> wired [...] withdrawals [..] I’d love to hear how other people manage their caffeine intake (even if it is complete dependence).
Or the polar opposite: I sometimes wonder if I have a caffeine insensitivity, and whether there's a good way to objectively measure my experience versus the average.
The suspicion comes from how some folks (like in this blog) will talk about how they very clearly perceive being "wired" or having withdrawal symptoms, while I don't think I've ever noticed such clear causation. That includes occasions like switching for a week from/to non-caffeinated sodas. (Diet in both cases for calorie reasons, which conveniently removes sugar rush/crash as a confounding factor.)
It makes for an odd kind of micro-alienation among a workforce where people talk about their needs/habits around caffeine, especially when working near Seattle.
I've had long periods of my life caffeine-free, and this has given me some interesting (personal) insight into its effects.
After daily consumption, it takes two to three weeks of zero consumption to restore a sane "baseline" where I can operate at the same level of awakeness with no caffeine. Consuming coffee after the third week has a noticeable impact where you can really feel its effect.
Caffeine doesn't make me more focused; it mostly suppresses my tiredness/sleepiness. Being awake does not equate to being more focused.
I don't think that one week is enough to recover sensitivity if I usually consume daily doses.
Generally, I tend to avoid caffeine due to all the other changes in mood / behaviour / sleep. The effects are mostly obvious if you switch to zero consumption for a few months and then take up the habit again.
I think ADHD is linked to caffeine insensitivity. I experimented with caffeine at uni, but never noticed any effect. I would drink a 33 cl coke, containing some 30 mg caffeine.
Some 10 years ago I tried caffeine tablets in the mornings. They might have been 100 mg. I would take a tablet 30 min before work. That time, it would take the edge off my morning sleepiness which I’ve suffered from my whole life. But instead I would crash completely at 3-4 in the afternoon, so it didn’t feel worth doing.
Did you try l-theanin? That is contained in green tea and arguably one of the reasons you don't get caffeine rushes and withdrawals from excessive tea use.
I use it mostly against anxiety I can get from high caffeine intake.
On the other hand dextroamphetamine works just long enough for an average work day and has much fewer crash symptoms than other common amphetamines. I wouldn't recommend abusing it for work tho, that's a downward spiral IMO.
Insensitivity to caffeine is pretty common. As I said in my post, I'm insensitive to it but then I've regularly consumed large quantities of it almost every day since I was a kid (I've always drunk very strong tea and coffee without milk or sugar), so I'd expect to be desensitized.
Perhaps there is an ADHD connection but that desensitization also occurs to those who don't have it. Caffeine is just like any other psychotropic drug, it doesn't take long to develop a tolerance.
BTW, 30mg caffeine is hardly enough to get one off the starting block, a strong cup of coffee can have three to five times that amount.
The biggest thing for me is if I have a caffinated beverage later in the day (say after noon, but especially with dinner), it becomes a lot harder to fall asleep. This can be subtle, but like was tired all day and had a cola with dinner and now can't go to sleep is a pattern.
But yeah, if I drink a Trente anything from Starbucks, there's a whole lot of caffine in there and I feel jittery and uncomfortable, and there's nothing to do about it other than wait and maybe drink extra water and hope that helps.
"So I went and got a can of Coke and drank it during work. As this was essentially my first caffeine experience, I was highly sensitive and became instantly wired. "
Well, that shows how large the difference in response to caffeine can be between individuals. Unfortunately, caffeine has very little effect on me, I can drink several cups of espresso coffee last thing at night and it has no apparent effect on my sleep.
I remember when studying using five or more heaped teaspoons of Moccona instant coffee per cup to help stay awake and it was pretty useless even though the coffee was so strong it was just about undrinkable. I also had the same lack of response with super strong brewed coffee.
