Medical engineer here; I would suggest anyone whoms interest was caught by the title to read the Discussion, not Abstract. The authors have made good use of the section to broaden their conclusions, answering some of the questions I've observed in this thread.
For anyone starting to second-guess their relationship to sleep and caffeine; do note that this is a small-sample study and that more research is needed before any conclusions can be drawn with regards to the population at large.
EDIT: I'm not a medical professional (i.e a Doctor), I'm simply an engineer with domain knowledge in medicine. I am accustomed to reading studies like this. If anyone needs help interpreting the study, I'm happy to assist.
To pile on: it’s in Scientific Reports. Not high impact, not highest quality. It’s a 9 day in lab study on mystery taste lab brew coffee (whose brewing was deemed so insignificant to a coffee study that its brew recipe was excluded from the methods section). These sort of setups are useful from a “help me isolate some test cases” point of view, but is obviously as much a perturbation in participants natural lives that it might even outweigh the impact of drinking coffee. Further, it draws conclusions from an acute 5 day caffeine exposure, whereas in real life these participants relationships and adaptations to caffeine are built over a long period of time. The power of the study is small and not scoped for conclusions, but rather pointing to an area of interest for further funding.
Thank you for this. I am not anywhere near to a medical professional and can't interpret these results correctly, I'm sure. It's good to have an experienced perspective.
I love my caffeine. But caffeine is an addictive, highly profitable substance. So advertising it and trying to promote it as somehow having real health benefits is widespread.
I would not be surprised if routine consumption of caffeine was at least mildly detrimental to health.
I think some drugs have managed to gain a special place in our society . Advertising and lobbying warps our perception of these drugs.
I even saw a comment in this thread suggesting that if caffeine has a prolonged affect on you, then you have some unique genetics and it's essentially your problem, not the drug. Similar to the narrative about alcohol. It's interesting to compare that attitude to the way illegal drugs that can't advertise or lobby are viewed.
Yes and no. I've been a fan of caffeine pills for years. They are very cheap, readily available (portable), and most importantly to me offer completely consistent dosing. With caffeine pills I'm able to ensure I stay below the FDA recommended maximum daily intake of 400 mg (worst case). Another fun bonus - when a physician asks you what your caffeine intake is and you respond in milligrams they look at you funny.
Otherwise I completely agree with you. Every time I'm at an airport, etc I marvel at how many caffeine addicts are standing in line at Starbucks for however long ready to drop $10 (or whatever it costs) for a beverage with a completely unknown and highly variable dose of what is fundamentally a drug. Doubly so for variations that have other negative things like adulterations and calories.
Caffeine is a drug and should be treated as such. If you were taking any other drug (over the counter or RX) would anyone tolerate "today it's 100 mg, tomorrow it's 400 mg"?
> caffeine addicts are standing in line at Starbucks
Have you considered that those people queuing outside Starbucks might be drinking coffee because they enjoy the whole experience? Caffeine pills are an absurdity to me because I only drink coffee for the taste. Why suffer the unwanted effects of a drug without the enjoyment that it’s supposed to come with?
My wife uses caffeine pills on occasion but I prefer energy drinks most mornings alongside something like toast. Obviously more expensive but the drink has a slower come-up (likely due to the extra water and food). Whenever I do take pills instead, I'm in a rush so I'm not drinking more water than necessary and definitely not eating anything. I like the Celsius drink mixes since I can put one in my water bottle and dose slowly over the course of the morning but they aren't that much cheaper than buying a case of cans. Coffee is definitely the cheapest energy drink available and I suppose instant coffee is probably the quickest and cheapest. I like coffee but I'm not a huge coffee drinker. I would love to be able to buy a jar of instant energy drink of a inoffensive flavor and be able to toss a couple scoops in my bottle. I've tried to do this with caffeine pills but the caffeine powder doesn't mix well with cold water.
This is my opinion about caffeine pills too. Cheap, convenient, effective, and safer against overdose than coffee (in one hand, a box of pills is probably lethal amount, but in the other hand, at least for me, it is much easier to control the amount of caffeine using pills, than using coffee).
Caffeine pills. Woah... so I guess I knew they existed but didn't actually know what their purpose was, but what you say about consistency is totally on the mark. I measure everything in my coffee process, and I'm lucky in Melbourne that so many cafes do too, but yes - I avoid most cafes that look like they have average and dark beans because of the wild inconsistencies and most certantly burned taste.
