At least short term I suddenly lose the sensation of sleepiness and become more energized when it’s been a few hours past when I should be in bed.
I’ve always wondered why that occurs but Googling only gives me articles about the effects of sleep deprivation
In: 7
You know how caffeine gives you a short energy boost then makes you more tired, right?
It’s because feeling of tiredness is caused by our body releasing melatonin until we decide to sleep. There are receptors in your brain that detect it, and if they interact with it they make you feel tired. Caffeine clogs those receptors making it impossible for them to detect anything, but melatonin is still produced cause we still are not sleeping, so when our bodies natural error correction mechanism gets rid of the caffeine you suddenly get hit by tiredness due to excess melatonin.
A kind of reverse thing happens in the situation that you are asking about.
Your body is producing melatonin making you tired cause you are past bed time. But you are still constantly working and being active like normal instead of sleeping as you should, so at some points your body starts to think that the melatonin in your brain isn’t there intentionally and is more akin to being an intruder like caffeine, so the same error correction mechanisms start to remove your own sleep hormone from those receptors, giving you an energy boost. It’s never stops sending out melatonin though, just the reception of it, so you suddenly become really sleepy after that boost ends.
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