How Your Brain Becomes Addicted to Caffeine | Hacker News Reader

How Your Brain Becomes Addicted to Caffeine

smithsonianmag.com

114 pointsBorkdude78 comments

I am very sensitive to caffeine (at least relative to my peers it seems). I usually drink 1 cup of coffee to wake up. This cup gives me an instant boost from groggy/sleepy to razor sharp.

Sometimes I have another cup somewhere in the day but I really need to stop drinking coffee by around 3 pm. It baffles me that some of my peers tell stories of drinking coffee at 11pm and then being able to fall asleep. If I drink coffee after 3pm and I try to sleep my brain just doesn't stop. It keeps turning and turning and before you know it it's 5 in the morning and I haven't slept.

Are there any other who experience this kind of sensitivity to caffeine?

I have to say, it doesnt feel like I am addicted. I quit (with ease) on vacation in China for 3 months and I noticed no real withdrawal symptoms and was able to function throughout the day but coffee does help to wake me up quicker.

I'm one of those that can have a cup of coffee and fall asleep. The reason is not because of tolerance (though I do drink a fair amount). I can fall asleep after coffee because I have asthma and caffeine is a bronchodilator. A cup will help me breathe more easily, letting me fall asleep... sometimes.

I can't recommend it as a sleep aid, though.

(Speaking as a person with well-managed asthma)

I assume you're on a maintenance corticosteroid or long acting bronchodilator? I'd hope you don't regularly have trouble sleeping due to uncontrolled asthma...

QVar, yes. Thank you.

I'm also a decently-managed asthmatic and I find Foradil (2-3x / week)to be much better. QVar - even 40mcg makes my heart hammer and feel ill. Combined with allergy medication and regular exercise (biking), it's enough. The same with QVar was daily, sometimes 2x/day.

Back on topic - I'm like Rainymood, and have similar reactions to coffee - anything after lunch and I'm staying up later, but I stop for weeks or months at a time without any impact (sometimes I'm more productive overall during the day without my morning java).

Off-topic, I got rid of my asthma symptoms after I started a keto diet. Don't take this as medical advice, I don't know if other people would have the same experience, but this is what happened to me.

> Are there any other who experience this kind of sensitivity to caffeine?

I would call what you experience normal. Even at 2 - 3 cups per day, I have to stop drinking coffee way before dinner to be able to fall asleep at a reasonable time.

> I have to say, it doesnt feel like I am addicted. I quit (with ease) on vacation in China for 3 months and I noticed no real withdrawal symptoms and was able to function throughout the day but coffee does help to wake me up quicker.

What did expect? You don't become addicted on 1 - 2 cups per day.

I never drank coffee or tea until my early 30s even a sip would make my heart race.

Then one day a new job I would sit with coffee drinking coworkers and eventually I tried tea. I had tea each morning about an 8 ounce cup drinking about half or a bit more.

Then another new job setting up a casino before the hvac sysem was in (cold Canadian spring no heat brr) and I stared drinking french vanilla coffee.

Starbucks opened a few years later and I was drinking venti cappuccinos with extra shots even at 10pm.

It got to the point where I needed it to sleep the caffeine calmed me down instead of revving me up. I guess the typical addict story wanted it then needed it; not to belittle true addicts.

I cut down due to GERD later discovered I had hypothyroidism so maybe it was all related. Tea seems to hit me far more than coffee both for heartburn and being jittery.

Even through all that I do think I am hypersensitive my liver can't process caffeine as well as some people. I now drink one small cup of instant coffee per day and that's enough for me. I do suffer withdrawal if I don't drink it for a few days maybe a week.

I like coffee, but (rather disappointingly), it seems to have no discernible psychoactive effect on me, even though the beverage I prefer is made with nothing but coffee beans and water.

Maybe you think it doesn't because you're so conditioned to it (if it's your favorite)?

Try quiting it for a week to see.

I'm like mannykannot, I drink a daily espresso or two, often after dinner, simply because I like the taste. I've stopped for more than a week multiple times in the past (vacations, coffeeshop closed, etc) and I never noticed any negative nor positive effects.

Sometimes when I'm really sleepy during the day I've tried a double espresso, still no visible effects.

Well, a daily espresso or two is not much to be addicted with though.

