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Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#171

Post by Jarwain »

crazygringo wrote: post #58
jillesvangurp wrote: post #19

Club mate is the drink of choice in the start up community in Berlin. I've made the mistake of drinking that in the evening a couple of times and regretted that at 4am by being wide awake and unproductive the next day. If you are not familiar, mate tea which this is based on contains a form of caffeine that is particularly potent. It's like drinking multiple espresso shots. Don't drink this if you have blood pressure…

> "a form of caffeine that is particularly potent" I've heard this over and over, but as far as I can tell, caffeine = caffeine = caffeine. I'm not a chemist, but I can't find any mention of any different forms -- it's C8H10N4O2. [1] Is there any scientific evidence that alertness is related to anything but the quantity of caffeine, regardless of whether it's delivered as black tea, mate tea, coffee, pills, etc.? Ass…

I wouldn't be surprised if Yerba mate (and maybe even coffee) had some alkaloids that modulate the effect of caffeine on the body. I recently discovered that coffee contains (small amounts of) Harman and norharman, which are MAOIs and would definitely affect the effect caffeine has. (these MAOIs are also in tobacco! They enhance the addictive potential of nicotine)

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#172

Post by eigenspace »

abandonliberty wrote: post #169
eigenspace wrote: post #165

To everyone thinking about using caffine or other drugs to combat sleep: all of the latest sleep reseach would suggest that 'optimizing alertness during sleep loss' is a fool's errand if what you want is productivity. The real goal must be to ensure you get enough sleep, not that you medicate yourself with caffine to stop your body from getting sleep signals. Think about it this way: If prolonged sleep were not absol…

How much of sleeping is explained by metabolism reduction/calorie conservation?

In humans, metabolism only goes down ~35% at its very lowest point during deep sleep. In other phases of sleep, your metabolism is ~15% lower than during waking time. If sleep were for metabolic savings, it would be an incredibly inefficient way to go about it.

In some senses, wakefulness may be thought of as neurotoxic and much of whats going on during sleep is centred around repairing the damage caused by being awake.

For instance, the glial cells between your brain neurons shrink allowing your body to flush the beta amyloid from your brain with cerebral fluid. Beta-amyloid is a neurotoxic protein which causes Alzheimer's an is a byproduct of waking brain function. This explains the link between Alzheimer's and sleep deprivation.

Sleep is also the phase where short-term memories are evaluated and either discarded or integrated into long-term memory. It's also essential for your immune health and cancer prevention. Your body produces dozens of cancer cells daily, but they're killed by your immune system. After only a single night's sleep deprivation, your amount of cancer-killing immune cells plummets. This is why shift work is now classified as carcinogenic in several countries.

____________________

Edit: Just on the topic of sleep being for energy savings, did you know that during hibernation (a state actually used for energy savings), bears will actually leave their hibernating state in order to sleep? I think that fact really showcases how important sleep is and should put to rest any notion that sleep is for energy savings.

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#174

Post by anoncoward111 »

wufufufu wrote: post #97
anoncoward111 wrote: post #55

Honestly guys, my opinion in this day and age is that pretty much any substance you put into your body (including water and air) can be toxic. Some are more vital than others. We have a pretty clear need for lots of air, and a fair amount of water. But it isn't as reasonable to think that our evolution intended or makes accomodations for caffeine intake. Ingest at your own risk, whatever the dose. My wallet and my br…

I agree with "But it isn't as reasonable to think that our evolution intended or makes accomodations for caffeine intake." However, caffeine has been tested over generations and doesn't really have any major consequences as far as I can tell. I do think that a lifestyle where caffeine makes you more effective is probably not optimally healthy, but since when does anyone care about that.

I agree that all health decisions are a trade off between risks and benefits.

But, in sufficient dosages, caffeine can cause heart attacks, paranoia, spasms and so on. It is a neurotoxic substance.

Of course, you need to massively overdose for these things to happen. Water can be deadly if you overdose it as well. But perhaps we are missing minor damage that's occurring even with proper dosages

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#175

Post by inetsee »

_ak wrote: post #16

Interesting detail: look at where they authors are working. This is military research. And I'm not surprised. The problem of having to keep soldiers alert during long phases of sleep deprivation has been around since the early days of modern warfare.

