Coffee does not give you energy, it just borrows what you will pay for later
abc.net.au
abc.net.au
That doesn’t mean it can’t have negative side effects and generally make you jittery or wired; that’s a price some people seem to pay regardless. Outside of that though it seems like some strategies can negate energy and wakefulness issues.
But the main thing is ensuring your adenosine isn’t blocked from being processed out of your system by consuming caffeine as soon as you wake. If you do, the night’s remaining adenosine will just hang around until receptors are freed up (when caffeine is metabolized), and you’ll experience a relative “crash”, going from alert to sleepy very suddenly in the early afternoon.
I can’t confirm that this works, but people a lot smarter than I am seem to believe this is legitimate science, such as Andrew Huberman on his Huberman Lab podcast. I don’t experience crashes anymore so it seems alright to me, but I’m just one person reading and hearing things from the internet. This could all be GPT-generated and I wouldn’t know any better, haha.
I already know about the 'stop drinking it as early as possible' rule.
By waiting 90 minutes or so, adenosine will reach a reasonable baseline for daytime wakefulness.
As I understand it, adenosine will inevitably build up during the day to some degree while caffeine is occupying receptors, but not enough to really matter. However if it’s combined with remnants from the night before, or you had a ton of it when you woke up and drank coffee, you wind up getting hit with enough to actually trigger your brain to try to go to sleep. That’s why sometimes you’ll suddenly be overwhelmed with sleepiness and might even start nodding off at your desk if you had a bad sleep.
In my experience it feeds into severely inattentive mental states, even if I slept really well. It kind of ruins my work day by around 2pm.
I hear "gummies" are a good alternative. I think that's a different kind of feeling but I wouldn't know.
However, the role of MDMA in these effects is unclear, as other factors associated with a night out, such as alcohol consumption, sleep deprivation and disturbance of circadian rhythms, and poor nutrition and hydration, can be major contributors.
In contrast, only a small minority of people taking pure, measured doses of lab-grade MDMA in the daytime report experiencing negative physiological and psychological symptoms in the three to five days post-drug."
Quoted from https://www.beckleyfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12...
That PDF has sources for these statements. They match with my own experience micro-/minidosing MDMA. I never had any post use blues.
It works by binding to the adenosine receptors and inhibits adenosine absorption. Eventually the caffeine wears out and all the adenosine you didn’t absorb because of the caffeine will hit you later and can cause you to “crash”/feel really tired later in the day.
Overall I agree with you, caffeine is doesn’t seem to have no downsides (in moderation)
Andrew Huberman has some great episodes on caffeine and I totally recommend listening to those if you want to understands the effects and how to leverage them
Positives: Enjoy the taste and ritual, I still sometimes drink good decaf if I can get it. It's a dial I can use to shift/balance energy/focus at different times of day. Sometimes useful to stay up longer than you naturally would.
Precautions: Start gentle--for me green tea in the AM. Have with food. Drink water to compensate for dehydration. At Starbucks I'll sometimes order 1/3 or 2/3 decaf americano (a grande has 3 shots) depending on time of day or need/want.
With alcohol it's the same - I can drink 0.5L of vodka and next day don't have hangover and I'm blowing 0.1 promiles before breakfast (already could drive where I live, but I know myself enough that I don't try). When I start drinking, I feel effect of alcohol very soon, after one beer I feel I'm not able to drive or code.