To everyone thinking about using caffine or other drugs to combat sleep: all of the latest sleep reseach would suggest that 'optimizing alertness during sleep loss' is a fool's errand if what you want is productivity. The real goal must be to ensure you get enough sleep, not that you medicate yourself with caffine to stop your body from getting sleep signals.
Think about it this way: If prolonged sleep were not absolutely essential to your survival and health, sleep would be the biggest mistake evolution has ever made. an animal spending 1/3 of its life unaware of it's surroundings is an incredibly steep evolutionary price to pay. It should be obvious that if we evolved to do that, there would be gigantic benefits to it, considering htat there is not a single known animal with a nervous system that does not sleep (including insects!). If caffine was actually helpful at reducing your need to sleep, an animal would have evolved by now to endogenously produce caffine.
There is a substantial body of sleep literature now showing huge benefits to physical / mental performance, willpower and creativity from sleep. Don't fight it, use it.
_____________________________________________
Edit:
One statistic thats particularily compelling to me: Every year during daylight savings when everyone loses an hour of sleep, the rate of heart attacks rises by 25%. On the day of the year where everyone gains an hour of sleep, heart attacks fall by 21%. Thats the effect of gaining / losing a single hour of sleep.
This is a sound advice. I spent 10 years of my life trying to squeeze as much time awake time as I can using tons of coffee and that almost ruined my life and got me nowhere. I have managed to get some success in life once I gave up on that idea and was productive when I was feeling productive without forcing it. If I can't do anything during the day? Fine. If I feel sleepy? I go to sleep. It was important though, to wake up at the same time in the morning. I was unable to kick off the coffee addiction, but reduced it just one cup in the morning. I find coffee more difficult to quit than cigarettes.
> However, we are not in a natural situation, but a profoundly unnatural one. For children in particular, Matricciani et al 2012 demonstrated a drastic fall in their sleep time over the past century, indicating that they are not in any state of nature.
But you are of course right that sleep is essential for performing optimally.
Totally agree. Trying to shortcut sleep is to misunderstand what happens in your brain while you are asleep. Your brain uses sleep to run processes akin to garbage collection, pathway reinforcement, and wide-range association building. It's a critical step in complex problem solving. If you're working on a problem during the day, then have a good night's sleep, you will typically find it easier to think about the problem or come up with a solution the following day.
You mean the holiday season, when people are stressed out by family matters, eating like garbage at seasonal gatherings, shovelling the hell out of some snow drifts, scraping ice off their windshields, and fighting the weather and general sedentary living, amid cabin fever among other things?
Club mate is the drink of choice in the start up community in Berlin. I've made the mistake of drinking that in the evening a couple of times and regretted that at 4am by being wide awake and unproductive the next day. If you are not familiar, mate tea which this is based on contains a form of caffeine that is particularly potent. It's like drinking multiple espresso shots. Don't drink this if you have blood pressure issues.
In general, I've learned to moderate my caffeine intake and restrict myself to mornings only. The more you consume, the more you need of it to work at all, and the more likely you are to have side effects like feeling tired, having poor sleep rythm, headaches, etc.
When used in moderation it's a great tool for getting yourself productive after a lazy weekend on a monday morning. However, if you feel tired all the time, stop drinking coffee and get a few nights of good sleep in.
> "a form of caffeine that is particularly potent"
I've heard this over and over, but as far as I can tell, caffeine = caffeine = caffeine. I'm not a chemist, but I can't find any mention of any different forms -- it's C8H10N4O2. [1]
Is there any scientific evidence that alertness is related to anything but the quantity of caffeine, regardless of whether it's delivered as black tea, mate tea, coffee, pills, etc.? Assuming that the caffeine makes it into the bloodstream at the same rate?
Apart from caffeine, yerba mate also contains the stimulants theobromine and theophylline, which makes the effects qualitatively different from only ingesting caffeine. I found yerba mate works very well as a pre-workout drink.