So do you take them to maintain alertness as anyone else would with coffee, to boost nootropics, or none of the above? Sorry for being nosey but this is interesting to me, because if I'm away from my machine and going to an unknown place then I take my portable handheld espresso machine and already ground beans, but a simple tablet sounds WAY more convenient!!
If you buy caffeine pills as a stimulant, you are no better than those "addicts" at Starbucks at the airport.
I like coffee because it's a warm beverage, it tastes nice and of course there is the added benefit of the caffeine in the morning. That's about it.
There's no way I would be getting close to 400mg of caffeine and doing so by pills is something I marvel at.
I would say the majority of people drinking a normal cup of coffee (standard latte) a couple of times a day aren't getting anywhere near 400mg of caffeine. One shot of espresso is lucky to have 80mg of caffeine in it.
caffeine pills are awesome for the reasons you described, but I do find that coffee "feels" different as a result of the Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (probably). coffee feels more pushy and dirty - more peripheral nervous system stimulation
I, like many others, drink a considerable amount of coffee for the taste. I typically drink decaf so it is difficult to ascribe the habit to addiction.
"... I marvel at how many caffeine addicts are standing in line at Starbucks for however long ready to drop $10 (or whatever it costs) for a beverage with a completely unknown and highly variable dose of what is fundamentally a drug ..."
You mean, sugar ?
A vast majority of the "coffee" drinkers you witness are consuming something that is indistinguishable from an ice-cream sunday.
Would that they were just consuming caffeine ... they would be much, much better off.
You’re missing out on the phytochemicals that contribute to the positive effects of drinking tea or coffee. You’re getting all the bad (and good) of chronic caffeine stimulation, with none of the plant medicine benefits that tea and coffee drinkers receive.
Anecdotal: I gave up my caffeine when it got the point that I was consuming 3-4 cups a day to combat persistent sleep deprivation and I noticed my stomach no longer would cooperate with it. Immediately, I began having dreams again which I hadn't had in years and didn't notice when they disappeared. I had bad headaches that tapered off after about 2-3 months. I awake usually refreshed, and my sleep patterns are much more regular, my body no longer can deal with less than 7 hours of sleep and will complain to me if I try to get away with less.
My experience was ultimately that caffeine kept me awake but not at my cognitive best. I think it only worked before because I was younger and I'm now middle-aged. My stomach, brain, and body are better without a doubt. I still have small glasses of tea every once in a while when I really miss a hot drink and a pick me up.
Hope this helps anyone else considering.
Alcohol reduces functions, caffeine clearly enhances functions. If caffeine was involved in nearly all violent crime like alcohol is, we would think differently of it.
In occasional users this might be true, but is it true in regular users? Anecdotally, I hear far more people complaining about being completely unable to function (and I've often recognized that they're perceptibly out of it) until they've had their next cup of coffee than I have heard people talk about getting great productivity gains from it.
I don't use caffeine regularly in part to keep it available for when I really need it, and I have never once felt like I was lower functioning than my coworkers as a result—on the contrary, my energy levels seem to be far more stable throughout the workday.
All stimulants enhance some functions to some degree, so that is a poor metric of value. Cocaine, for example, temporarily boosts intelligence, but consuming cocaine is not recommended.
For example, lots of DUI type accidents are blamed on alcohol, but it might actually be sleep deprivation that is the most fundamental cause of the accident.
In a similar way, I wonder if similar sleep-related accidents or incidents could more properly have caffeine as a root cause (after it has worn off)
Spinach is also mildly detrimental to health. (Oxylates) Doesn’t mean you should think that it’s bad for you unless you have a problem with kidney stones.
Both black coffee and tea have several well documented health benefits.
Even caffeine in isolation can probably have benefits when used correctly.
People do joke about being dangerous without their morning coffee, but I have yet to see a coffee addict breaking into vehicles to score their morning fix. Also I have never had to worry someone is going to mug my loved ones to get some quick cash for a double-double. And have you ever heard of someone who skips important appointments because they stayed out getting high on caffeine instead
Pretending caffeine is as detrimental to our society as e.g. fentanyl is prime intellectual dishonesty.
Only drugs that have artificially high prices caused by having no legal source lead to addicts committing crime to find their habit. Caffeine and alcohol are cheap and easily available.
> Pretending caffeine is as detrimental to our society as e.g. fentanyl is prime intellectual dishonesty.
These are your words, not OP's. OP isn't claiming that caffeine is as bad as any other drug. They're claiming that it, like other drugs, is likely to have negative health effects that outweigh positive ones and that it's interesting that it gets a special place in our culture while other drugs get banned and shunned.
Nothing in that claim says that caffeine is as bad as the worst illegal drugs.
