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Comment by dataker | Hacker News Reader

Did you use/abuse caffeine/ritalin/..?

Massive caffeine abuse. I drank truly insane amounts of coffee.

how massive? I can't always plan my crunches, but since I started taking caffeine pills - I take 4 pills, equiv 4 coffees, right before really focusing on something, then I can relax in a different part of the day where it doesn't matter if it's slower. So I go between 0 and 8 coffees per day worth of caffeine, depending on what I'm doing. I've completely stopped drinking coffee and save a bunch of time that way (except socially.)

How does this compare with what you called truly insane?

I can't speak for hluska, but before my burnout I was up to ~700mg/day of caffeine via energy drinks. I qualified that as quite insane.

This site is fun, btw: http://www.caffeineinformer.com/the-caffeine-database

At the peak of my madness, it was nothing for me to drink 12 - 15 large cups of coffee over 12 hours at work.

Consider taking L-theanine with your caffeine. When taken with caffeine, it smooths out the jitters and produces a subtle sense of clarity and focus; it will probably improve your ability to think on less caffeine.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301051107...

(Lots of other articles about the effect cited in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theanine too)

If you are using caffeine for energy, you probably should improve your diet first, instead, and make sure you get enough sleep (which I know can be hard in crunch mode, but it makes your awake time much more productive). I love my coffee as much as the next person, but using caffeine to drive my ability to work has never produced good effects.

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