I think yerba mate makes me more stimulated but less "wired" than coffee. I have mainly been making tea with the actual mate leafs and not so much the sugary club mate.
Do yourself a favour and take the next step. Stop ingesting daily and reserve coffee for sleep emergencies and medicinal purposes. Even a single daily cup of coffee is enough to build a tolerance to it.
Besides affecting alertness, caffeine is also a very effective way of increasing the potency of many drugs. For me, Advil by itself has little effect, but in combination with caffeine it works great.
Shout-out to Yerba Mate tea (which this drink is based on) which I got introduced to on a recent trip to Argentina and now enjoy at home now and then, thanks to Amazon (I got the special cup and special metal filter straw and everything!). It's been called a "supertea" due to its various health benefits in addition to being a CNS stimulant. I'd recommend trying it. I add a little honey, but sweetener is up to you.
What I find interesting is that people who like those mate drinks are quite brand loyal (at least in my experience).
I've tried at least 10 different brands since I had my first Club Mate 15 years ago, and I hated every single one of them. A few friends hate Club Mate and only like a single other brand.
This is dead end and really should be illegal to force employees to do that. I hate when companies are trying to squeeze every inch of you, just to get their sorry startup some funding to burn. If you have so much work given to do that you need to "medicate" yourself with stimulants, then you are getting shafted. I find it bizarre that such exploitation culture is allowed. Always thought that Germany has fair employment laws.
When you get headaches, chances are you are dehydrated. I would suggest to drink a lot of water before and after drinking coffee or when you feel pain in your head. Drinking a lot of water works for me many times while enjoying too much caffeine in my body.
Caffeine is also linked to panic attacks, anxiety and sleep loss (and loss of quality of sleep), I would recommend staying off caffeine all together, having tried both, I by far more like working in the calmness of not having caffeine circulating in my body.
Wow, this is actually a thing! I thought it was just me.
As someone who used to drink a LOT of cola-cola during their teens, caffeine really fucked me up good. I only noticed I was dependant (addicted)
on caffeine after a friend pointed out I only felt good again on certain days after coming back from a client where there was no cola available.
I took a little bottle with me to the client and felt "normal" that day. Didn't even know it had caffeine. Had fairly bad anxiety and panic attacks at the time.
I then quit caffeine cold turkey. Couldn't even sit upright when I woke up after 2 days of not taking any.
I've now tried it on and off and noticed my anxiety / panic attacks happened out of nowhere, somewhat related to consuming caffeine. I think it happens a couple hours,
sometimes a day after consumptions. Really took a couple years link it to caffeine. I've been to doctors, hospitals, psychiatrists, physical therapists, blah blah blah. It was just fucking caffeine.
If you read this and think consuming coffee or cola all day is fine see what happens when you stop taking it for just a couple days. Yeah I get it, you just use it to "boost" your energy during the day right, you're definitely not addicted, right? Yeah, headaches in the weekend are normal - everyone has them..
Counter-point: I once quit coffee altogether, weening myself off with tea at first. After about 3 months of total caffeine "sobriety" I hated it. I found I enjoyed myself more and was more productive with some caffeine rather than none. It did help me cut back (I went from ~8 cups a day to ~2-4).
I think the level I'm at now -- still ~2-4 cups -- is perfect. I find I'm productive and still sleep well.
Note: 2-4 cups still sounds like a lot, but I mean 1 cup = 250ml not 1 mug.
I realised this after consuming two coffees a day - one in the morning and one after noon. I used to struggle with insomnia and used to sleep only by 2:00 AM frequently. After a few days of missing out my afternoon coffee, I started to notice that I felt much better and calmer. As someone who is fighting depression and anxiety, cutting off my coffee completely has helped.
I now substitute with a tea in the morning if necessary.
