Talismans of Productivity: Or give up coffee. | Hacker News Reader

Talismans of Productivity: Or give up coffee.

impudent.org.uk

30 pointsnickluft57 comments

> All I ask is this. Try going without caffeine for a month. And when you have, then write to me and tell me if it did or didn't work.

Didn't. I do it for about a month every year, and for me it doesn't make any difference.

Lucky you. Some people are more effected by caffeine than others. My eldest daughter reports similar ups and downs as I do, my other daughter reports no large effects.

Must be genetic, then.

"Some people get jumpy after drinking a single cup of coffee, while others can gulp down a Venti Americano without feeling a thing. Part of that variability is due to the development of tolerance by regular coffee drinkers; but there are genetic differences in how people metabolize caffeine as well. "

https://www.23andme.com/health/Caffeine-Metabolism/

---

"Coffee, CYP1A2 Genotype, and Risk of Myocardial Infarction"

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/295/10/1135.long

I gave up coffee for Lent last year. It was the most excruciating time ever. I was irritable the whole time, I couldn't focus, and I felt like crap all of the time. It took about 3 weeks to get over the symptoms of withdrawl before I was "ok." The 4th week, I was just blah. After that, I started up with coffee again.

Sounds to me like you are strongly affected by coffee. It can't be good to be so dependent on anything.

Maybe you should try giving it up more slowly in the future. Reduce in-take gradually.

I give up coffee every year for at least 40 days. It takes at least two weeks to start being as productive again, but after that cooling off period my productivity begins to rise. I have more energy in the evenings and sleep less.

+1 for the give up coffee advice.

My 40 days is in observance of the Christian Lent period. I'm not Christian, but the 40 day stretch is as good of period as any to make a change in your life, and I like that I observe the same rituals of many of those around me.

So why do you go back to coffee?

I find it really interferes with my ability to work. So I don't drink coffee on a work day.

So, if this is good advice, why do you return to the coffee habit?

I'm in the same pattern. After I have given up coffee for a few months, one coffee is enough to get me addicted again. It's so much more potent.

It's worth quitting just to go back to it. I seriously love falling off the wagon.

When your bad, your better!

I go back to coffee for two reasons: 1. Invariably I hit a stretch of life that requires great effort and I just /need/ a cup of coffee (last year it was a week with 2 transatlantic flights followed by a conference presentation). 2. Iced Coffee in the Summer makes life worth living. It is a true joy of life, and I always tell myself "just this one time."

ADHD is often resolved paradoxically with stimulants. For me, caffeine is a natural alternative to ADHD medication. A small amount of coffee, twice a day, allows me to focus intensely.

Folks with ADHD aside...optimizing caffeine intake seems to be the key to avoiding the nasty side-effects.

Fascinating point.

Then does that mean that being more focused without coffee means I am low on the ADHD spectrum?

Perhaps. Although even the experts don't fully understand ADHD.

Most people don't know where they fall on the ADHD spectrum. Maybe that's one of the reasons why there's such a mixed opinion on whether caffeine is good or bad when it comes to focusing.

Oooo. I need to read this.

http://www.pediatricneurology.com/adhd.htm

Or would you recommend another source?

Note to self: reading medical textbooks means you always have the symptoms, so you are always ill.

I don't think anyone can give you a clear answer, given that the effects of coffee depend on complex mix of factors, like caffeine metabolism, metabolism in general, brain chemistry, and so on. However, it is known that stimulants generally shorten the attention span, so a good guess would be that you indeed are in or close to the "normal" zone.

I have no idea whether it makes any difference for my productivity, but I simply like coffee. No way I'll give it up. There's so many habits you are advised to give up these days in the name of health and productivity... I wonder when asceticism will become 'hip' again.

I still like coffee too. I prefer dark roast espressos with almond croissants. Mmmm...

Occasionally I have a treat in a coffee shop, but only at the weekend.

You might be one of the lucky ones who are not too effected by caffeine mood swings. However, you'll never know, unless you try it.

Well there are days I drink a lot of coffee and days I don't drink coffee at all. I haven't noticed any difference in mood swings.

