This is a well known practise in Spain. I com from Spain and I have always seen my family (parents and grandparents) drinking coffee after lunch and, then, doing a nap on the couch. Usually, we sit on the couch, take the coffee together and then every person takes a newspaper or magazine and after a few minutes of pseudo-reading everybody is sleeping or in a state of deep relaxation. We sleep for 20 minutes. That's all. I guess this is very common in Spain.
This works well because we often take lunch at home. But, now that I have lunch at the office, I do the same. I have a 1 hour pause. The first half hour I have lunch, then I take the coffee and I go to the office to sleep on the floor, on a very thin mattress. If my brain is too active, I listen to a foreign radio station with my iPhone. I like to listen to ICI Radio Canada (in French). When I have lunch here, they broadcast the morning news and commentary. The news are about stuff happening in Quebec. It is interesting enough for me to forget the work stuff, and dull enough to induce me into a deeper relaxation state, which allows me to fall sleep fast. Being the broadcast in a foreing language, also helps to fall sleep. I often dream during this 20-30 minutes naps.
An interesting detail is that I had to learn this habit. I remember being a child and being pissed off because I wasn't allowed to make noise after lunch. Now, that I'm a father, the roles are changing and I'm the one sleeping after lunch.
By the way, at night, in order to fall sleep, I never take phones, tablets or computers to my bedroom. Instead, I take a shortwave radio and I tune the BBC world service news (fortunately, in Spain we can hear the broadcast directed to Africa). I put a 30 minutes timer on the radio and I almost never hear it stopping, because I fall sleep before. The day that the BBC will shut the SW broadcast, I guess I will take a bluetooth headset or speaker to my bedroom, but not the iPhone. It is very important to avoid computers in the bedroom.
As a spaniard myself, I can confirm this is an accurate description of what siesta looks like on most cases. Short nap on the couch after a coffee, for those who take lunch at home, or just on the weekends otherwise.
I should add that, during siesta, many people fall sleep in front of the TV. In July, the Tour de France is perfect for that, due to the beautiful scenery and the flow of the race.
I was an avid napper back at college and thoroughly employed the coffee nap technique. Now I'm in the workforce, but my body is still yearning for naps at work. I find myself drifting off here and there, but never fully commit.
I'm afraid to take a full nap at work due to how it may look. Do you find yourself being judged for taking naps at work?
Having a bunch of people in a state like that all together would make for a curious picture. I usually find asian languages better to fall asleep to, there's just something in the way they talk that just does it for me. I'm taking french classes now, so my inner student would try to comprehend what's being said and I'd never fall asleep with that language.
I wish I was able to take naps. Do people can really fall asleep on command just like that when they have some spare minutes in their day? Shit, even when I am sleep deprived, I can barely fall asleep in my own bed, sometimes it literally take me hours.
When I manage to take a nap it's usually involuntary by falling asleep in front of the TV.
It just takes practice. For a nap, it helps to unwind quickly by focusing on deep breathing and allowing your mind to wander.
During a nap you're not trying to lose consciousness as if you're "totally asleep" either. It's almost like you're hypnotizing yourself into a deep state of relaxation. A pair of sunglasses or sleep mask can also help to reduce any daytime light to make it easier.
Practice it for a year, you'll be an expert after that and have a highly valuable skill.
You could try not watching TV, using a laptop, or reading in bed.
For me, when I stopped watching TV and doing things on my laptop from my bed, I very quickly noticed an improvement in how quickly I fell asleep.
Another big one is exercise. I notice that when I exercise I have a much easier time falling asleep than on days that I don't, I now try to exercise every day.
I also got older over the past few years, which in and of itself could explain things, so, I suggest experimenting to find what works best for you.
Have you tried 'paradoxical intention'? It's basically convincing yourself that the goal is to stay awake, instead of falling asleep. It gets rid of some of the performance anxiety surrounding falling asleep, and tends to force you to focus on something else (keeping awake). It has helped me in the past!
Ditto this. My wife can nap no problem. I might nap every couple months, and its basically a disrupted sleep and not a nap. I wake up feeling terrible; groggy, mild headache, irritable. I'd have been better off not napping as it inevitably comes when I've got so much to do and no energy and that "if I have a quick nap I'll feel refreshed and be ready to work!" Nope!
When I'm not sleeping alone, the other people tell me I'm snoring after 10min lying around. But I cant remember falling asleep, snoring OR waking up. Just That I had my eyes closed and tried to sleep.