Reading this paper, I got a similar sense that all of this was suboptimal when compared to working towards and maintaining a healthy sleep cycle. When maintaining a healthy sleep cycle, there is no drop off in performance throughout the day, right? Or if there is, it's nothing nearly as bad as the drop off shown in even the best dosing strategies shown here, right? This paper makes the assumption that getting enough sleep simply isn't an option, but for many of us, that's not true. We choose to sleep poorly, and all of this is us trying to minimize the consequences of that poor choice.
I don't know a lot about this topic, so feel free to correct me.
It's a CNS stimulant, those are sensibly some of its side effects. I'd say moderation of use is an effective way to limit those side effects, as the pros/cons tend to change the more used to caffeine the body becomes.
There is also a genetic variation in receptors/enzyme configurations, think of it like the global options/settings. One person may react quite differently due to slight changes in the shape of their receptor due to a different genetic allele.
Fwiw: my doctor once told me that at two cups a day, he thinks it would be irrelevant. That's a bit higher than the 200 mg cited in the wikipedia page.
It definitely is a consideration if you're drinking a lot of coffee.
How about, you know, sleeping? Working in a startup isn't being parachuted behind the enemy lines where your life depends on staying alert. Go home, you'll work better tomorrow.
When I was Infantry I used a cocktail of caffeine and nicotine (usually nasal snuff, sometimes supplemented with dipping tobacco) to stay awake on extended missions. Since nicotine is a vasoconstrictor it inhibited night vision to some degree, but that was better than nodding off.
Now that I'm a professional engineer and no longer in indentured servitude I stick to an 8 hour work day, get 7-8 hours of sleep a night, and have the rest of the day to spend with the family. There's no reason in this day and age to work yourself to the point of chemical dependence if your life isn't on the line.
Caffeine got me through maaany sleepless nights with my daughter for the first year or so. Sometimes in life you lose the luxury of choice in sleep ;-).
This. Things happen (emergencies, sicknesses, etc.), but if you are sleep deprived due to work more than a couple of times a year, change it! For people saying they do not have this option, go make it (choices, like rights are never given; they are taken). It might take a while, but it is worth it. If you have in demand skills but are not appreciated at your work, move. If you do not have the skills to move, acquire them, etc.
Anecdotally, water and sugar directly affect my alertness while using caffeine. If I don't have enough water I get headaches and can't think straight. If my blood sugar is low due to not eating enough, or eating too much sugar and "crashing" then I might as well be asleep, even though I can't from the caffeine.
I may have missed it, but I don't see where they account for the diet of their test subjects.
I drink a lot of tea. About 1 liter a day as a baseline, but if I do some ultrahike or something I can easily drink 3 liters a day. Sometimes for some reason it's really hard to drink my tea (e.g. I'm in a hotel that doesn't have drinkable tea), so I tried to substitute with other caffeine products. Unfortunately I couldn't find out any reliable data on the caffeine content of the tea that I drink. All the information I could find is the worthless X-5X mg caffeine/cup, usually without even defining what a cup is!
Does anyone know a better resource?
Anyway, subjectively speaking I find that all the online estimates are too low, at least for the type of tea that I drink and in the concentration I prefer.
Also, subjectively it seems that tea has a more complex psychoactive effect that either pure caffeine or coffee. If I drink enough caffeine, I can avoid the symptoms associated with caffeine withdrawal, but I don't get nowhere near as strong as an effect as I get from from tea, even if I drink a lot of caffeine. It appears tea has other stuff in it apart from caffeine.
Now when I travel I take my own tea, cup, and immersion heater with me.
As I said, I really like tea, but only good tea that properly prepared is good. What passes for tea these days, sometimes even in tea shops (!) is usually poison. An easy litmus test is this: do they use a thermometer when making green or white ea? If not, that means they use boiling water which will destroy the tea. I think most people never had good tea in their life. I strongly dislike coffee, but I somehow suspect I only drank bad coffee that was not prepared correctly, and that I would enjoy good coffee.
