I already have difficulty dealing with caffeine at work - and sugar generally due to how common it is everywhere.
I am not sure if I want to add any more drugs to my life. Already sleep is a premium these days - I would never understand why people would want to screw with it further by drinking or doing cannabis.
but grass, man, that's what makes tiny niggledy piggledy details of an API interesting. That's what makes me take "one more crack at it" when I'm tired and shit's not working.
Coffee is merely a poop-inducer. Productivity in my life is related to grass consumption. I quit about 4 times in my life and even tried a sober winter in the arctic circle. Least productive most self-indulgent moping time of my life, that last 10 month experiment. What I did was cutout tobacco 100%. Now I feel great. I can run up hills, smoke a pipe, cough my lungs out, and I'm cleaner for having smoked it! see, cannabis is an expectorant (by itself, NOT adulterated with even one flake of tobacco, which is a cough suppressant) so it self cleans, never mind that any resinous deposits contain potent anti-cancral agents...
anyway- in my book, cannabis is in the healthy category and is consumed during all waking moments and generally my sleep life is better than my wifes, who doesn't smoke cannabis.
I would lump diet and exercise in with consumed drugs in terms of the net effects upon the endocrine system and energy:
typical unhealthy eating style: jam it in poorly chewed, pour some acidic liquid in on top to help it "digest" even though we then complain of stomach acid and eat calcium (tums) after drinking yet another acidic liquid (coffee) and meanwhile wondering why sitting in a chair 20 hours a day plus such eating habits are leading to chronic constipation
contrast that with eating a healthy balanced diet with mostly fresh plant matter of some sort, stretching frequently, practicing deep stretching or yoga of some kind, frequent exercise involving sweating, consumption of copious amounts of good water...take the time to chew properly and eat small amounts of food slowly and then you will note greater absorbance of nutritional elements and more peace in the digestive tract.
you are a brain athlete. start acting like it.
Because life is more than bottom line productivity.
"Life is not an optimization problem"
I think saying there is zero reason to limit caffeine consumption is a bit of a stretch since we're talking about a drug which causes dependence, reduces motor control and increases anxiety.
I say this as a huge coffee fan. Grind my own single origin beans, brew them in my Hario pour over or Aeropress etc.
But I'm not going to pretend it's this wonderful health drink when it clearly has negative side effects.
Does it? I remember reading that it increased reflexes, improves stamina, and increases physical strength.
If that's all true (I might have read an outdated/bad study), then what counts as motor control?
http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/coffee-drinking-linke...
(Gonna lump all my responses to the various comments here, so apologies if I come across as a bit strong.)
Here's what I found regarding motor control:
> There is also some evidence that fine motor control may be impaired as a function of the increase in anxiety
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12204388
From the aforementioned Wikipedia article:
> Caffeine in plants acts as a natural pesticide: it can paralyze and kill predator insects feeding on the plant
Regarding my comment on it being a neurotoxin. Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant. You're basically ingesting plant insecticide which in turn stimulates the nervous system, causes the adrenals to release adrenaline and causes a heightened alert response as well as many other positive AND negative effects. Hence my remark.
Source: http://brown.edu/Student_Services/Health_Services/Health_Edu...
Most of the research I've seen promotes its health benefits in narrow isolation on one particular facet of human physiology. I haven't seen any evidence that could conclusively sway me towards going from 1 cup a day of coffee to say 4-6 which apparently is the amount a lot of people drink.
My own feeling on coffee is that like anything which has pros and cons it should be drunk in moderation.
I think what you're picking up on is a distrust by analogy. In the past we thought some things were safe, but they weren't (smoking etc). But the opposite of being ignorant about the effects of chemicals we ingest isn't to suddenly say everything is unsafe. It's to test everything. And we have tested caffeine, and it's safe.
caffeine is a neurotoxin produced by the coffee bean to repel insects
Were you thinking of nicotine instead? It certainly serves that role against insects for the tobacco plant.