Sure if I drink coffee all day (and no water), I get caffeine overdose symptoms and feel dehydrated. Drinking water is good in any case. But that doesn't mean completely stopping drinking coffee if you enjoy it...

I gave up coffee a while ago, it was fantastic. I always thought that it never affected my sleep, but the difference in how I sleep then and now is incredible. And yeah, I no longer have the after lunch down.

What I really couldn't kick was the habit of actually drinking the stuff. So I drink decaf now. Think it tastes different? I demand a double blind test. It tastes fine.

Similar reactions to me. I sleep better too, no longer fidget and turn over violently in bed.

I drink water or weak black tea as my substitute.

I drink coffee all day right up until bed time, 1.5 pots of coffee a day on average. Sleep like a rock and frequently wake in the morning in the exact same position I fell asleep in. My wife occasionally notes how little I move while asleep.

Ethiopian Yirgacheffe in the coffee pot this morning, my favorite bean at the moment.

Edit: I should add that I do understand that it effects everyone differently, my wife can't even drink half a can of pop without getting jittery.

I had a situation present itself that though it wasn't perfectly controlled could pass off for a double blind test. I was with friends and one went to get some coffee for both her and myself. The moment she put both coffees on the table she excused herself and took her phone out of the pocket to answer it.

I didn't know which was which (as I drink decaf because of genetic marker rs762551 that says I'm not metabolizing caffeine properly). So I thought how great this would be to test the difference between the two.

Both were Arabica and I was able to differentiate between the two with or without milk and sugar. The decaf version (I asked afterwards) was decaffeinated using the swiss process.

I cannot guarantee that both beans were the same even if they were both Arabica so it might just be that the beans were different.

My conclusion was that one of the two tasted sharper and more bitter. When she came back she told me which coffee was decaf and it was the one that didn't have the sharpness to it (or at least much less of it)

When I went home I googled to learn the taste of caffeine itself and the first hit I got was a site describing it as a sharp bitter taste.

This had made me realise I have never tried decaf.

I will go and buy some and see if I like it.

Thanks.

I think even more important is "to thine own self be true" part of which is to empirically know yourself.

I use journaling and automatic tools to measure my own productivity. I experiment and make adjustments as needed.

Knowing yourself is good advice. But accepting yourself is much harder to do.

I found the caffeine lows interfered with my ability to accept myself.

Switch to tea. Coffee is a markedly inferior stimulant and the only reason Americans drink as much as they do is because of a certain political skirmish over taxation.

Tea contains L-theanine, which acts synergistically with caffeine. It increases levels of dopamine as caffeine does, but also levels of GABA, helping to reduce stress and take away the jittery, distractible edge that comes with coffee drinking. If you were to sit down and design a drug to help with mentally taxing work, you'd be hard pressed to concoct something better than tea.

But please avoid strong tea. It still has a lot of caffeine in it and tea can also hinder the absorption of iron and other long-term effects.

http://www.stashtea.com/caffeine+and+tea.aspx

Tea has approximately half the caffeine that coffee has.

Stash is making strong generalizations, try this: http://chadao.blogspot.com/2008/02/caffeine-and-tea-myth-and...

When I quit coffee completely for 6 months I felt completely unproductive and slow, so I started again.

That said, coffee culture has trended towards very potent coffee. I now feel like most drip coffee I get in a coffee shop is too strong, and an espresso is the only manageable dose. This is a weird reversal of the situation 15 years ago, where drip coffee was just dirty water, and an espresso is what kept people up all night.

> I did this as I was eating too many cakes and buns with my coffee and was finding the down from the coffee-high was too soul-destroying in a boring desk-job.

I think his problem is more related to the sugar highs and lows than the coffee itself.

Ahh the sugar high!

I think this is a bit of a myth. See this:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2747/does-giving-sw...

Seems like one early study made the link but the following studies cannot make the link.

you are right. I was referring to the lows and I should have stated that the "problems" are probably caused by the carbs and the blood-glucose fluctuations, not the sugar itself.

Hypoglucemia (or not being used to it) is what makes you "crash" and get hungry again after a big blood-glucose and insulin spike. In his case the improvements have probably more to do with removing the sugars than the caffeine.

