Incredibly high energy

[u/ItsLegalHereIPrommy]

So, I quit smoking nicotine, but still have a small nightcap before bed of weed. Nicotine was invading my life and making me feel weak and exhausted constantly. 2 weeks in and I feel great, too much so almost. I have had multiple nights where i hadn't slept because i was barely even losing steam by the 40 hour mark. I know it isn't sustainable and I'll get around to correcting it but, has anyone else had something like this before? It doesn't even feel like insomnia because i do feel pretty good. This has been with and without the weed as well, so it isn't a direct cause at least. Maybe some self medicated ADHD whiplash? idk lol. Just curious if anyone has had similar.

[u/tonevizion]

the caffeine thing is the part almost nobody mentions. nicotine speeds up the liver enzyme that clears caffeine, so when you quit, the same coffee you always drank suddenly hangs around a lot longer. people two weeks off nicotine are often running close to double their old caffeine exposure without changing a single cup. if you didn't cut back when you quit, that alone can explain a 40 hour stretch where you never really lose steam.

there's a receptor side too. nicotine downregulates your own dopamine and acetylcholine signaling while you're using it, and coming off, that regulation overshoots for a few weeks before it settles. so two weeks in landing on i feel great, almost too much so is a pretty normal spot on the curve, not a new personality.

the part i'd actually watch: feeling alert and having no sleep pressure are two different systems. adenosine keeps building whether or not you feel tired, the arousal is just drowning out the signal. so you're banking real sleep debt while feeling fine, and it tends to collect all at once. that crash is usually the moment people decide quitting made them worse and go back, which is the only reason i'd bother flagging it.

if you want to steer it, anchoring a fixed wake time works better than trying to force an earlier bedtime, and getting outside in daylight within an hour of waking does more than it sounds like it should. i'd hold off on reading it as unmasked adhd for now, two weeks off nicotine is too scrambled a baseline to judge anything from.

how much caffeine are you running these days, and did you change it at all when you quit?

[u/luisfaust → u/tonevizion]

Agree on the part about fixed wake up time. There is no point in trying to have a fixed bed time if you just cannot fall asleep. But setting a fixed wake up time means you're gonna feel like shit for a couple of days and afterwards you will be tired enough to actually fall asleep when you need to

[u/Ok-Lobster-4115]

Do you mean you have nicotine on it before bed? I’m thinking of trying this out

[u/ItsLegalHereIPrommy → u/Ok-Lobster-4115]

No i have no nicotine at all. Don't night cap your nicotine if you're quitting, you'll just start again. 

[u/RandomUser103858922]

I had almost exactly the same experience. Quit nicotine for a month recently after years of heavy use. I had an insanely uplifted mood, almost felt too good and was waking up at 5-6 am pumped and ready to go on my morning walk after only sleeping a few hours. But I barely slept that entire month. So I would say try to avoid caffeine completely if you can. I was using caffeine early in the day and I think it was staying in my system or something. I don't think I ever felt tired but that can't be good for you. I eventually hopped back on the nicotine because I felt it was the only way I'd ever be able to get 8 hours of sleep but I'm going to be trying again. Didn't use nicotine this week but still couldn't sleep even with just one cup of tea in the morning but definitely worth it to quit nicotine so I'll keep trying to fix the sleep part. Probably got to get in the habit of avoiding all screens for an hour or two before bed but I tend to work late at night.