People would absolutely be burglarizing homes to feed their caffeine habit if caffeine wasn't dirt cheap due to the free market. If it were legal to produce meth your local meth-head would not be raiding your house for copper because it would be cheap enough that his minimum wage job could support his habit.'
And frankly I've showed up to important events absolutely fucking geeked on caffeine, feeling like complete dogshit, but because caffeine use is normalized no one bats an eye.
This really hit home when I started swapping caffeine out for Adderall on work days. Literal amphetamines have a more mild effect on me than a strong coffee.
>Advertising and lobbying warps our perception of these drugs.
More like, our own preference and enjoyment of the drugs compared to their detriments constructs our perception of these drugs.
Coffee, alcohol, pain killers, etc. These are all drugs that give the user enjoyment with very little down sides. This means that society has reserved a place for them.
I like caffeine. It's fun to drink a cup of tea or coffee once in a while and feel an extra surge of productivity.
What I don't like is that it has encouraged the grind of people working far longer and harder than they should for no reason except economic gain which is fundamnetally unsustainable. When people feel tired, they should take a break, and not develop a habit of drinking caffeine every day to keeep going. It's an unhealthy society and reinforces the message that economic gain is important above all else.
I think people should be able to do what they want with their time.
I don’t think people should have to sell their labor for a wage in order to live. I wonder what happens to your opinions about caffeine in a society where owners have little to no leverage over workers, or where the workers are generally also the owners.
I think people should be able to instantiate super hot anthropomorphic girlfriends of their choice into and out of real life at will. (Me first; I thought it up.)
Anyone with anxiety or sleep issues should reexamine their caffeine usage. Maybe those problems do not stem from caffeine, but maybe they do. I don't know many people that do not consume caffeine regularly, at least once a day - in such cases, you cannot know whether your anxiety, sleep problems, general tiredness, bad moods, ... are or are not caused by one's caffeine consumption.
Some people swear by drinking a shot of espresso right after dinner, claiming that they can "sleep just fine" (or that it even calms them). It's not whether you can or cannot fall asleep, it's how deep and restorative your sleep is that is important here.
> Anyone with anxiety or sleep issues should reexamine their caffeine usage.
They should. The relationship between caffeine and mood disorders like anxiety is incompletely understood. Caffeine may help some, particularly at lower doses [1]. However some studies find that the effect on anxiety is minimal or doesn’t occur [2]. Caffeine seems to improve psychological well-being at a minimum [3]. There may be a self-medication element between ADHD and caffeine too, though the data isn’t good [3].
The interactions with medications is also complex and hard to control for due to the large number of caffeine users.
What about those of use who may or may not have ADD and have been using caffine to regulate our mood and focus....
I honestly can't tell at this point if the coffee is helping me focus and I have ADD or if I am just lazy(or depressed) and the coffee is helping get me motivated.
Isn't it better to find out? I.e. first to stop with the caffeine, then wait until your body readjusts (e.g. a month or two), and possibly get diagnosed by a professional in case you do feel like you need help? Diagnosis doesn't necessarily mean prescription stimulant drugs.
I was using caffeine to mask my burnout. Needless to say, it only exacerbated the total feeling of burnout, and "helped" only short-term. It took me a long time to get out of the burnout, and I'm still feeling the effects. It would have been much healthier to not mask the burnout, but deal with it right there and then.
You might want to get diagnosed so you can get a proper ADHD prescription. I'm told Vyvanse is like a smooth day-long caffeine high without the jitters or stained teeth. OTOH, if caffeine is working for you, it sounds like it's performing the same function ADHD medication does for my loved one.
Great line --> "I honestly can't tell at this point if the coffee is helping me focus and I have ADD or if I am just lazy(or depressed) and the coffee is helping get me motivated."
Ill change the last bit -- "or if I am just tired and the coffee solves my cold start problem"
Exactly the same experience here.
I have ADHD. Caffeine seems to give me a parallel (albeit lesser overall) experience to taking my prescribed Adderall.
How much caffeine do you consume regularly? Sounds to me like your body potentially has too much already, and is reacting by making you drowsy. Note that caffeine is also in non-coffee/tea related beverages like sodas (e.g. Coke/Pepsi/...), or sometimes certain pain killers (e.g. migraine pain killers frequently contain something like 50mg of caffeine).
One of the references in this paper focuses on single sleep deprivation events of a more extreme nature, 48 hours.
