[fogetti]

Exactly. I feel for you. I am in the same boat. With young kids around I was forced to wake up 2 hours earlier than my circadian rhytm would dictate and it's been a nightmare so far.

I need to compensate each day with even more coffee than normally and my head's just spinning by the end of the day because I am too exhausted.

Since my rhytm cannot be forced to the early waking, on average I only sleep 5 hours each night.

It's a constant torture.

[smichel17]

May I suggest: avoid first-thing caffeine; wait until your body has naturally woken up to drink caffiene (or other stimulants). The natural process for waking up (cortisol!) stops when you feel awake. Using caffeine can hasten that moment, but then it doesn't get you any more awake than you would have gotten naturally, and can disrupt your sleep cycle in various ways (for me personally, early caffeine actually makes it harder for me to fall asleep at night; I always thought I was really sensitive to caffeine, but it turns out "...even if I have it first thing in the morning" was more accurately "...only if...").

[tayo42]

Idk if this will work for a regular coffee drinker. Part of the coffee first thing in the morning is dealing with the withdrawal from over night.

[unishark]

Caffeine also takes 30-60 minutes to really kick in anyway, meaning your body has to do the waking up on its own either way. The immediate pick-me-up a regular drinker gets from it is a psychological response to the initial low concentration that can start to be felt after 10 or 15 minutes.

[smichel17]

Right. For a regular coffee drinker, coffee has stopped being a boost and is merely a requirement to get back to normal energy.

[bombcar]

When stuck in a similar rut I had to quit caffeine cold turkey for over a month to get my body to settle down and start to acclimate.

Definitely cutting out caffeine at noon helps.