I used to drink a couple cups of coffee a day, but felt jittery and then had some pretty intense lows that made it hard to focus and enjoy work. I replaced that with a couple cups of green or oolong tea a day and it's done wonders for me in terms of jitters and lows. No long do I feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin or like I just want to take a nap while trying to concentrate on what I'm doing.

I highly recommend trying some tea if this sounds familiar. Green and oolong tea have significantly less caffeine in them than coffee, and it's just as fun, if not more, picking out good teas as it is picking out good coffee.

Thanks for sharing.

But be aware that black tea and green tea often have the same caffeine content. The trick is to make your tea weak.

Some stats comparing caffeine content in tea.

http://www.stashtea.com/caffeine+and+tea.aspx

Giving up coffee was one of the best things I've ever done for myself. (Perhaps second only to marrying my wife).

- no more trouble sleeping

- migraines significantly reduced in frequency and severity

- caffeine has become a very effective ibuprofen booster

- significantly reduced "up and downs"

This is exactly what the current coffee culture of North America needed: input from productivity blogs.

(Disclaimer: I quit coffee before doing it was cool†, but I'm quite partial to teas.)

(† because it was messing with my stomach)

Did it make you more productive?

Hard to say as I don't closely watch my productivity. It didn't make me significantly less productive, in any event. edit: And it's nice to feel that I can actually get stuff done without regularly needing coffee.

(Grandparent post is sarcasm, no offense intended.)

I got the sarcasm. <smiles> I am a Brit </smiles>.

I just did not realise not drinking coffee had become cool. Perhaps my age has proofed me from such things.

I don't measure my productivity, I just know I feel better about working when not on coffee and thus work becomes easier. It might be less productive, though I doubt it.

There are also significant benefits to coffee, from being a great source of antioxidants to "Coffee drinkers may be at lower risk of liver and colon cancer, type 2 diabetes, and Parkinson's disease."[1] There is also research regarding benefits to inhibiting cognitive degeneration.

[1] http://articles.cnn.com/2010-04-28/health/coffee.studies_1_c...

Granted I'm only 28, but my relatives along with several friends are amazed at the fact that I make it a point to not drink coffee. I hate the notion of having to rely on something(y'know, aside from food and water and oxygen) specifically designed to give me a mental boost. I always figured if I was falling asleep midday it was because I was wasn't sleeping well or something of the sort.

It's hard because I also want to get the benefits described in these studies, but don't want to become dependent on caffeine to get through the day.

Try something like meditation, exercising, taking 30 minute holidays... other non-addictive and well tested methods.

I do work out fairly regularly and try to take mental breaks(sometimes too many, haha). I just wasn't sure if there was something unique about the benefits that one gets from coffee.

I gave up caffeine more than a year ago, because I didn't like the idea of being addicted to a drug. I have a cup of tea once every couple weeks or so, but that's about it.

The only improvement I've noticed is that I don't suffer withdrawal symptoms if I don't have caffeine. If anything, I think my mind feels a bit slower without it. I think I might take it up again.

Could be that you are getting older.

Relevant links:

- http://quantifiedself.com/2009/10/the-false-god-of-coffee/

- http://lesswrong.com/lw/1w1/coffee_when_it_helps_when_it_hur...

Thanks for the link to the ever wonderful "lesswrong" site. So much for me thinking I had stumbled onto something.

I've yet to have a coffee since the new year, and I find it does in fact help with keeping focus.

Simple really.

I think I was looking for magic bullets (talismans) and hit on coffee only by noticing that no matter what I did, what productivity thingy I used, it was the mood swings that were my worst habit.

I wonder if there is a simple medical test that could identify the caffeine intolerant?

But it's so tasty...

What about decaf?

There's probably nothing objectively wrong with it. I'm just a coffee snob.

I was always curious about the timeline between:

- finding one of these talismans of productivity

- actually trying it out

- blogging about it

- staying with it

I have a feeling the first 3 occur pretty rapidly.

There should be a universal law that makes people who blog about a talisman of productivity revisit their post and comment on it, say 3 months later, then 6 months later etc.

Now is there a service that does that? - enables me to setup reminders (like Outlook calendar) but send them to my long-term (not work) email with a link to a website to be commented on and for that matter any other long term reminders.

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