As I have experienced when regularly (but not often) working a 36-hour day, I wouldn't do it if it wasn't proven to be well within reach, but it's no breeze if you are the least bit tired and not fully prepared beforehand, especially when it comes to nutrition and not having anything toxic in your system.
This is completely different than regularly losing sleep every night in a habitual way, which could also be considered somewhat along the lines of everyday exposure to toxic materials, whether toxins enter the body intentionally or not.
Don't ask me how I know what it feels like when exposure to different milligrams of different pure industrial chemicals having known toxicity occurs in spite of state-of-the art workplace controls and PPE. I've been working these truly chemical labs all my life. Eventually I felt like I was guinea-pigging caffeine too, and it's old as the hills.
The default in many cultures is to be born into a caffeine-addicted society, steeped in excess habitual ritual in a way which encourages never-ending tradition. This is over and above the physical & emotional habit-forming nature of the drug itself.
Anyway, culture can be real strong, and I enjoyed being a caffeine addict. It actually takes quite a bit of effort if you want to completely withdraw from its pervasive and widespread exposure, whether commercial influence is involved or not. It's everywhere.
With everyday use you build up a tolerance like anything else, and in the long run it really doesn't make a difference whether you lose an hour of sleep every night or get an extra hour, you always feel the same and have the same energy so it must be working, right? Maybe that's supposed to be a red flag.
Now when you're actually a pretty good addict, you never overdo it, you're never jittery or considered extreme like a 20-cup-a-day habit which can't be that bad either when so many of them seem to do just fine.
But way below any extreme consumption, you can still end up with a fairly late-night dose which actually relaxes you and then you drop off to sleep like you habitually do. Actually without it you might be a little anxious otherwise. It's just your body calling out for what it needs to be normal, due to the current level of tolerance you have built up.
Hey wait a minute, wasn't I enjoying this to begin with for it's stimulant effect?
Too late, that effect has left the building.
This is the part that leads studies like this to less-conclusive results.
For me with nothing in the bloodstream almost ever any more (and after all the dust has settled), there's only slightly more energy than being a mainstream addict. I attribute it to the relatively small amount of toxic pressure exerted by the less-than-gram quantities of caffeine I was metabolizing. Yes, I have more energy without it in my system but it's not a miracle and I'm sure many people would not think it's worth it. It's not that toxic, believe me so many things are much worse.
But when I need to go another 12 hours, one cup of coffee will do it.
Never could be a consideration back when I had a tolerance, stronger stimulants wouldn't even help.
Real sleep is the only answer then, you just can't push to the max whenever you really want when you're already strung out.
One of the things that makes the 48-hour study more conclusive about usefulness best practices.
Side topic, but dropping coffee was the best thing I ever did. I used to drink only one cup a day, rarely two, for many years - but turns out when I stopped (for reasons unrelated) my anxiety unexpectedly 80% went away after a week or so without any other changes in my lifestyle. It was a big difference and I feel now very different than what I used to. I wake up much better rested too (much easier to get out of bed). Too bad, I really loved the taste but it's not worth it for me.
I encourage anyone to give it a try a few weeks and see how they feel. You may not realize what you thought is your baseline is in fact caused by caffeine sensitivity. I heard of some people being sensitive to caffeine but I never thought it would affect me, after all I did not have that bad of a reaction but it really built up and I had gotten used to it.
I've had a very similar experience. If i drink coffee daily, it bumps my anxiety significantly after a few days or a week. If i rarely have it, it's usually fine. But if I let myself have it, it's too easy to trend towards daily again.
I drank coffee for years and don't think it had an impact, but at some point, I noticed it and the impact was very real when not drinking it.
I've been suffering of anxiety for decades. Nothing really serious. I stopped caffeine for one month in 2022, cold turkey. No coffee. No tea. No chocolate. I stopped alcohol as well (I don't drink much, so it wasn't really hard). I track a lot of things daily and during this abstinence period, my anxiety didn't decrease. On the contrary, it (very slightly) increased. This, of course, was not a controlled/blinded experiment, the duration was rather short (1 month), N=1, and I actually did two experiments at the same time (caffeine + alcohol), which is not optimal.
In summary, my conclusion is that I prefer drinking coffee (max 2-3 small cups daily, in the morning) than not.
Still, I'd like to try the experiment again in the future and stop caffeine for a longer period this time (3 months?).
Recently I've learned that half of the people are slow caffein metabolizers. The caffein stays longer in their system and it might negatively affect their sleep. Considering how many people drink coffee, I think a lot of people are affected by this.
