
The research is in: Caffeine boosts your mental and physical performance in - sushobhan
http://alifeofproductivity.com/research-says-caffeine-boosts-your-mental-and-physical-performance/
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thebigspacefuck
This article doesn't address the long term effects of Caffeine. Personally, I
find that Caffeine makes it harder to slow down and relax. Caffeine makes it
harder to sleep.

The last time I quit coffee for a long period time was around the end of
college. It was really rough at first, but I started sleeping really well
every night. I slept for 12 hours the first day, but I started to feel
incredibly rested. I was able to just relax and read books. I felt more
introspective and began to realize things inside of me that I had been
distracted from. I felt more like me. I didn't have the highs that coffee
brought, but I didn't have the lows brought by over-consumption, anxiety and
sleep deprivation, headaches from withdrawal when I didn't have enough.

Of course, something got me back on it, I'm still drinking coffee, and it's
even harder to quit now.

Here's a list of the long term effects:

[http://www.livestrong.com/article/97493-caffeine-longterm-
ef...](http://www.livestrong.com/article/97493-caffeine-longterm-effects/)

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slv77
Caffeine seems to help power through dull, repetitive tasks but also stifles
creativity:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/20888549/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/20888549/)

Sad that we live in a world where it seemingly needs to be so ubiquitous.

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dTal
Got a source on the "stifling creativity" thing? I don't see anything about it
in the abstract, and I don't particularly want to pay $36 to read the paper.

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slv77
The New Yorker summarized the study here:

[http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-caffeine-can-
cram...](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-caffeine-can-cramp-
creativity)

~~~
dTal
Interesting, thanks. That makes sense in retrospect and fits well with other
research I'd heard of.

(tl;dr a wandering mind is good for creativity. Caffeine stimulates focus and
inhibits mind wandering)

It's not quite a slam dunk though - the mind wandering is supposed to happen
_before_ the creative act. So I see no reason why going for a walk, then
sitting down to write with a cup of coffee, should have any negative effects
whatsoever.

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apetresc
I would like to believe this, but this feels like one of those conclusions
that flip 180 degrees every few years, depending on who you ask. I have very
little trust in nutritional science for these kinds of things.

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vivekd
Caffeine is an ubiquitous substance - so I wonder if these performance tests
were done on people who had never used caffeine before, or at least use
caffeine only rarely.

I'd assume the study would have told these people not to consume caffeine
until they arrived at the study. If these people were regular caffeine users
the positive effects could just be that the caffeine they were given
alleviated the withdrawl symptoms of going without caffeine all day until the
study.