So I guess, I cant check for my self that I'm asleep...
> * Do people can really fall asleep on command just like that when they have some spare minutes in their day?*
It depends on the time of day. I can't exactly fall asleep on command, but I'll find myself longing for a nap in the afternoon, usually around 2 or 3. I can fall asleep pretty quickly then, and usually I'll wake up about 20 minutes later.
I used to do it on my lunches in my car. Load up an mp3 I made from rainymood.com and some oscillating brown noise on simplynoise.com, put on a sleeping mask and a 45 minute alarm it was great. First few times I didn't sleep much but I did essentially meditate, later on I was sleeping within 10-15 mins.
Yes. If you lay still with your eyes closed and make sure your phone and internet stay quiet, you will fall asleep in 10 minutes or so.
That then leaves enough to get 10 minutes or so of sleep and get back up 20 minutes after starting your nap. Much longer than that and you risk not getting up for another few hours.
Much less than that and you won't get any rest.
And yes, this works perfectly well even without falling asleep. Just lay still for 20 minutes and let your mind wander without distractions or worrying about what you're thinking about. Congratulations, you've just meditated.
I found this by experience few years ago. It works.
At first, I started with naps, and drinking coffee after.
Accidentally I had few times coffee before nap, and noticed the difference.
But I don't recommend this kind of nap all the time - because after a while it's not that effective.
So, after years of napping (I'm an expert - I became so good at napping, that I can fall a sleep in 1-2 minutes, and wake up without alarm after 15-20 minutes), my advice would be: take a nap after lunch, between 1 and 3pm, without coffee before nap. Only in special situations, when you are under high pressure and lots of work, take "coffee nap" as they call it in the article.
Read this carefully: I used to think this way as well. This thinking lead me to the exact wrong strategy for naps.
There are many stages of sleep; stage 1 through 4, and REM sleep. These, it is hypothesized, have distinct physiological functions. Most importantly for this discussion, waking up out of each have very different effects.
Waking from stage 1 sleep makes you feel immediately refreshed, and people perform better immediately have tests of mental acuity. This is also true of REM sleep; additionally you often remember dreams.
Stage 2 is also good. A good 30 minutes afterwards, you will feel better rested, and your mental acuity will rise; for longer than from stage 1, but it is a delayed effect.
But if you wake up out of a deeper sleep cycle, you get 'sleep inertia.' Mental acuity plummets. You feel poorly rested and ill.
The problem:
The body is often not even aware that you are sleeping in stage 1 sleep. You are in a different physiological stage, but you may not have lost consciousness.
You usually are in this stage from minute 5 onto minute 10. And in stage two up to about 15-20 minutes. After that, you can fall into a deeper sleep; which waking up from is very problematic.
I used to set my alarm for 30 minutes. I'd way up, feel even more tired, and set my alarm for 30 minutes again. This was ruining my life.
---
tl;dr
Even if you don't lose consciousness, you can still be 'sleeping' and a nap of 20 minutes will greatly help you feel healthy and well rested.
Certainly depends on how tired you are.
I work at home, so I sleep around my own schedule as much as I want to and almost always feel rested. But when I am missing an hour or two of sleep (which a lot of people are, every damn day), I fall asleep in minutes given the opportunity in the middle of the day.
Not for everyone. For me, yes, at least 15 minutes, but my SO can often go out in less than 5. I never take naps for that reason, and she takes them frequently. Perhaps there's a correlation between the time it takes to fall asleep and the frequency of naps.
If it's that hard to fall asleep, then you don't need a nap. Problem solved. Depending on their job, diet, exercise, age, etc., some people just really really really really need a 10-15 minute nap in the early afternoon to get through the rest of the day. The need comes over you quickly, and you either do it or spend the rest of the day struggling to stay awake and focused on your work. I don't think anyone is suggesting that people who aren't actually tired take naps.
Especially since I think coffee for me is mostly a placebo. I know when I drink coffee I'm supposed to be more awake so there's no way I could take a nap after drinking one.
What is the tolerance level for naps in silicon valley companies (both big and small)? Does it depend on the role/position? Wouldn't they rather have all their employees down mugs of coffee instead of taking even a quick nap?
Is there any downside to doing this? It seems like there must be a reason why the adenosine signals that it's time to sleep - like your brain actually needs that rest to recuperate properly after activity. Does a "coffee nap" (or caffeine in general) lead to increased fatigue once the effects wear off?
