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Comment by Terr_ | Hacker News Reader

> wired [...] withdrawals [..] I’d love to hear how other people manage their caffeine intake (even if it is complete dependence).

Or the polar opposite: I sometimes wonder if I have a caffeine insensitivity, and whether there's a good way to objectively measure my experience versus the average.

The suspicion comes from how some folks (like in this blog) will talk about how they very clearly perceive being "wired" or having withdrawal symptoms, while I don't think I've ever noticed such clear causation. That includes occasions like switching for a week from/to non-caffeinated sodas. (Diet in both cases for calorie reasons, which conveniently removes sugar rush/crash as a confounding factor.)

It makes for an odd kind of micro-alienation among a workforce where people talk about their needs/habits around caffeine, especially when working near Seattle.

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I've had long periods of my life caffeine-free, and this has given me some interesting (personal) insight into its effects.

After daily consumption, it takes two to three weeks of zero consumption to restore a sane "baseline" where I can operate at the same level of awakeness with no caffeine. Consuming coffee after the third week has a noticeable impact where you can really feel its effect.

Caffeine doesn't make me more focused; it mostly suppresses my tiredness/sleepiness. Being awake does not equate to being more focused.

I don't think that one week is enough to recover sensitivity if I usually consume daily doses.

Generally, I tend to avoid caffeine due to all the other changes in mood / behaviour / sleep. The effects are mostly obvious if you switch to zero consumption for a few months and then take up the habit again.

I think ADHD is linked to caffeine insensitivity. I experimented with caffeine at uni, but never noticed any effect. I would drink a 33 cl coke, containing some 30 mg caffeine.

Some 10 years ago I tried caffeine tablets in the mornings. They might have been 100 mg. I would take a tablet 30 min before work. That time, it would take the edge off my morning sleepiness which I’ve suffered from my whole life. But instead I would crash completely at 3-4 in the afternoon, so it didn’t feel worth doing.

Did you try l-theanin? That is contained in green tea and arguably one of the reasons you don't get caffeine rushes and withdrawals from excessive tea use.

I use it mostly against anxiety I can get from high caffeine intake.

On the other hand dextroamphetamine works just long enough for an average work day and has much fewer crash symptoms than other common amphetamines. I wouldn't recommend abusing it for work tho, that's a downward spiral IMO.

Insensitivity to caffeine is pretty common. As I said in my post, I'm insensitive to it but then I've regularly consumed large quantities of it almost every day since I was a kid (I've always drunk very strong tea and coffee without milk or sugar), so I'd expect to be desensitized.

Perhaps there is an ADHD connection but that desensitization also occurs to those who don't have it. Caffeine is just like any other psychotropic drug, it doesn't take long to develop a tolerance.

BTW, 30mg caffeine is hardly enough to get one off the starting block, a strong cup of coffee can have three to five times that amount.

The biggest thing for me is if I have a caffinated beverage later in the day (say after noon, but especially with dinner), it becomes a lot harder to fall asleep. This can be subtle, but like was tired all day and had a cola with dinner and now can't go to sleep is a pattern.

But yeah, if I drink a Trente anything from Starbucks, there's a whole lot of caffine in there and I feel jittery and uncomfortable, and there's nothing to do about it other than wait and maybe drink extra water and hope that helps.

It helps me to pop an l-theanine if I’m over-caffeinated.

This is in fact why I drink tea over coffee generally, it has a lower amount of caffeine on average and also has L-Theanine which relaxes you.

That reminds me. I should make a pot of tea.

the quality of the bean plus processing is the problem not caffiene in of itself. how intelligent are the beans

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