I don't understand why you'd think a cup a day is such a hard core addiction that you'd be having withdrawal when you try to stop it...

Well, I know multiple people who've had migraines after withdrawing from a couple of espresso cups a day. Apparently it doesn't take much.

Maybe - my consumption varies quite a lot, but it has probably been some time since I went a week without any.

I'm like that! Have always had an espresso or two per day, and anytime I have one in the afternoon I'm wide awake till 7 in the morning.

Also, even when used to high amounts of caffeine, it's really easy for me to get the jitters.

My tolerance remains low no matter what. I would stop if only I didn't LOVE the brew.

>Also, even when used to high amounts of caffeine, it's really easy for me to get the jitters.

Oh yes, easily! When I drink too much coffee and try to browse my smartphone (i.e. facebook feed) it is really noticeable that my thumb is very shaky.

>I would stop if only I didn't LOVE the brew.

True. Although there is a crapload of bad coffee out there as well.

I believe there are certain genes which cause people to be slow caffeine metabolizers.

And nicotine. Or maybe the genes cause faster metabolism.

Yep, although not as bad as 3pm. Certainly no coffee after 6pm. Way too many nights spent reading the next random Wikipedia article or dividing 13 with 9 to as many decimals as possible.

Same in the morning, from dead to sharp almost instantly. Sometimes so quick that I wonder if it's mostly placebo. I'm talking positive effect after less than five minutes, usually before even finishing the first cup. I'll have to test against placebo by experiment some day.

I have noticed that this sensitivity can happen with age. When I was in my 20's I could drink 10-15 cups of coffee a day well into the night. Now I suffer from the same sensitivity in my 40's that you speak of.

But I think the reason some folks can drink so much coffee and still sleep is that at some point caffeine becomes a sedative. At least that is what I have been told.

If I even drink a cup of coffee, even heavily diluted, my anxiety increases, and my neurons will start firing 10 times too fast.

I'm not addicted though, same as you. I can quit anytime. In fact, I just drink coffee if I'm with friends and they all decide to stop by a coffee shop. Never drink it regularly.

> I can quit anytime.

I remember saying that about cigarettes, as well as caffeine. cigarettes were easier to quit.

I guess I'm different as I've drank just one cup of coffee in the past 3 months. I guess for me there's nothing to quit but if I were forced to drink it everyday I could stop if I could.

Isn't that all explained in the OP? It has to do with growing more receptors over time, so it takes a bigger dose of caffeine to fill them all.

I apologise. I opened up the tab and read the first couple of paragraphs, then I wrote this comment.

I went from drinking 6-10 mugs of coffee a day to zero. I'd usually have a few cups of tea as well, but now drink decaf tea around 2-5 times a day. The only withdrawal symptoms I had were finally getting quality sleep and feeling much more vital. Only a few days after stopping, the smell of instant coffee, beans or ground make me recoil. They smell like poison.

I'd been drinking that much coffee for maybe ten years and I think my sleep quality had been going downhill for a long time. I'd get to sleep without a problem, but woke up late, always felt tired and hated mornings. I'm now a morning person.

I'm glad it was so easy to kick. Thinking back at how I felt and for how long leaves me with a sense of loss of self.

I often wonder what level of exposure you need to become addicted, and how much is controlled by individual variability.

Speaking for myself, I'm a 2-3 cups a day on the weekdays kind of person (up until about 2-3pm at which point I cut myself off). But on weekends I often have none (just too lazy to make a cup), and I've never experienced any associated withdrawal symptoms.

I drink 8 ounces almost every morning at work. Some weekends, I have coffee. Some weekends, I have none. No headaches, nausea, etc. I enjoy the taste, and I do get the stimulant-like benefits, so my best guess is that I'm walking the razor's edge, or that I'm blessed with a relatively low sensitivity to the drug, or something.

At night, I can have a espresso, coffee, or caffeinated soda at 9pm and be ready to sleep at 11. I've stopped drinking it for weeks at a time before, with no difficulty doing so. All of the stories about caffeine's extreme effects are completely alien to me; I've always considered it a fairly gentle substance.

> I often wonder what level of exposure you need to become addicted, and how much is controlled by individual variability.