Personal anecdata, I was drinking several cups of coffee to get myself through 7 hours' driving with a full work day spliced within. I used to feel absolutely dreadful. Why am I so tired despite drinking all this coffee? I used to think. I then started limiting myself to one small coffee a day. Bingo, all symptoms gone. The coffee was making me feel far worse than I would otherwise have done as it wore off, I believe.
Interesting detail: look at where they authors are working. This is military research. And I'm not surprised. The problem of having to keep soldiers alert during long phases of sleep deprivation has been around since the early days of modern warfare.
In case anyone found that study difficult to read, the optimal strategy was, over the course of 3 days, one 600mg dose after 12pm on days 2 and 3 of a 3 day string of sleep loss.
Genetics play an important factor. CYP1A2, one of the enzymes that metabolizes caffeine, varies by as much as 40x between individuals.
In those with a high level of the enzyme, caffeine is metabolized quickly, so they can drink coffee in the afternoon and still fall asleep. They are less likely to get anxiety from caffeine, and do not suffer from a higher risk of heart attacks with coffee consumption.
In contrast, a small amount of CYPA12 prevents caffeine from being metabolized and prolongs its effects.
My trick is no adrenaline no caffeine effect. I would do 10 push ups or run around my car a few times and then drink down the caffeine and that changed everything.
> Caffeine, if safely administrated, is an effective countermeasure to mitigate impairment of alertness caused by sleep loss. This has been demonstrated in multiple laboratory and field studies for different sleep–wake schedules. However, to maximize its effectiveness, caffeine should be consumed at the right time and amount. Here, we developed an optimization algorithm to determine when and how much caffeine to consume so as to safely maximize alertness of a group of individuals for any situation
there's an app, caffeine zone, that helps you find out the right time. I don't know if it based (or been updated based ) on this study.
http://frankritter.com/caffeinezone/
https://2b-alert-web.bhsai.org/ - Implementation of previous research on this by the same people, who currently work on adding this improved model to the implementation.
I drink about a gallon of caffeinated drinks a day, sometimes more. Am I the only one?
I don't have problems sleeping, headaches, or with fatigue. I look forward to the jitters; it actually cheers me up to know that soon I'll be so intense.
My goal has been to increase protein intake and reduce my caffeine. My body and brain works better when fueled with protein. With caffeine I have to "refuel" every 30 - 60 minutes and snack on stuff but with a big protein meal I find myself not thinking of food or drink for 3 hours of hard focus.
[+] [-] eigenspace|7 years ago|reply
Think about it this way: If prolonged sleep were not absolutely essential to your survival and health, sleep would be the biggest mistake evolution has ever made. an animal spending 1/3 of its life unaware of it's surroundings is an incredibly steep evolutionary price to pay. It should be obvious that if we evolved to do that, there would be gigantic benefits to it, considering htat there is not a single known animal with a nervous system that does not sleep (including insects!). If caffine was actually helpful at reducing your need to sleep, an animal would have evolved by now to endogenously produce caffine.
There is a substantial body of sleep literature now showing huge benefits to physical / mental performance, willpower and creativity from sleep. Don't fight it, use it.
_____________________________________________
Edit:
One statistic thats particularily compelling to me: Every year during daylight savings when everyone loses an hour of sleep, the rate of heart attacks rises by 25%. On the day of the year where everyone gains an hour of sleep, heart attacks fall by 21%. Thats the effect of gaining / losing a single hour of sleep.
[+] [-] merinowool|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petters|7 years ago|reply
> However, we are not in a natural situation, but a profoundly unnatural one. For children in particular, Matricciani et al 2012 demonstrated a drastic fall in their sleep time over the past century, indicating that they are not in any state of nature.
But you are of course right that sleep is essential for performing optimally.
[+] [-] madcaptenor|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rojobuffalo|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geeCorrelation|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cup-of-tea|7 years ago|reply
Plants spend 100% of their time in that state. We only need to wake up to feed and fuck (and perform tasks to enable those things).