Yep - raising my hand here. I've completely given up caffeine (including decaf, which isn't totally) because after I got a Fitbit, I realised that my morning coffee spiked my heart-rate to 120, and kept it thereabouts, slowly dropping to normal overnight, after which I'd start again.
A genome sequence shows I'm a slow metaboliser (I expect more will show up with more research).
Slow metaboliser here. Also possibly more prone to caffeine addiction than most, according to said genome sequencing interpretation.
I need to cap at 2 espressos per day before noon at most, or I start suffering side effects like poor sleep quality. People really need to reframe their coffee consumption from food to drug and understand their own usage and effects of said drug.
I suspect I am an unusually fast metabolizer, since I can be tipped over into very nasty withdrawal headaches extremely easily, even when my baseline consumption is a couple of smallish coffees in a day. The only way I've found to fix this is to get almost completely off it, which as you might imagine I find very difficult to do, since I have to step down very carefully.
Sounds to me more like you consume _a lot_ (therefore have a very strong physical dependence) rather than having extremely fast metabolism.
Alternatively, you might be prone to migraines, and thus are sensitive to headaches of all kinds. That's me, I truly hope that's not you (wouldn't wish that upon anyone).
I'm not a regular drinker and even a coke after 11 am means I'm going to have a late night. It's frustrating how often there are no caffeine-free diet soda options.
My withdrawals only kick in on the second day of no caffeine. Also, I feel a cup of coffee on the day I drank it and the day after (with no additional caffeine). :D I guess I'm turbo slow. Although I didn't use to be...
I've learned to drink coffee only in the morning. If I drink coffee any time after 12PM, I'm not going to get much sleep that night. Therefore I have limited my coffee intake to medicinal purposes (i.e. as needed in order to stay awake).
Caffeine, up to a certain daily dose, is associated with long-term cognitive benefits and a reduced risk of dementia.
This study hints that it specifically doesn't benefit gray matter volume during periods of sleep restriction, at least in the short term.
I wonder if substances like Ashwagandha extract or Magnesium L-threonate could mitigate gray matter loss during short term sleep restriction among caffeine drinkers.
It seems more straightforward to simply curb caffeine consumption during periods where you're sleeping poorly. Most people (myself included in the past) would drink more coffee when they sleep less. Grey matter aside, I think this is a very poor strategy. It will make next night's sleep even less effective. Better to drink less coffee, have a shitty day/week, and sleep more restoratively as soon as you can. Don't get in a doom loop voluntarily. Have caffeine only when you're feeling well rested.
Ashwagandha extract Can only be safely taken up to 3 months. It’s not a long term benefit. Magnesium affects your heart’s signaling, which can be problematic if too much.
I’m curious why you asked about Ashwagandha ahd magnesium? They seem to be THE supplements du jour, which is a pretty weird concept. There is a lot of grift going on, and little recognition of the potential negative health impacts of both.
I asked specifically about Magnesium L-threonate due to its ability to increase synaptic connectivity (yet to be conclusively reported in humans) and hence gray matter, and Ashwagandha due to its neuroprotective, neurotransmitter-preserving, and cortisol-lowering effects.
I take magnesium daily, including the regular dose of Magnesium L-threonate, and my last CMP showed serum levels within range.
Maybe super large medical doses beyond even those used for eclampsia would affect heart conduction, or those who take way more than what supplement bottles recommend.
I'm not sure what studies have conclusively shown Ashwagandha to be safe only up to 3 months.
I get most of my herbal data from Examine.com (PhD academics that analyze data), where they say:
"Some case reports have suggested adverse effects such as rash or thyroid dysregulation may occur with ashwagandha use, but the same has not yet been observed by safety studies with larger samples.[38][39][35] Several case reports have also raised concerns regarding the rare occurrence of liver toxicity with ashwagandha use, but similarly, toxicity has not been observed in clinical safety trials. In the reports, liver toxicity was usually reported within 2–12 weeks of ashwagandha use, and liver function returned to normal in all but one case following medical support and ashwagandha discontinuation.[40][41][42][43][44][45] An in vitro study suggested that withanone (one type of withanolide in ashwagandha), may have toxic effects in the context of low levels of the cellular antioxidant glutathione (GSH), which is involved in drug detoxification.[46] However, this research is far from conclusive and the mechanisms underlying this possible adverse effect are unclear."
I am growingly convinced that coffee/caffeine hit people in very different ways. https://www.23andme.com/topics/wellness/caffeine-consumption... has a few fun citations to look through on this, but discussions of how varied we are with how it impacts us is ridiculously invisible in most discussions of it.
