The Sleep Switch
See what one gummy does to your day, and your night.
Set who you are and what you take. Then watch the day play out inside the brain, and see what the same schedule does over a month.
How your brain decides you are tired
All day, a tiredness signal builds up. Scientists call it adenosine.
Caffeine sits in the signal’s slots so your brain cannot read it. The tiredness is still there, just hidden.
L-theanine takes the edge off the caffeine, same alertness, less jitter. Two gummies a day is the ceiling because the slots adapt.
Who you are
Not sure? If an evening coffee keeps you up, pick slow. If you can drink one after dinner and sleep, pick fast.
This sets how many extra caffeine slots your brain has already grown.
What you take
Today: 90 mg caffeine, 180 mg L-theanine across 2 doses.
Your day
BedtimeYou would fall asleep in about 25 minutes.
AfternoonNo afternoon crash.
Last safe doseLast gummy by 5:15 pm.
Six words you will see
- Sleep switch
- A group of brain cells that flips you from awake to asleep once conditions are right.
- Adenosine, tiredness signal
- A signal that builds up the longer you are awake and makes you feel sleepy.
- Receptor
- A slot on a brain cell that a signal, like adenosine or caffeine, fits into to send its message.
- Melatonin
- The hormone your brain releases in the evening to signal that it is time to wind down.
- Alpha rhythm
- A slow brain wave pattern linked to calm, relaxed focus.
- Jitter
- The shaky, wired feeling from adrenaline that too much caffeine can bring on.
At bedtime
You would fall asleep in about 25 minutes
A little caffeine is still in your system, blocking 9% of your tiredness receptors, not enough to keep you up.
Lowest point after the first dose
No afternoon crash
A second dose covers the gap before the first one clears.
Last safe dose for your bedtime
Last gummy by 5:15 pm
Any later and caffeine is still blocking more than a tenth of your tiredness signal (adenosine receptors) at 11:00 pm.
The last safe dose
Your 24 hour window
Sage is a clear runway to sleep. Coral is too close to your bedtime. The dots are today’s doses.
- Safe to dose
- Too close to bed
- Asleep
- Today’s doses
- Wake / Bed
Why 5:15 pm: by 11:00 pm the caffeine from a gummy taken then has dropped below a tenth of your tiredness slots.
Inside the brain
Follow the switch through your day.
Move the clock to see what is happening.
Brain waves (EEG): calm alpha, wired beta, or asleep delta, schematic and not a real recording.
The sleep switch, up close
Move the clock to see the slots fill.
Where the focus lift comes from
Move the clock to see the focus pathway respond.
Where the calm comes from
Move the clock to see calming brain waves respond.
How alert you feel
How alert you feel, hour by hour.
The bold line is you, on today’s schedule. Add a product to see the same times with something else.
| Peak | 5 h after first dose (vs nothing) | At bedtime | |
|---|---|---|---|
| You, AURIX gummy | 66% | +5 | 21% |
Compare products
Two gummies, or a coffee.
Both products are taken at the same clock times as today’s schedule, with your profile.
Timing: 9:00 am, 2:00 pm
Coffee peaks 2 points higher, carries more than 2.3x the jitter, and takes 12 more minutes to fall asleep.
| AURIX gummy | Coffee, one cup | |
|---|---|---|
| Caffeine and L-theanine per day | 90 mg caf, 180 mg thea | 190 mg caf, 0 mg thea |
| Peak alertness | 66% | 68%better |
| Alertness 5 hours after the first dose, day 1 (points vs taking nothing) | +5better | +4 |
| Same, after 28 daily days | +1better | -4 |
| Peak jitter | 17%better | 38% |
| Minutes to fall asleep at 11:00 pm | 25 minbetter | 37 min |
| Deep sleep lost tonight | 4%better | 8% |
| Last safe single dose | 5:15 pmbetter | 11:30 am |
If you took this every day
Weeks, not one day.
Same gummy, 38% less lift by day 28. That is why the ceiling is two gummies on the days you need them, not two gummies every day.
| Day | Lift 5 hours after first dose | Peak lift | Caffeine slots, % of day 1 | Minutes to fall asleep | Deep sleep lost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +5 | +8 | 100% | 25 min | 4% |
| 2 | +4 | +6 | 100% | 25 min | 4% |
| 3 | +4 | +6 | 101% | 25 min | 4% |
| 7 | +3 | +6 | 102% | 25 min | 4% |
| 14 | +2 | +5 | 103% | 24 min | 4% |
| 21 | +1 | +5 | 104% | 24 min | 4% |
| 28 | +1 | +5 | 104% | 24 min | 4% |
How this model is built
The anchors, and the honest limits.
- Fredholm 1999. Caffeine works by blocking your tiredness signal from its receptors, the core mechanism this whole model runs on (adenosine).
- Huang 2005. The receptor type that mediates how alert you feel is the one this model’s sleep switch reads through.
- Burke 2015. About 200 mg of caffeine delays the start of your sleep hormone by roughly 40 minutes, the anchor for the delay at bedtime (melatonin).
- Drake 2013. 400 mg of caffeine taken 6 hours before bed cuts total sleep by over an hour, the anchor for the minutes to fall asleep and deep sleep lost.
- Landolt 1995. Morning caffeine measurably reduces deep sleep brain activity that night, even hours after it has cleared your blood.
- Owen 2008 and Nobre 2008. Caffeine with L-theanine raises calming brain waves more than either alone, the anchor for the calm gauge (alpha rhythm).
- Camfield 2014. A review of caffeine and L-theanine studies, the basis for pairing the two in this model rather than treating caffeine alone.
These curves are illustrative and tuned to sit near the anchors above. They are not a fitted pharmacokinetic model, and they should not be read as a prediction of your own morning. Heart rate, blood pressure and the EEG trace are schematic, built to move in the right direction, not measured. The dose numbers for AURIX are exact. The model covers caffeine and L-theanine only, so the galangal root extract in each gummy is left out. Everything else in this simulator is a considered approximation, built to teach the mechanism, not to diagnose an individual night.