Why would someone take Provigil?

Someone would typically take this because they're struggling with excessive sleepiness during the daytime, but not just your average "I stayed up too late" tiredness. Provigil is a wakefulness-promoting agent, and it's mainly prescribed to help people stay awake and alert if they have diagnosed sleep disorders like narcolepsy (where you can suddenly fall asleep at inappropriate times), obstructive sleep apnea (where breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep, leading to poor sleep quality and daytime exhaustion – Provigil is used as an add-on here, not a primary treatment for the apnea itself), or shift work sleep disorder (for those whose work schedules mess up their natural sleep-wake cycles). It works on certain brain chemicals to reduce extreme sleepiness, helping people function better during their waking hours when these conditions would otherwise make them overwhelmingly drowsy.