Although I guess to some extent if you're going to ignore the sleep signal otherwise, there likely isn't much harm in feeling alert while doing so, except inasmuch as the alert feeling causes you to tax your brain more than you otherwise would.
Natural sleep cycles vary not just by person but also by age. There is some evidence that a small community with 0 to 70 year olds will always have someone awake. Which would seem like a likely survival adaptation. Which suggests sleep cycles may relate to more than just biological need.
The Jawbone up is the BOMB of all bombs for taking naps. Put it in nap mode and it waits for you to fall asleep before setting the alarm. So you can get a proper nap without wondering whether you're taking too long to fall asleep, etc.
It can also attempt to time your nap based on your latest sleep patterns. No idea how effective this is.
After a couple months of protracted late nights at a startup I worked for, I came up with an idea for a place which would offer by-the-hour nap+shower+coffee pods. You'd go in, pay $20 or whatever, have access to a shower and a bed, and at the end (or beginning) you'd get a coffee of your choice (if after, it would be ready for you when your nap was over).
I think this could do really well in Soma or the Financial District in SF. Just gotta enforce one-person-one-rule so that it doesnt become a place for prostitution.
Even on non-prime real-estate (which does that exist in SF?), I don't think you could hit your $20 price point with the amount of housekeeping needed for a bed and shower. Even if you could, after a week your staff might hate you. :-)
There is a company called "Breather" offering this sort of service. You get a small meeting/lounge room for %15-25 per hour. See HN discussion and article from a few months ago.
> ...it takes around 20 minutes for the caffeine to get through your gastrointestinal tract and bloodstream anyway.
This isn't really true, right? On an empty stomach a strong coffee seems to get me high as a kite in about two minutes.
I've been doing this coffee+nap thing for a long time. It definitely works for me. My trick for falling asleep reliably and quickly is listening to an audiobook.
There is a lot of it depends. On an empty stomach 20 minutes does seem a bit long.
However you're also conditioned to the feeling you expect coffee to provide, so the initial jolt of energy may have almost nothing to do with the actual caffeine and more to do with the thought of the caffeine.
I have read before that drinking coffee before a short nap is a good combination. It's nice to read that someone has actually tested it. I can't always do it at work but I have used this method at home and it works well. One other suggestion I follow is that I don't take short naps lying down. That encourages my body to go into a longer, deeper sleep. I nap sitting in a comfy chair, in a quiet, dim room if possible. It's very refreshing; I'm more alert and productive for the rest of the day.
This works well with other stimulants and other medications too. Take methylphenidate and an opioid, take a quick nap, wake up feeling fantastic.
It's also got emotional benefits. If you are feeling down, then simply waiting for the medicine to do its job can make things worse, as your mind goes in a negative spiral. Taking a nap can give you peace that you're just putting everything aside and going to concentrate on the warmth of the nap and a dream. And before you know it, bam - everything's perfect again.
Keep in mind that after 2-3 weeks of habitual coffee drinking, your body acclimates to the effects of caffeine and you no longer receive a performance benefit. At that point all drinking coffee does for you is ward off the effects of withdrawal and return you to baseline performance levels - until the effects wear off and withdrawal kicks in again, at which point your performance is below average.
Caffeine is best used strategically, which means not every day. Save it for days where you're feeling particularly low energy, or need a boost to tackle a problem you're not particularly excited about doing.
That said, the half-life of caffeine is around 6 hours, which means if you have a coffee at 3pm, at 3am you still have a quarter-cup's worth of caffeine in your system, preventing you from entering deep sleep. So even then I'd keep caffeine as a first-thing-in-the-morning type of deal.
Naps I'm a big fan of. I take one every day after lunch. The trick is to simply lay down and close your eyes for 20 minutes. Don't worry if you fall asleep or not - just give your eyes a rest. For the first few days/weeks, you might not fall asleep. But eventually your body grows accustomed to the ritual and it becomes easier to actually fall asleep at hat time.
I support the napping for productivity without having artificial stimulants (OK, natural organic drugs) involved.
The studies likely involved mostly habitual users rather than unindoctrinated subjects, but from the abstracts' documentation it is difficult to be sure. Perhaps the researchers did not recognize the distinction and just selected random participants, therefore likely to include mostly habitual users.
When I was a caffeine addict (habitual user) I could also
sleep after ingestion.
In fact without a fix right before bedtime it was more difficult to get to sleep because nominal concentration level was unsatisfied, resulting more in agitation than identifiable craving.
A nice hit would actually help me relax.