I can't find the link right now, but I remember reading a study (also funded by the military) about using sleep masks with ear plugs to improve the quality of soldier's sleep when they do have the opportunity of sleeping. Deployed soldiers frequently don't have the luxury of a regular sleep schedule. This study, combined with the other one, seems to be an effort to deal with the problems of sleep deprivation. Soldiers can get relatively good quality sleep when they can, and be alert when they must.

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#176

Post by williamdclt »

rojobuffalo wrote: post #170
eigenspace wrote: post #165

To everyone thinking about using caffine or other drugs to combat sleep: all of the latest sleep reseach would suggest that 'optimizing alertness during sleep loss' is a fool's errand if what you want is productivity. The real goal must be to ensure you get enough sleep, not that you medicate yourself with caffine to stop your body from getting sleep signals. Think about it this way: If prolonged sleep were not absol…

Totally agree. Trying to shortcut sleep is to misunderstand what happens in your brain while you are asleep. Your brain uses sleep to run processes akin to garbage collection, pathway reinforcement, and wide-range association building. It's a critical step in complex problem solving. If you're working on a problem during the day, then have a good night's sleep, you will typically find it easier to think about the pro…

I don't know about problem solving (it's kinda hard to really experience it). But I've experienced that very regularly while playing music:

Try to learn some how to play some complex part (piano, guitar, drums, whatever) sometime in the evening. You struggle obviously, you spend a good hour trying to get it. Give up, go to sleep: the next day you're way better at playing this part than you were after one hour of non-stop training

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#177

Post by ravar »

abandonliberty wrote: post #169
eigenspace wrote: post #165

To everyone thinking about using caffine or other drugs to combat sleep: all of the latest sleep reseach would suggest that 'optimizing alertness during sleep loss' is a fool's errand if what you want is productivity. The real goal must be to ensure you get enough sleep, not that you medicate yourself with caffine to stop your body from getting sleep signals. Think about it this way: If prolonged sleep were not absol…

How much of sleeping is explained by metabolism reduction/calorie conservation?

Probably none considering that calories are collected while awake, and there exist animals that collect calories during the night and the day.

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#178

Post by lithander »

trendia wrote: post #137

Genetics play an important factor. CYP1A2, one of the enzymes that metabolizes caffeine, varies by as much as 40x between individuals. In those with a high level of the enzyme, caffeine is metabolized quickly, so they can drink coffee in the afternoon and still fall asleep. They are less likely to get anxiety from caffeine, and do not suffer from a higher risk of heart attacks with coffee consumption. In contrast, a…

That explains a lot. I really can't relate do other coffee drinkers describing their experience. I often drink 0.4 liter of black coffee to get rid of the late evening sleepyness when I want some hours of productive free time for gaming or programming before bed. When I try to sleep ~3h later the effects of the coffee are largely gone and I fall to sleep within 5 minutes. I guess I've got a lot of that enzyme. ;) (which is nice)

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#179

Post by eigenspace »

williamdclt wrote: post #176
rojobuffalo wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. Trying to shortcut sleep is to misunderstand what happens in your brain while you are asleep. Your brain uses sleep to run processes akin to garbage collection, pathway reinforcement, and wide-range association building. It's a critical step in complex problem solving. If you're working on a problem during the day, then have a good night's sleep, you will typically find it easier to think about the pro…

I don't know about problem solving (it's kinda hard to really experience it). But I've experienced that very regularly while playing music: Try to learn some how to play some complex part (piano, guitar, drums, whatever) sometime in the evening. You struggle obviously, you spend a good hour trying to get it. Give up, go to sleep: the next day you're way better at playing this part than you were after one hour of non-…

I've heard that one of the biggest things sleep does in this area is helping you fuse together small sequences. When learning a long sequence of actions be it musical or whatever, people learn chunks of smaller sequences (ie. learning to punch in the sequence 486142041 might be broken up into 4861-4202-41 with pauses inbetween that seem impossible to train out of you. As soon as one sleeps through, people suddenly are able to rattle off the whole sequence without the pauses. This is obviously essential for music.

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#180

Post by zrobotics »

driverdan wrote: post #167
newfoundglory wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yerba mate contains other stimulants as well, like red bull does. So yes caffeine = caffeine, but caffeineted drink!= caffeineted drink.

Red Bull does not contain any other stimulants.

OK... citation?

Their site says it contains 27g sugar/8.4 fl oz. Pretty sure sugar is a stimulant.

http://energydrink-us.redbull.com/en/ingredients-red-bull

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