The writer makes the point that caffeine can trigger migraines and I've also heard this often over the years. This seems somewhat paradoxical because many migraine medications contain caffeine and have done so for a better part of a century. For example ergotamine—the principal migraine medication before sumatriptan became popular—was usually compounded with caffeine and occasionally diphenhydramine in the ratio of 1/100/20mg respectively. So a migraine tablet had the equivalent amount caffeine of a treasonably strong cup of coffee.
Same goes for other headache medications, caffeine is often mixed with paracetamol/acetaminophen in the ratio of 100/500mg or about 100/325mg for aspirin.
I've often wondered why if caffeine promotes migraine then why is it used in migraine medications? The only reason I can think of is that for most people caffeine actually helps relieve their migraine. Presumably, caffeine works synergistically with the main ingredient.
Based on what my doctors told me, migraines can be triggered by blood vessels constricting and dilating. Caffeine causes the same kind of motion, meaning it can cause migraines but also reverse them, which is why they are both a trigger and remedy.
That makes sense, ergotamine is a strong vascoconstrictor so that's why it works, it's constrictive effects would offset the dilative effects of the caffeine.
I attempted withdrawals the other day, going down from my usual of 8-10 cups down to 2-3 cups and the withdrawal symptoms are nightmares.
Establishing an appropriate relationship with caffeine is hard! It's hard to have confidence over the right course of action.
The studies seem likely that it is neuro-protective. However it appears to make you stress sensitive, particularly to mental stress. As someone who is prone to mental!/emotional stress but values anything that preserves mental function, what is the appropriate course of action?
I've decided to scale down to the typical healthy dose of 3 cups and see how this impacts me.
I find it quite trivial to phase out caffeine - you just taper it down over a week or so and done. First by reducing cups then by switching to tea. Zero withdrawal.
I think I've been using caffeine to s self-medicate for it. When I was on Adderall I stopped craving caffeine. On my new med it's a lot easier to just forget my morning soda that I "needed"
Not surprising when you consider that the impaired executive function associated with ADHD (and mitigated by medication) is known to frequently manifest in the form of weakened self-inhibition.
Anecdotally speaking, whenever I personally go without medication, I am endlessly distracted by even the most basic urges (i.e.: hunger, exhaustion, arousal). Even being slightly peckish would leave me growing increasingly irritated and uncooperative. I've never smoked, but you wouldn't know that by looking at my unmedicated habits -- taking breaks every 20 minutes to satisfy some random urge before I inevitably start losing my head.
I follow the science, 2-3 cups of coffee a day is what was found to reduce mortality so that's what I drink. The amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee actually varies significantly, 70-140 mg, but at least 3 cups is most likely still below the FDA's recommended maximum of 400mg.
And I get headaches in the morning sometimes, coffee + aspirin has been very helpful.
I think anymore than 3 cups and you'll still have caffeine in your blood system at night, which doesn't seem healthy. I think it's easy to fall into a pattern of increased caffeine use through the circular pattern of drinking too much and getting terrible sleep, then ramping up the dosage the next day in order to feel awake.
I think it's important for people to recognize this little quirk and not to spiral into a pit of its tasty dark magic.
My average (3 days a week ish) day includes sipping the same can of energy drink for probably 8 hours during which ill get through about 3/5 of the can. I drink water throughout the day and like the occasional acidic zest of a sip of drink, and at an emotional level makes me feel productive even if the caffiene delivery is probably on the order of 15mg per hour.
I also suffer from migraines and I was also afraid of caffeine, but I found that it helps me actually. As most people with migraines I have a diary, I know that when I drink coffee right after I start feeling a migraine it usually stops the migraine very fast. So for you reading with migraines, give coffee a try.
>I only drink caffeine on days that I need the extra boost to be productive
Good advice. I do this but slightly differently. I drink a lot of tea, I am English after all, but I only drink coffee when I need a boost. I find myself very sensitive to caffeine/coffee despite all the tea.
I've had similar feelings of envy for my co-workers who appear to get superpowers from caffeine -- I steer clear as a general rule due to a bad bout with myocarditis in my early 20s :(