The half-life of caffeine definitely has a lot of individual variability (3-7 hours is apparently the reference range, but I think the overall observed range is wider with e.g. other drugs or liver dysfunction). I'm not sure whether a longer or shorter half-life would be more conducive to addiction.

Generally speaking, greater tolerance of a drug is correlated with higher rates of addiction, but... "correlated", so...?

Tolerance and half-life are related but not the same.

A person may have low tolerance/high sensitivity (due to fewer adenosine receptors) but metabolize quickly.

I actually find I have high sensitivity and metabolize slowly, which is why it's important I don't have coffee after mid-afternoon.

My bet is that long half-life/slow metabolism increases predilection for addiction (due to longer duration of exposure), but that's just a guess.

I'm interested too as I drink 2-4 a day even on weekends but have sometimes gone without for random reasons like travel and stuff and I've never gotten withdrawals or even headaches.

I find 3 cups (24 fl oz) to be a sort of tipping point where if I have been drinking more than that I notice when I don't have any (no headache though). I try to make fairly strong coffee.

I drank 4-5 cups (5 oz) of coffee each workday for quite a few years now. Somehow I only associated the whole thing with work, so it didn't even occur to me to drink coffee on the weekends. The end result was two days of constant sleep with headaches and general grogginess, followed by a workweek of OK-ish performance.

I am now at week two in the process of quitting, because I'm getting increasingly concerned about being in the withdrawal zone as well as being "fully caffeinated". The first week was much worse than the second one. Hopefully I get back to my old self soon.

You should be there soon. I've quite numerous times throughout my life and it took me exactly seven days each time. But those seven days were hell.

The funny thing is how hard it is to avoid caffeine after you quit. In the fast food restaurant there are almost no decaf diet drinks. So do you want caffeine or diabetes?

I am curious because I think I am in the same boat as you are -- did you try first seeing if you experienced the benefits (better sleep) if you cut caffeine at a certain time during the day, i.e 3p.m seems to be the magic number for a lot of people.

I am very curious about this topic because I am considering dropping caffeine, but then again I have read so much scientific literature about coffee's antioxidant properties, and caffeine being good for memory, etc, plus I love the taste of coffee, and always prefer to drink it black (I can just eat coffee beans)

I went straight to zero coffee, and from being someone who really enjoyed the smell and taste, to finding it unpleasant. I eat a balanced diet and exercise often so I have no worries about losing whatever benefit caffeine may have given me.

I think it's worth noting that caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, at least with respect to blood vessels in the brain. (Aside: This may be why it provides partial headache relief for some.)

So while it's true that our brains get a stimulating boost from caffeine, it's also a fact that caffeine significantly reduces cerebral blood flow. A moderate dose (250 mg) may reduce cerebral blood flow by 27%(!)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2748160/

I'm no brain scientist but I would expect this to reduce some cognitive function to some degree.

Anecdotally, with caffeine I find it easier to do something concrete and relatively mindless, such as cleaning, or writing code that’s similar to something I’ve written before; but it’s much harder to figure out something novel or explain things to others. I wouldn’t be surprised if reduced blood flow turned out to be one cause of that effect.

If you dig you can find research that indicates that caffeine is the most potent cognitive boosting chemical we know of to date.

I think the first half of your point, that we're reducing blood flow to the brain, is a valid one. However, evidence indicates that whatever negative impact on cognition occurs are overpowered by the positive impacts.

Another factor to consider is how much blood flow is correlated to cognitive abilities. Obviously some is needed, but after sufficient oxygen levels are reached I suspect other factors (such as glial cells) play stronger roles.

Definitely a fascinating field of study.

More potent than adderall?

Yes, they included amphetamines in their study.

I'm drinking 1-2 cups a day. The question for me is what do I get for quitting caffeine?

For me it's just a ritual in the morning.

I have to admit the coffee I make at home with the Bialetti is so bad compared to the one I can get in town, that I wonder why I bother sometimes. I just can't make that thing work. Even with the freshly ground coffee I buy at the market. It tastes nice on the day I bought it, it tastes like crap already the next day.

But if I can drink just one good cup of coffee like the one I can get in town, and I get that nice little kick I'm happy and I don't really need any more the rest of the day. If only I could get that nice little kick just with my morning coffee! Sometimes I wonder if I also have built a tolerance, but I think the coffee I make with the Bialetti is just crap. I barely feel it.