[+] [-] abandonliberty|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tytytytytytytyt|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jillesvangurp|7 years ago|reply
In general, I've learned to moderate my caffeine intake and restrict myself to mornings only. The more you consume, the more you need of it to work at all, and the more likely you are to have side effects like feeling tired, having poor sleep rythm, headaches, etc.
When used in moderation it's a great tool for getting yourself productive after a lazy weekend on a monday morning. However, if you feel tired all the time, stop drinking coffee and get a few nights of good sleep in.
[+] [-] crazygringo|7 years ago|reply
I've heard this over and over, but as far as I can tell, caffeine = caffeine = caffeine. I'm not a chemist, but I can't find any mention of any different forms -- it's C8H10N4O2. [1]
Is there any scientific evidence that alertness is related to anything but the quantity of caffeine, regardless of whether it's delivered as black tea, mate tea, coffee, pills, etc.? Assuming that the caffeine makes it into the bloodstream at the same rate?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine
[+] [-] Legogris|7 years ago|reply
I think yerba mate makes me more stimulated but less "wired" than coffee. I have mainly been making tea with the actual mate leafs and not so much the sugary club mate.
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|7 years ago|reply
Do yourself a favour and take the next step. Stop ingesting daily and reserve coffee for sleep emergencies and medicinal purposes. Even a single daily cup of coffee is enough to build a tolerance to it.
Besides affecting alertness, caffeine is also a very effective way of increasing the potency of many drugs. For me, Advil by itself has little effect, but in combination with caffeine it works great.
[+] [-] pmarreck|7 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate
For reference I got this mate mug https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GJXBR94/ref=oh_aui_se... and these straws ("bombillas") https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M1N9U23/ref=oh_aui_se... (because the one that came with the mug let a bit too much tea particulate through) and am very happy with that combo.
Here's a good video on the "ritual" of making it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BW1-pE4XaE
[+] [-] qz3|7 years ago|reply
I've tried at least 10 different brands since I had my first Club Mate 15 years ago, and I hated every single one of them. A few friends hate Club Mate and only like a single other brand.
[+] [-] 4rgento|7 years ago|reply
I only drink coffee when I need extra alertness.
Meditation can also increase your hability to be alert without resorting to drinks.
[+] [-] tzahola|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strictnein|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] merinowool|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] e19293001|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] collyw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solarkraft|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _lbaq|7 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine-induced_anxiety_disor...
[+] [-] flipp3r|7 years ago|reply
As someone who used to drink a LOT of cola-cola during their teens, caffeine really fucked me up good. I only noticed I was dependant (addicted) on caffeine after a friend pointed out I only felt good again on certain days after coming back from a client where there was no cola available. I took a little bottle with me to the client and felt "normal" that day. Didn't even know it had caffeine. Had fairly bad anxiety and panic attacks at the time.
I then quit caffeine cold turkey. Couldn't even sit upright when I woke up after 2 days of not taking any.
I've now tried it on and off and noticed my anxiety / panic attacks happened out of nowhere, somewhat related to consuming caffeine. I think it happens a couple hours, sometimes a day after consumptions. Really took a couple years link it to caffeine. I've been to doctors, hospitals, psychiatrists, physical therapists, blah blah blah. It was just fucking caffeine.
If you read this and think consuming coffee or cola all day is fine see what happens when you stop taking it for just a couple days. Yeah I get it, you just use it to "boost" your energy during the day right, you're definitely not addicted, right? Yeah, headaches in the weekend are normal - everyone has them..
[+] [-] skipants|7 years ago|reply
I think the level I'm at now -- still ~2-4 cups -- is perfect. I find I'm productive and still sleep well.
Note: 2-4 cups still sounds like a lot, but I mean 1 cup = 250ml not 1 mug.
[+] [-] Karupan|7 years ago|reply
I now substitute with a tea in the morning if necessary.
