forever? What process stops it from working over and over?
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You can’t stay awake indefinitely because sleep is necessary for your brain to function properly. The longer you stay up past what is considered healthy, the further you go into what is considered sleep deprivation psychosis.
Basically, your brain is still getting sleepy after awhile as a safety feature. It is possible for more powerful substances than coffee to keep you up for several weeks, but there is no way around that inducing psychosis and inevitably killing you if you tried to push your brain too far past its limits
Sleep debt continuously builds and eventually your body accumulates more adenosine and receptors than the caffeine, or any other chemical, can keep up with.
The accumulated adenosine neurotransmitters will bind to the receptors and drowsiness and then sleep will set in.
Coffee doesn’t actually get rid of the adenosine – it just stops your brain from noticing it for a while. To actually clear the adenosine, and other waste products that build up in your brain while awake, you need to sleep.
In other words, Drinking coffee is a bit like (temporarily) gluing your car’s fuel gage in place at the “full” mark. Maybe it stops your car from giving you annoying warning signals, but it won’t actually keep it running.
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