But even though my morning coffee is usually not very good... I'm still wondering what's in there for me quitting just 1-2 cups a day? The people commenting on the article are abusing the substance, 5-10 cups a day? 2 liters of soda? For years on end?

Apart from what the others have already mentioned (buying a grinder) I think it's even more important to try switching your method of brewing. I also don't like Bialetti coffee at all, it tastes for too "dirty" (for a lack of a better word) to me.

Personally I used an AeroPress (which is now only my traveling coffee maker) quite a while and eventually just switched back to simple drip coffee machine. People often forget how good a drip brew can be with good-enough coffee and a good-enough grinder. As a bonus it's a very lazy method for brewing as well.

Err and now for your real question.

Honestly, I don't think you get anything. Lower blood pressure is probably the biggest benefit. But it may be offset by other benefits (coffee may reduce risk of some cancers, diabetes, Alzheimer's and dementia, etc).

IMO the reality is people see addiction as a scary Boogeyman, irrespective of whether the addiction is combined with actual damaging health effects.

Buy beans and a grinder... You can buy a Hario hand grinder for ~10$ and it'll take ~2-3 minutes of grinding or splurge on an electric ceramic burr grinder for ~$400.

+1 vote for the Hario hand grinder. I've tried some others that were a pain to use and made it difficult to get a good grind size. The Hario is a huge improvement over what I was using. Very convenient too.

It tastes nice on the day I bought it, it tastes like crap already the next day.

Get a decent grinder. Buy and store whole beans and grind as needed. They'll last a lot longer.

Also store in an air tight container in a cool dark place. Beans usually ship in a bag you can reseal (zip lock or fold-over). Make sure you evacuate as much air as you can when you close it up.

I think the strongest reason for quitting is the crash. When you drink in the morning, your energy levels would plummet in the evening. If you're working on a side project, or just want to have a life outside of your day job, this may not be acceptable for you.

>It tastes nice on the day I bought it, it tastes like crap already the next day.

How do you store it?

> For this reason, caffeine isn’t technically a stimulant on its own... but a stimulant enabler: a substance that lets our natural stimulants run wild.

This is the bit I find fascinating and perhaps explains why some people are so sensitive to caffeine and others don't experience discernable effects. There are probably underlying physiological (and/or psychological) differences in individuals self-stimulant production, and caffeine magnifies those effects.

Armchair scientist conjecture: I'd suspect that people who are considered "Type-A" are more strongly affected by caffeine as it enhances their natural, self-stimulating mechanisms (whatever those are).

> Regular caffeine use alters your brain’s chemical makeup, leading to fatigue, headaches and nausea if you try to quit.

I drank my last drop of coffee three and half years ago, because I was noticing those same symptoms on days I didn't get my "dose", which got me worried. So I've endured the headache and irritation for about 2-3 days, then it was over.

Interestingly I never craved coffee after, nor did I replace it with tea or something, it must have something to do with that I mostly drank coffee when hanging out with people. Now I order a vitamin powder drink with cold water that's sold in my country. In the mornings, I enjoy cold water or cold milk for refreshment and focus.

For what it is worth, there are no long term detriments to ones health from drinking coffee. A lot of studies actually show that it is quite good for various aspects of ones long term health.

There are only some negative short term effects, like raised heart rate or mild withdrawals.

So there's no reason to be worried about drinking coffee, unless those short term effects bother you.

I'm very sensitive to caffeine and I have come up with one rock-solid rule that works for me: i can have a cup of coffee or tea but then, on the next day, I have to be caffeine-free, no exceptions, ever. The way I explain it to myself is that my body goes into an unnatural mode of operation on caffeine, the mode that is both productive and creative - and even pleasant, but I need some time to go back to normal state, which takes at least a day.

If I have a low caffeine drink like a lightly brewed green tea, I don't get much of the benefit but still get the downside: I need to completely cut off caffeine for a time.

Am I the only one that doesn't seem to get addicted to coffee? I can drink a cup and go right to bed. I love coffee and drink a cup a day, but can also stop without any ill effects. I don't think I've ever had a caffeine headache. I travel for work for a week or two at a time and have gone entire trips without any caffeine.