I was not the only one who could relate to this as an indication of true addiction, where you need the substance just to be normal.
Complete withdrawal took a few weeks (of hellish tiredness, achiness, and irritability) but after this it was even easier to more alertly conduct high-stamina activities and out-perform my still-addicted colleagues without the toxic load on my system.
Sleep & nap much more productively without it after kicking the habit too.
Sure can write a lot better code when drug (addiction) free as well.
When I do feel it's necessary (never for marathon coding), a single cup of coffee (after I have already been awake 24hrs and need a little boost) naturally keeps my otherwise drug-free system awake for the next 24hrs easily which can be helpful for things like long-distance driving once or twice per year.
As an addict I would have needed two or three times my nominal habitual doses to feel as alert on those same lonely roads.
To me coding does not benefit from this type of non-stop alertness, even if you are working to exhaustion, when tiredness truly comes a plain nap is better whether it is after 6hrs, 12hrs, 20hrs, whatever, then freshly go into another session, exahustion relieved.
Same with driving too, but if the schedule is too tight, a couple times a year will not make you a habitual user like everyday dosage does.
I'd rather drive slow for long hours than exceed the speed limit, waste energy, and prematurely wear out my machinery.
YMMV [0] but just because everybody does caffeine won't make it good for you, especially in the long run.
[0] depending largely on body weight, metabolism, and dosage, and for driving, road speed
(from the article) "energy drinks are disgusting.."
I disagree. Monsters in particular I find delicious. (I try not to drink them often though... they tend to really hype me up then wear me out not long after).
I don't like monster but rockstar zero carb or sugar free does it for me. Also anything sugar free with erythritol as a sweetener is gross to me. It tastes way sweeter than sugar.
I wish I could acquire a taste for coffee because it seems like the healthiest way to get caffeine, but if I have to load it with sugar and cream it defeats the point.
I thought I invented this 5 years ago during a weeklong coding sprint before a live demo. I called it a red bull nap but otherwise it was exactly the same. They are amazing.
Hardest part for me is falling asleep in such a short period of time, especially during the day. When I have succeeded with these naps, it's been amazing.
I don't know if it's just me but, how the hell do you nap?! I tried once, and I was still wide awake when my alarm that was supposed to wake me up from my hour long nap went off. I'd have to be really drunk, or not have slept for days in order to nap. I don't understand how people just nap on queue, I feel like I'm missing a trick here :(
I have noticed this occasionally on weekends, when the luxury of a nap is more practical. I'll have a small late-morning coffee, feel cozy/sleepy, then nap briefly and wake up refreshed. Seemed crazy at the time. I'd guess you need to feel somewhat tired for this to work (and I am able to fall asleep quickly).
[+] [-] pqs|11 years ago|reply
This works well because we often take lunch at home. But, now that I have lunch at the office, I do the same. I have a 1 hour pause. The first half hour I have lunch, then I take the coffee and I go to the office to sleep on the floor, on a very thin mattress. If my brain is too active, I listen to a foreign radio station with my iPhone. I like to listen to ICI Radio Canada (in French). When I have lunch here, they broadcast the morning news and commentary. The news are about stuff happening in Quebec. It is interesting enough for me to forget the work stuff, and dull enough to induce me into a deeper relaxation state, which allows me to fall sleep fast. Being the broadcast in a foreing language, also helps to fall sleep. I often dream during this 20-30 minutes naps.
An interesting detail is that I had to learn this habit. I remember being a child and being pissed off because I wasn't allowed to make noise after lunch. Now, that I'm a father, the roles are changing and I'm the one sleeping after lunch.
By the way, at night, in order to fall sleep, I never take phones, tablets or computers to my bedroom. Instead, I take a shortwave radio and I tune the BBC world service news (fortunately, in Spain we can hear the broadcast directed to Africa). I put a 30 minutes timer on the radio and I almost never hear it stopping, because I fall sleep before. The day that the BBC will shut the SW broadcast, I guess I will take a bluetooth headset or speaker to my bedroom, but not the iPhone. It is very important to avoid computers in the bedroom.
[+] [-] gurtwo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pqs|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ConnorG|11 years ago|reply
I'm afraid to take a full nap at work due to how it may look. Do you find yourself being judged for taking naps at work?
[+] [-] jonifico|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ArcticCelt|11 years ago|reply
When I manage to take a nap it's usually involuntary by falling asleep in front of the TV.