Sleep is similar. We speak of "night owls" and such, but most discussion around the varied needs of sleep are age targeted. With most discussion on how we should let kids sleep longer.
I have this super weird thing where I'm hyper-sensitive to caffeine, and its effects will hit me sometimes 6+ hours later.
If I have a cup of coffee in the late morning, it will keep me up most of the night, and a single cup of coffee will make me manic-ish.
People have (doctors included) told me that what I was experiencing was impossible, that caffeine in metabolized in a certain way and completely out of your system quickly.
Turns out, that's true with most people, unless you have a variant in the CYP1A2 gene, which can cause the effects I experience.
Readit News
For anyone starting to second-guess their relationship to sleep and caffeine; do note that this is a small-sample study and that more research is needed before any conclusions can be drawn with regards to the population at large.
EDIT: I'm not a medical professional (i.e a Doctor), I'm simply an engineer with domain knowledge in medicine. I am accustomed to reading studies like this. If anyone needs help interpreting the study, I'm happy to assist.
Deleted Comment
I would not be surprised if routine consumption of caffeine was at least mildly detrimental to health.
I think some drugs have managed to gain a special place in our society . Advertising and lobbying warps our perception of these drugs.
I even saw a comment in this thread suggesting that if caffeine has a prolonged affect on you, then you have some unique genetics and it's essentially your problem, not the drug. Similar to the narrative about alcohol. It's interesting to compare that attitude to the way illegal drugs that can't advertise or lobby are viewed.
Yes and no. I've been a fan of caffeine pills for years. They are very cheap, readily available (portable), and most importantly to me offer completely consistent dosing. With caffeine pills I'm able to ensure I stay below the FDA recommended maximum daily intake of 400 mg (worst case). Another fun bonus - when a physician asks you what your caffeine intake is and you respond in milligrams they look at you funny.
Otherwise I completely agree with you. Every time I'm at an airport, etc I marvel at how many caffeine addicts are standing in line at Starbucks for however long ready to drop $10 (or whatever it costs) for a beverage with a completely unknown and highly variable dose of what is fundamentally a drug. Doubly so for variations that have other negative things like adulterations and calories.
Caffeine is a drug and should be treated as such. If you were taking any other drug (over the counter or RX) would anyone tolerate "today it's 100 mg, tomorrow it's 400 mg"?
Have you considered that those people queuing outside Starbucks might be drinking coffee because they enjoy the whole experience? Caffeine pills are an absurdity to me because I only drink coffee for the taste. Why suffer the unwanted effects of a drug without the enjoyment that it’s supposed to come with?
So do you take them to maintain alertness as anyone else would with coffee, to boost nootropics, or none of the above? Sorry for being nosey but this is interesting to me, because if I'm away from my machine and going to an unknown place then I take my portable handheld espresso machine and already ground beans, but a simple tablet sounds WAY more convenient!!
I like coffee because it's a warm beverage, it tastes nice and of course there is the added benefit of the caffeine in the morning. That's about it.
There's no way I would be getting close to 400mg of caffeine and doing so by pills is something I marvel at.
I would say the majority of people drinking a normal cup of coffee (standard latte) a couple of times a day aren't getting anywhere near 400mg of caffeine. One shot of espresso is lucky to have 80mg of caffeine in it.
If I'm going to a coffee shop to drop $7, it's not because I'm an addict, it's because I want to splurge on a sweet dessert.
I also sometimes buy ice cream at the grocery, for the same reason.
I'm assuming you eat nothing but bread and water, unadulterated by anything that makes food delicious.
You mean, sugar ?
A vast majority of the "coffee" drinkers you witness are consuming something that is indistinguishable from an ice-cream sunday.
Would that they were just consuming caffeine ... they would be much, much better off.
afaik melatonin. Not super happy about it but it is what it is, giving it up has a high cost too.
I believe Starbucks is selling sugar under the guise of caffeine.
In occasional users this might be true, but is it true in regular users? Anecdotally, I hear far more people complaining about being completely unable to function (and I've often recognized that they're perceptibly out of it) until they've had their next cup of coffee than I have heard people talk about getting great productivity gains from it.
I don't use caffeine regularly in part to keep it available for when I really need it, and I have never once felt like I was lower functioning than my coworkers as a result—on the contrary, my energy levels seem to be far more stable throughout the workday.
For example, lots of DUI type accidents are blamed on alcohol, but it might actually be sleep deprivation that is the most fundamental cause of the accident.
In a similar way, I wonder if similar sleep-related accidents or incidents could more properly have caffeine as a root cause (after it has worn off)
The question is, does caffeine "clearly enhance" cognitive functions long-term.
