A Replacement for Coffee?
As you all know ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is the main source of energy for all cell activities. Well, when ATP is used, one of the byproducts is adenosine. Now, your brain has receptors that detect the level of adenosine present in the cerebrospinal fluid (the part that controls wakefulness and sleep has an especially high concentration). When you are awake, the level of adenosine naturally rises, and when you are thinking hard, it rises really fast. After it reaches a certain point, the brain will start shutting down; neurons will put themselves in a state where they cannot function (after all, they need rest too). Now, your body naturally converts this adenosine back into ATP using glucose, but you are usually using up ATP a little bit faster than you are making it. But, if you increase the level of glucose in the blood, it will increase with the rate of ATP formation. So, when pulling an all-nighter, you can eat small snacks of carbs all the time to keep yourself more awake, or to keep yourself from getting sleepy faster. Some of you might have worries about gaining weight due to this; however, as long as you keep these snacks pretty small, and eat them regularly, you should have no worries at all. There are two reasons for this: first of all, your body won't store most of the glucose, since your brain is using a lot of it. Secondly, by eating small snacks constantly, you are maintaining a higher level of glucose in the blood, and your metabolism will rise in response, and you might actually start losing weight (the time when you are sleeping is usually a major downtime for your body in terms of glucose consumption, so if you raise the level of glucose in your blood then, your basal metabolic rate might rise pretty fast to match it).