I never had a problem getting to sleep, it was getting up in the morning that was a killer for me. When I did drink coffee I am certain I was getting very poor sleep. Now I wake up early and have energy when I get up, and I am also remembering my dreams now.

It would be nice to hear more coffee-quitting stories like the one from proactivesvcs.

I have quit and resumed coffee many times over the past decade, and abstained from caffeine during breaks for a month or more.

Migraines are a thing. Lasting up to a full day, but rarely longer.

Beyond that, quitting caffeine is unremarkable. The worst part about it, is trying to find other low calorie beverages that aren't water, and have no aspartame or sacharine, since I find all artificial sweeteners (including the new-school "natural" variety) as disgusting contaminants.

Getting back on coffee after a break is fun. Caffeine is always better after a tolerance break.

Tolerance, after which caffeine becomes the new, ineffective normal, creeps in at month number 2 or 3 of constant use. I've dosed on uninterrupted supplies off caffeine for blocks as long as 18 months. A solid gram of caffeine a day is probably not the best thing, but not debilitating or deleterious as far as I can tell.

I try to not drink caffeine, when incensed as a crutch for obligations at work. Then we're talking dependence and prostitution, of a sort, know what I mean?

I moved to fruit/herbal teas. Strawberry & raspberry, blueberry & spiced apple and camomile & honey are my favourite. I've gotten in the habit of keeping a stock of naval oranges for the fruit teas - halve the orange, put a big slice in the mug, and quarter the rest. Nice way to increase fresh fruit intake and it makes a really nice drink.

If you haven't already, try giving seltzer water a try. We go through cases of it in my office as a non caloric/caffeinated beverage.

In side-by-side taste tests, and even when seltzer is free, I almost always choose water, and usually leave containers of seltzer unfinished, and sometimes wait until they go flat before finishing them off if I'm feeling extraordinarily patient.

Here you go: I stopped drinking coffee earlier this year, down from a 2-3 cups a day habit. I had been sick for a few days and unable to have any, then I just ran with it. Due to quitting coffee I felt like shit for over 6 weeks. I had headaches, chills, and constant exhaustion.

Now I feel fine.

6 weeks?! Insane... welcome to the other side!

I went cold turkey on a holiday; the switch of context was enough to distract me from the annoying couple of withdrawal days. When I got back I had no problem avoiding it.

I have since repeated this context-switching pattern to kick off other habits/changes like eating less meat.

I have a playlist on Youtube with coffee-quitting stories:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLepOlBgVQKUx2wSpviv9...

I "quit" every year while fasting during the month of Ramadan. The first few days are hell. However, taking advil/Aleve in the morning prior to starting the fast does reduce the withdrawal symptoms.

I love coffee. Good quality coffee is quite possibly the only "beverage" pleasure I look forward to without post imbibing guilt.

I tried quitting once in 2009 after I noticed mild chest pains and after receiving advice from the doc - this was during a period when project stress made me guzzle 4 to 6 cups a day.

I had quit for a few months (6 I think) ... then one day the familiar aroma from one of my colleague's freshly brewed cup couldn't be resisted. That first cup of coffee after a long period of abstinence felt like heaven.

I now force quit every once in a while if only to repeat that experience.

It's an addiction of the highest order.

It's worth reading the comments under the article as well.

Mine, for some reason, does not. I drink a fair amount, like two or more mugs a day, but on off-days, nothing happens.

I "quit" every year for about a month;I use l-tyrosine to avoid withdrawal symptoms for a few days then I'm fine. I ha e data that indicates for me that it might reduce my heart disease chance, so thats why I dont quit forever...

Too much caffeine caused me to suffer acid reflux, so I've had to give it up :( But after a few days of bad headaches, life is as it was before. Hopefully less acid reflux now. But yeah totally addictive. Love it. (Ok: loved it.)

If you get anxiety and jitters from coffee, try a bit of NALT powder afterwards. It has eliminated mine. Could be placebo but worth a try.

What seems to be much much more popular, is taking L-Theanine with coffee for those same effects.

Source: I read /r/nootropics

Did you mean malt powder?

I'm not positive, but it looks like NALT powder is a supplement: https://purebulk.com/nalt-n-acetyl-l-tyrosine-powder/

N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine (NALT).

Also check out the group 'Overcoming Caffeine Addiction' on Facebook

Reply on news.ycombinator.com