When caffeine stops working, do you turn to anti-narcolepsy pills?

See a doctor and take their advice, not the internets. They'll probably tell you diet, exercise and sleep.

More personally what I did with my caffeine problems was consume less and restrict the time I have it. One good coffee in the morning is enough, the withdrawal will suck but you'll sleep better in the long run. And the trick to not feeling tired all the time is to sleep well and not consume a bunch of nasty stuff in the afternoon and evening that your body can't handle well in excess.

Psychoactive chemicals aren't a solution if you don't have a problem that they can really help. That's why you see a doctor or three to determine if it's worth the risks.

I like to take occasional tolerance breaks from coffee completely.

I also like to drink much less than the max before I start feeling bad, so that if I have a really long day I can drink more than usual and really feel the effects, without needing to have so much that I have a bad trip(Some of the Starbucks drinks will make me feel like crap with just one of them).

There seems to be studies saying coffee drinkers live longer, and it tastes great, so I do enjoy a daily cup or two of coffee or tea, but I would not want a lifestyle where I couldn't have no caffeine at all most days if I did want to.

I mention this one a lot, but removing a lot of personal side projects from my life has helped me tremendously. I think of it kind of like decluttering, but in the time domain.

I've even mostly changed my stance on open source from "Always use it" to "Avoid things that cause vendor lock in, otherwise prefer FOSS if convenient, but don't hesitate to use proprietary".

Of course you might not have easily discardable projects to free up time with, if you're busy with work or study grinding.

I use Modafinil and Ritalin from time to time, when I want a good working session. I would not abuse it, but if you take doses smaller than the recommended dose they give to people with real symptoms it's probably fine, or should I say it becomes a viable cost/benefits analysis.

I mostly do it because I like the thrill of building something in one weekend. I would not like to live a life where I have to use it to keep up with work though.

Time to quit cold turkey. It'll hurt like hell for 3-5 days and then you'll be kinda fine, just feeling like you don't have a soul anymore. Drink tea if you can to compensate.

Then after the pause, go back to drinking 1-2 cups per day and never more.

> Caffeine no longer keeps me awake.

Reframe your question starting from this. You should not be needing caffeine to stay awake as a rule and normal baseline in your life. Solve that problem before thinking of starting with a stronger drug.

Are you asking if you should abuse prescription drugs on hackernews? You are basically asking if meth is a good substitute to coffee. How the fuck is this thread still up.

Listen to Andrew Huberman. Caffeine just blocks your adenosine receptors. Take a month off.

Really? Are you trolling or just naive?

Talk to your doctors.