[+] [-] kirse|11 years ago|reply
During a nap you're not trying to lose consciousness as if you're "totally asleep" either. It's almost like you're hypnotizing yourself into a deep state of relaxation. A pair of sunglasses or sleep mask can also help to reduce any daytime light to make it easier.
Practice it for a year, you'll be an expert after that and have a highly valuable skill.
This guy has all you could ever hope to know on becoming a Master of Sleep: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm
[+] [-] click170|11 years ago|reply
For me, when I stopped watching TV and doing things on my laptop from my bed, I very quickly noticed an improvement in how quickly I fell asleep.
Another big one is exercise. I notice that when I exercise I have a much easier time falling asleep than on days that I don't, I now try to exercise every day.
I also got older over the past few years, which in and of itself could explain things, so, I suggest experimenting to find what works best for you.
Edit: typo.
[+] [-] bredfield|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] electromagnetic|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k__|11 years ago|reply
When I'm not sleeping alone, the other people tell me I'm snoring after 10min lying around. But I cant remember falling asleep, snoring OR waking up. Just That I had my eyes closed and tried to sleep.
So I guess, I cant check for my self that I'm asleep...
[+] [-] barbs|11 years ago|reply
It depends on the time of day. I can't exactly fall asleep on command, but I'll find myself longing for a nap in the afternoon, usually around 2 or 3. I can fall asleep pretty quickly then, and usually I'll wake up about 20 minutes later.
[+] [-] matwood|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaredmcateer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Swizec|11 years ago|reply
That then leaves enough to get 10 minutes or so of sleep and get back up 20 minutes after starting your nap. Much longer than that and you risk not getting up for another few hours.
Much less than that and you won't get any rest.
And yes, this works perfectly well even without falling asleep. Just lay still for 20 minutes and let your mind wander without distractions or worrying about what you're thinking about. Congratulations, you've just meditated.
[+] [-] tambourine_man|11 years ago|reply
Too interesting and you get wired. Too dull and your mind begins to wonder. Some work so well that it takes me several runs to listen completely.
[+] [-] joshschreuder|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 300|11 years ago|reply
But I don't recommend this kind of nap all the time - because after a while it's not that effective.
So, after years of napping (I'm an expert - I became so good at napping, that I can fall a sleep in 1-2 minutes, and wake up without alarm after 15-20 minutes), my advice would be: take a nap after lunch, between 1 and 3pm, without coffee before nap. Only in special situations, when you are under high pressure and lots of work, take "coffee nap" as they call it in the article.
[+] [-] virtuabhi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DaniFong|11 years ago|reply
There are many stages of sleep; stage 1 through 4, and REM sleep. These, it is hypothesized, have distinct physiological functions. Most importantly for this discussion, waking up out of each have very different effects.
Waking from stage 1 sleep makes you feel immediately refreshed, and people perform better immediately have tests of mental acuity. This is also true of REM sleep; additionally you often remember dreams.
Stage 2 is also good. A good 30 minutes afterwards, you will feel better rested, and your mental acuity will rise; for longer than from stage 1, but it is a delayed effect.
But if you wake up out of a deeper sleep cycle, you get 'sleep inertia.' Mental acuity plummets. You feel poorly rested and ill.
The problem:
The body is often not even aware that you are sleeping in stage 1 sleep. You are in a different physiological stage, but you may not have lost consciousness.
You usually are in this stage from minute 5 onto minute 10. And in stage two up to about 15-20 minutes. After that, you can fall into a deeper sleep; which waking up from is very problematic.
I used to set my alarm for 30 minutes. I'd way up, feel even more tired, and set my alarm for 30 minutes again. This was ruining my life.
---
tl;dr
Even if you don't lose consciousness, you can still be 'sleeping' and a nap of 20 minutes will greatly help you feel healthy and well rested.
[+] [-] scrollaway|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stronglikedan|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mwfunk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codereflection|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kmfrk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hatu|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blutoot|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tempestn|11 years ago|reply
Although I guess to some extent if you're going to ignore the sleep signal otherwise, there likely isn't much harm in feeling alert while doing so, except inasmuch as the alert feeling causes you to tax your brain more than you otherwise would.
[+] [-] Retric|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Multiplayer|11 years ago|reply
It can also attempt to time your nap based on your latest sleep patterns. No idea how effective this is.
I love this thing just for it's nap mode.
[+] [-] mmanfrin|11 years ago|reply
I think this could do really well in Soma or the Financial District in SF. Just gotta enforce one-person-one-rule so that it doesnt become a place for prostitution.
