Energy drinks are suppose to boost your energy correct?
My question is, why is it every time I drink an AMP energy drink I get tired and am able to very easily fall asleep?
Have you ever been diagnosed with ADHD?
No. I was tested in Jr high, but was deemed as normal as I could get. Just a typical kid.
I would think that an energy drink would make an ADHD person even more active?
Oddly, caffeine tends to calm people with ADHD and help them to focus.
Well, it has 30g of sugar in 8 ounces (a can is, what, 16 ounces?) which isn’t some monumental amount (it’s a bit more than Coke) but it’s all HFCS so it’s sort of like mainlining sugar.
For me, at least, sugar has the effect of putting me to sleep. I’m a diet soda drinker and not much of a caffeine drinker, and I just drank 3 cans of regular Pepsi at a friend’s house and I am about to fall asleep.
So, if you’re more sensitive to the sleepy effects of sugar than you are to the awakening effects of caffeine, that could be why the drink makes you tired.
I posted a question here once about caffeine not having any effect or paradoxical effects. Lots of people don’t respond to stimulants the same way others do. Neuroscience hasn’t advanced to the point why doctors and scientists can say exactly why but it isn’t unusual. I have never noticed anything from any energy supplements except for annoying jitters at high does.
What happens when you drink black coffee?
Have you experimented with the sugar-free version of AMP?
What the time course of your feeling tired?
If it happens with black coffee and with sugar-free AMP then it is very likely a paradoxical reaction to caffeine, similar to what happens to those with ADD. People are wired in all kinds of ways.*
OTOH if it doesn’t happen with sugar free versions or with black coffee, then it is likely not the caffeine but a reaction to the sugar load, possibly modified by idiosyncratic variation in how caffeine effects different adenosine receptors in your body. If that is the case then I would expect the fatigue to hit maybe 45 minutes or so after you drink it. The sugar spike induces a compensatory spike in insulin which can cause blood sugar to drop back to normal or even below normal very quickly. That rapid drop can be felt as fatigue and can even trigger migraines in some people. The bit about adenosine receptors is because a major part of the effect of caffeine is by way of its acting as an adenosine receptor blocker with effects that vary between different tissue types and individuals. That may effect the timing of the drop and how it is perceived as well.
*Interestingly enough some kids have an opposite paradoxical reaction to being given IV pentobarbital for sedation, getting hyped up and irritable, and IV caffeine has been successfully used to reverse that effect in those children.
Thanks everybody for your replies. You’ve been helpful.
No answer to the questions asked of you?
Do you have any blood sugar problems? Coffee can help me sleep. The DR explained it to me this way. Coffee will increase my blood sugar, the buzz. My body will kick in too much insulin and drop my blood sugar below normal, the nod.