Adenosine and Sleep: Understanding Your Sleep Drive

What Is Adenosine?

Adenosine Trusted Source National Library of Medicine, Biotech Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information. View Source is a neurotransmitter found in the human body that promotes the sleep drive, Trusted Source UpToDate More than 2 million healthcare providers around the world choose UpToDate to help make appropriate care decisions and drive better health outcomes. UpToDate delivers evidence-based clinical decision support that is clear, actionable, and rich with real-world insights. View Source or a person’s need to sleep. Adenosine also plays a role in other body functions, including the immune, circulatory, respiratory, and urinary systems. 

When taken as a medication, adenosine can reduce heart rate and help manage irregular heartbeats. The administration of adenosine can also reduce pain and lower blood pressure for those undergoing surgery.

How Adenosine Fuels Your Sleep Drive

Adenosine is involved in storing and releasing energy throughout the body. In particular, the compound adenosine triphosphate (ATP) Trusted Source National Library of Medicine, Biotech Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information. View Source works as “energy currency”  – when your body needs energy to contract a muscle or transmit a brain signal, it frees energy by breaking down ATP and releasing adenosine as a byproduct.

Adenosine’s relationship to sleep is connected to its use in the brain, which consumes more ATP than any other part of the body. As activity in your brain breaks down ATP, adenosine builds up in the space between cells. Scientists hypothesize that when you stay awake for too long, the accumulating adenosine begins to limit activity in areas of your brain Trusted Source National Library of Medicine, Biotech Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information. View Source associated with wakefulness, allowing your sleep drive to kick in.

Once you fall asleep, adenosine is believed to prolong deep sleep or slow-wave sleep. This stage of sleep plays a restorative role and allows your body to recover from sleep deprivation. While you sleep, the brain converts adenosine back into ATP, essentially eliminating your sleep drive.

The Battle Between Adenosine and Caffeine

Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant known to counteract sleepiness and help people feel more awake. This naturally occurring substance is found in many beverages and some foods, including coffee, tea, energy drinks, and chocolate.

The primary way that caffeine works is by blocking adenosine receptors Trusted Source UpToDate More than 2 million healthcare providers around the world choose UpToDate to help make appropriate care decisions and drive better health outcomes. UpToDate delivers evidence-based clinical decision support that is clear, actionable, and rich with real-world insights. View Source in the brain. Deterred from detecting adenosine, the brain continues releasing chemicals that promote wakefulness. Caffeine’s ability to block adenosine receptors may also contribute to its effects on the cardiovascular system, Trusted Source UpToDate More than 2 million healthcare providers around the world choose UpToDate to help make appropriate care decisions and drive better health outcomes. UpToDate delivers evidence-based clinical decision support that is clear, actionable, and rich with real-world insights. View Source causing blood vessels to constrict and blood pressure to rise.

However, if you regularly consume caffeine, you may build up a tolerance to it, and you may not feel its effects as strongly.

“Understanding adenosine’s role involves recognizing its connection to caffeine. Caffeine’s alerting effect primarily stems from blocking adenosine’s action in the brain.”

Dr. Pranshu Adavadkar

Sleep Medicine Physician

Do Adenosine Supplements Exist?

Adenosine is not an ingredient in any medications or supplements intended to help people sleep. While adenosine is present in drugs used to diagnose and treat heart conditions, its potential use as a sleep aid faces two significant challenges:

• The blood-brain barrier: This network of cells that surrounds and protects the brain makes it hard for drug forms of adenosine to pass from the blood into the brain, where it is needed to induce sleepiness.
• Unwanted side-effects: Adenosine is a vasodilator, which means that it causes blood vessels to relax. Even if a method for breaching the blood-brain barrier were developed, taking supplemental forms of adenosine would likely cause unwanted side-effects, such as low blood pressure.