[+] [-] diminoten|7 years ago|reply
I don't know a lot about this topic, so feel free to correct me.
[+] [-] WhompingWindows|7 years ago|reply
There is also a genetic variation in receptors/enzyme configurations, think of it like the global options/settings. One person may react quite differently due to slight changes in the shape of their receptor due to a different genetic allele.
[+] [-] hyperpape|7 years ago|reply
It definitely is a consideration if you're drinking a lot of coffee.
[+] [-] nottorp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] black6|7 years ago|reply
Now that I'm a professional engineer and no longer in indentured servitude I stick to an 8 hour work day, get 7-8 hours of sleep a night, and have the rest of the day to spend with the family. There's no reason in this day and age to work yourself to the point of chemical dependence if your life isn't on the line.
[+] [-] awinder|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protonimitate|7 years ago|reply
Do what's best for you, personally, and not what some internet stranger thinks is the correct way to function.
[+] [-] ptero|7 years ago|reply
This. Things happen (emergencies, sicknesses, etc.), but if you are sleep deprived due to work more than a couple of times a year, change it! For people saying they do not have this option, go make it (choices, like rights are never given; they are taken). It might take a while, but it is worth it. If you have in demand skills but are not appreciated at your work, move. If you do not have the skills to move, acquire them, etc.
[+] [-] dec0dedab0de|7 years ago|reply
I may have missed it, but I don't see where they account for the diet of their test subjects.
[+] [-] 4ad|7 years ago|reply
Does anyone know a better resource?
Anyway, subjectively speaking I find that all the online estimates are too low, at least for the type of tea that I drink and in the concentration I prefer.
Also, subjectively it seems that tea has a more complex psychoactive effect that either pure caffeine or coffee. If I drink enough caffeine, I can avoid the symptoms associated with caffeine withdrawal, but I don't get nowhere near as strong as an effect as I get from from tea, even if I drink a lot of caffeine. It appears tea has other stuff in it apart from caffeine.
Now when I travel I take my own tea, cup, and immersion heater with me.
As I said, I really like tea, but only good tea that properly prepared is good. What passes for tea these days, sometimes even in tea shops (!) is usually poison. An easy litmus test is this: do they use a thermometer when making green or white ea? If not, that means they use boiling water which will destroy the tea. I think most people never had good tea in their life. I strongly dislike coffee, but I somehow suspect I only drank bad coffee that was not prepared correctly, and that I would enjoy good coffee.
[+] [-] growlist|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ak|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acconrad|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trendia|7 years ago|reply
In those with a high level of the enzyme, caffeine is metabolized quickly, so they can drink coffee in the afternoon and still fall asleep. They are less likely to get anxiety from caffeine, and do not suffer from a higher risk of heart attacks with coffee consumption.
In contrast, a small amount of CYPA12 prevents caffeine from being metabolized and prolongs its effects.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CYP1A2
[+] [-] baldfat|7 years ago|reply
I learned that caffeine makes adrenaline last longer by blocking it receptors in college. https://science.howstuffworks.com/caffeine4.htm
My trick is no adrenaline no caffeine effect. I would do 10 push ups or run around my car a few times and then drink down the caffeine and that changed everything.
[+] [-] baxtr|7 years ago|reply
I couldn’t find the algorithm though...
[+] [-] davidjhall|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drunkenmeister|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|7 years ago|reply
I couldn't find it after reading the abstract and quickly scanning the first page.
[+] [-] no_identd|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ulisesrmzroche|7 years ago|reply
I don't have problems sleeping, headaches, or with fatigue. I look forward to the jitters; it actually cheers me up to know that soon I'll be so intense.
[+] [-] euroclydon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ddtaylor|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pier25|7 years ago|reply
Anyone knows what PDF renderer Wiley is using? The performance is fantastic.
Is this PDF.js?
Edit: Found it https://www.readcube.com/
Edit 2: Apparently ReadCube uses PDF.js