Both black coffee and tea have several well documented health benefits.
Even caffeine in isolation can probably have benefits when used correctly.
Pretending caffeine is as detrimental to our society as e.g. fentanyl is prime intellectual dishonesty.
These are your words, not OP's. OP isn't claiming that caffeine is as bad as any other drug. They're claiming that it, like other drugs, is likely to have negative health effects that outweigh positive ones and that it's interesting that it gets a special place in our culture while other drugs get banned and shunned.
Nothing in that claim says that caffeine is as bad as the worst illegal drugs.
People would absolutely be burglarizing homes to feed their caffeine habit if caffeine wasn't dirt cheap due to the free market. If it were legal to produce meth your local meth-head would not be raiding your house for copper because it would be cheap enough that his minimum wage job could support his habit.'
And frankly I've showed up to important events absolutely fucking geeked on caffeine, feeling like complete dogshit, but because caffeine use is normalized no one bats an eye.
More like, our own preference and enjoyment of the drugs compared to their detriments constructs our perception of these drugs.
Coffee, alcohol, pain killers, etc. These are all drugs that give the user enjoyment with very little down sides. This means that society has reserved a place for them.
What I don't like is that it has encouraged the grind of people working far longer and harder than they should for no reason except economic gain which is fundamnetally unsustainable. When people feel tired, they should take a break, and not develop a habit of drinking caffeine every day to keeep going. It's an unhealthy society and reinforces the message that economic gain is important above all else.
I don’t think people should have to sell their labor for a wage in order to live. I wonder what happens to your opinions about caffeine in a society where owners have little to no leverage over workers, or where the workers are generally also the owners.
We should give those who choose not to sell their labor the ability to go and live without buying and consuming the labor of others.
Something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_coffee_crisis
Some people swear by drinking a shot of espresso right after dinner, claiming that they can "sleep just fine" (or that it even calms them). It's not whether you can or cannot fall asleep, it's how deep and restorative your sleep is that is important here.
They should. The relationship between caffeine and mood disorders like anxiety is incompletely understood. Caffeine may help some, particularly at lower doses [1]. However some studies find that the effect on anxiety is minimal or doesn’t occur [2]. Caffeine seems to improve psychological well-being at a minimum [3]. There may be a self-medication element between ADHD and caffeine too, though the data isn’t good [3]. The interactions with medications is also complex and hard to control for due to the large number of caffeine users.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38362247/
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10616803/
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8850715/
I honestly can't tell at this point if the coffee is helping me focus and I have ADD or if I am just lazy(or depressed) and the coffee is helping get me motivated.
I was using caffeine to mask my burnout. Needless to say, it only exacerbated the total feeling of burnout, and "helped" only short-term. It took me a long time to get out of the burnout, and I'm still feeling the effects. It would have been much healthier to not mask the burnout, but deal with it right there and then.
Ill change the last bit -- "or if I am just tired and the coffee solves my cold start problem"
As I have experienced when regularly (but not often) working a 36-hour day, I wouldn't do it if it wasn't proven to be well within reach, but it's no breeze if you are the least bit tired and not fully prepared beforehand, especially when it comes to nutrition and not having anything toxic in your system.
This is completely different than regularly losing sleep every night in a habitual way, which could also be considered somewhat along the lines of everyday exposure to toxic materials, whether toxins enter the body intentionally or not.
Don't ask me how I know what it feels like when exposure to different milligrams of different pure industrial chemicals having known toxicity occurs in spite of state-of-the art workplace controls and PPE. I've been working these truly chemical labs all my life. Eventually I felt like I was guinea-pigging caffeine too, and it's old as the hills.
The default in many cultures is to be born into a caffeine-addicted society, steeped in excess habitual ritual in a way which encourages never-ending tradition. This is over and above the physical & emotional habit-forming nature of the drug itself.
Anyway, culture can be real strong, and I enjoyed being a caffeine addict. It actually takes quite a bit of effort if you want to completely withdraw from its pervasive and widespread exposure, whether commercial influence is involved or not. It's everywhere.
With everyday use you build up a tolerance like anything else, and in the long run it really doesn't make a difference whether you lose an hour of sleep every night or get an extra hour, you always feel the same and have the same energy so it must be working, right? Maybe that's supposed to be a red flag.
Now when you're actually a pretty good addict, you never overdo it, you're never jittery or considered extreme like a 20-cup-a-day habit which can't be that bad either when so many of them seem to do just fine.