[+] [-] lilsunnybee|11 years ago|reply
Even on non-prime real-estate (which does that exist in SF?), I don't think you could hit your $20 price point with the amount of housekeeping needed for a bed and shower. Even if you could, after a week your staff might hate you. :-)
[+] [-] slyall|11 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7618818
[+] [-] callmeed|11 years ago|reply
I think you'd also get customers from people who bike to work or workout at lunch but don't have access to a shower (assuming the location was good).
[+] [-] staunch|11 years ago|reply
This isn't really true, right? On an empty stomach a strong coffee seems to get me high as a kite in about two minutes.
I've been doing this coffee+nap thing for a long time. It definitely works for me. My trick for falling asleep reliably and quickly is listening to an audiobook.
[+] [-] nmjohn|11 years ago|reply
However you're also conditioned to the feeling you expect coffee to provide, so the initial jolt of energy may have almost nothing to do with the actual caffeine and more to do with the thought of the caffeine.
[+] [-] crb3|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rootbear|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelGG|11 years ago|reply
It's also got emotional benefits. If you are feeling down, then simply waiting for the medicine to do its job can make things worse, as your mind goes in a negative spiral. Taking a nap can give you peace that you're just putting everything aside and going to concentrate on the warmth of the nap and a dream. And before you know it, bam - everything's perfect again.
[+] [-] duffx|11 years ago|reply
Caffeine is best used strategically, which means not every day. Save it for days where you're feeling particularly low energy, or need a boost to tackle a problem you're not particularly excited about doing.
That said, the half-life of caffeine is around 6 hours, which means if you have a coffee at 3pm, at 3am you still have a quarter-cup's worth of caffeine in your system, preventing you from entering deep sleep. So even then I'd keep caffeine as a first-thing-in-the-morning type of deal.
Naps I'm a big fan of. I take one every day after lunch. The trick is to simply lay down and close your eyes for 20 minutes. Don't worry if you fall asleep or not - just give your eyes a rest. For the first few days/weeks, you might not fall asleep. But eventually your body grows accustomed to the ritual and it becomes easier to actually fall asleep at hat time.
[+] [-] copperx|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danelectro|11 years ago|reply
The studies likely involved mostly habitual users rather than unindoctrinated subjects, but from the abstracts' documentation it is difficult to be sure. Perhaps the researchers did not recognize the distinction and just selected random participants, therefore likely to include mostly habitual users.
When I was a caffeine addict (habitual user) I could also sleep after ingestion.
In fact without a fix right before bedtime it was more difficult to get to sleep because nominal concentration level was unsatisfied, resulting more in agitation than identifiable craving. A nice hit would actually help me relax. I was not the only one who could relate to this as an indication of true addiction, where you need the substance just to be normal.
Complete withdrawal took a few weeks (of hellish tiredness, achiness, and irritability) but after this it was even easier to more alertly conduct high-stamina activities and out-perform my still-addicted colleagues without the toxic load on my system.
Sleep & nap much more productively without it after kicking the habit too.
Sure can write a lot better code when drug (addiction) free as well.
When I do feel it's necessary (never for marathon coding), a single cup of coffee (after I have already been awake 24hrs and need a little boost) naturally keeps my otherwise drug-free system awake for the next 24hrs easily which can be helpful for things like long-distance driving once or twice per year. As an addict I would have needed two or three times my nominal habitual doses to feel as alert on those same lonely roads.
To me coding does not benefit from this type of non-stop alertness, even if you are working to exhaustion, when tiredness truly comes a plain nap is better whether it is after 6hrs, 12hrs, 20hrs, whatever, then freshly go into another session, exahustion relieved.
Same with driving too, but if the schedule is too tight, a couple times a year will not make you a habitual user like everyday dosage does. I'd rather drive slow for long hours than exceed the speed limit, waste energy, and prematurely wear out my machinery.
YMMV [0] but just because everybody does caffeine won't make it good for you, especially in the long run.
[0] depending largely on body weight, metabolism, and dosage, and for driving, road speed
[+] [-] jqm|11 years ago|reply
I disagree. Monsters in particular I find delicious. (I try not to drink them often though... they tend to really hype me up then wear me out not long after).
[+] [-] johnward|11 years ago|reply
I wish I could acquire a taste for coffee because it seems like the healthiest way to get caffeine, but if I have to load it with sugar and cream it defeats the point.
[+] [-] djtriptych|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smegmalife|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ollysb|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vegancap|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdnier|11 years ago|reply