But way below any extreme consumption, you can still end up with a fairly late-night dose which actually relaxes you and then you drop off to sleep like you habitually do. Actually without it you might be a little anxious otherwise. It's just your body calling out for what it needs to be normal, due to the current level of tolerance you have built up.
Hey wait a minute, wasn't I enjoying this to begin with for it's stimulant effect?
Too late, that effect has left the building.
This is the part that leads studies like this to less-conclusive results.
For me with nothing in the bloodstream almost ever any more (and after all the dust has settled), there's only slightly more energy than being a mainstream addict. I attribute it to the relatively small amount of toxic pressure exerted by the less-than-gram quantities of caffeine I was metabolizing. Yes, I have more energy without it in my system but it's not a miracle and I'm sure many people would not think it's worth it. It's not that toxic, believe me so many things are much worse.
But when I need to go another 12 hours, one cup of coffee will do it.
Never could be a consideration back when I had a tolerance, stronger stimulants wouldn't even help.
Real sleep is the only answer then, you just can't push to the max whenever you really want when you're already strung out.
One of the things that makes the 48-hour study more conclusive about usefulness best practices.
This was their reference 3:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?&title=Randomized%2...
I encourage anyone to give it a try a few weeks and see how they feel. You may not realize what you thought is your baseline is in fact caused by caffeine sensitivity. I heard of some people being sensitive to caffeine but I never thought it would affect me, after all I did not have that bad of a reaction but it really built up and I had gotten used to it.
I drank coffee for years and don't think it had an impact, but at some point, I noticed it and the impact was very real when not drinking it.
In summary, my conclusion is that I prefer drinking coffee (max 2-3 small cups daily, in the morning) than not.
Still, I'd like to try the experiment again in the future and stop caffeine for a longer period this time (3 months?).
Edit: I'm a slow metabolizer (rs762551 = AC).
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A genome sequence shows I'm a slow metaboliser (I expect more will show up with more research).
I feel terrific now.
I need to cap at 2 espressos per day before noon at most, or I start suffering side effects like poor sleep quality. People really need to reframe their coffee consumption from food to drug and understand their own usage and effects of said drug.
Alternatively, you might be prone to migraines, and thus are sensitive to headaches of all kinds. That's me, I truly hope that's not you (wouldn't wish that upon anyone).
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This study hints that it specifically doesn't benefit gray matter volume during periods of sleep restriction, at least in the short term.
I wonder if substances like Ashwagandha extract or Magnesium L-threonate could mitigate gray matter loss during short term sleep restriction among caffeine drinkers.
I’m curious why you asked about Ashwagandha ahd magnesium? They seem to be THE supplements du jour, which is a pretty weird concept. There is a lot of grift going on, and little recognition of the potential negative health impacts of both.
I take magnesium daily, including the regular dose of Magnesium L-threonate, and my last CMP showed serum levels within range.
Maybe super large medical doses beyond even those used for eclampsia would affect heart conduction, or those who take way more than what supplement bottles recommend.
I'm not sure what studies have conclusively shown Ashwagandha to be safe only up to 3 months. I get most of my herbal data from Examine.com (PhD academics that analyze data), where they say:
"Some case reports have suggested adverse effects such as rash or thyroid dysregulation may occur with ashwagandha use, but the same has not yet been observed by safety studies with larger samples.[38][39][35] Several case reports have also raised concerns regarding the rare occurrence of liver toxicity with ashwagandha use, but similarly, toxicity has not been observed in clinical safety trials. In the reports, liver toxicity was usually reported within 2–12 weeks of ashwagandha use, and liver function returned to normal in all but one case following medical support and ashwagandha discontinuation.[40][41][42][43][44][45] An in vitro study suggested that withanone (one type of withanolide in ashwagandha), may have toxic effects in the context of low levels of the cellular antioxidant glutathione (GSH), which is involved in drug detoxification.[46] However, this research is far from conclusive and the mechanisms underlying this possible adverse effect are unclear."
Sleep is similar. We speak of "night owls" and such, but most discussion around the varied needs of sleep are age targeted. With most discussion on how we should let kids sleep longer.
I have this super weird thing where I'm hyper-sensitive to caffeine, and its effects will hit me sometimes 6+ hours later.
If I have a cup of coffee in the late morning, it will keep me up most of the night, and a single cup of coffee will make me manic-ish.
People have (doctors included) told me that what I was experiencing was impossible, that caffeine in metabolized in a certain way and completely out of your system quickly.
Turns out, that's true with most people, unless you have a variant in the CYP1A2 gene, which can cause the effects I experience.