What Caffeine Really Does to Your Brain • Hacker News Board

Re: What Caffeine Really Does to Your Brain

#21

Post by user49598 » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 10:41 PM UTC

The importance and effectiveness of caffeine has a lot to do with your job and lifestyle. If you are a mostly sedentary computer worker, the lack of blood circulation from sitting all day is going to make you super tired and slow your brain down. If you're a more active person, either from daily exercise, standing up at work, or a more physically strenuous job you're going to have more maintained energy levels as your body consumes and uses food and pumps blood harder.

Caffeine in either of these situations is going to enable your body to squeeze out more energy but for the person with more active blood flow and metabolism it's probably going to be overkill and they'll be able to get through the day without constant yawning. On the other hand, if you sit for 8 hours you're going to feel almost extreme tiredness towards the end of the day especially if you over consume for lunch.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you want to have a good energetic, drug free day, you should be taking steps to eat well and keep your blood flow up.

Also, when considering the effects of drugs on your body, all anecdotal evidence, like this comment, should really be regarded with extreme scrutiny if not disregarded all together. A good place to begin learning about caffeine would be here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Health_effects

Re: What Caffeine Really Does to Your Brain

#22

Post by KirinDave » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 10:42 PM UTC

cpeterso wrote: post #10

Androsynth wrote: post #3

This is interesting, but the article just explains the benefits of coffee. What are the downsides? I would like to hear why he quit.

Dr. Andrew Weil says, "On the down side are coffee's well-documented side effects: anxiety, insomnia, tremor and irregular heartbeat. It can also irritate the digestive system, bladder and prostate." http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400146/Is-Coffee-Good-For-You...

There's also a lot of interesting data coming up mildly positive on Caffeine health benefits in the literature.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=caffeine%20cancer http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21907331 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19581722

Moderate caffeine intake is on track to be firmly in the green for most people. However, not everyone metabolizes and reacts to it identically, so the author of the article in question may be one of those people who does not get a lot of benefits.

But there is this funny idea floating around that caffeine is carcinogenic and long-term use may cause cognitive impairment, and there is very little evidence for that.

Re: What Caffeine Really Does to Your Brain

#23

Post by berntb » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 10:45 PM UTC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_coffee

From that we learn that coffe is linked to increased levels of smoking and lack of exercise -- AND:

A May 2012 study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that, during the course of their study, coffee drinkers "who drank at least two or three cups a day were about 10 percent or 15 percent less likely to die for any reason during the 13 years of the study."

That combination seems to imply that coffee in itself is healthy.

Besides, we Scandinavians drink the most coffee on the planet and we are are are are healthy as He He He Hell, but a bit twitchy. It is a totally false rumor that we die if our blood turn red.

Edit: I should add that no chemical is good for everyone, not even caffeine.

Re: What Caffeine Really Does to Your Brain

#24

Post by KirinDave » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 10:45 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #20

I keep switching between tea and coffee. I like tea more at the moment (green, white, black, pu-erh, sometimes herbal). There just seems to be a wider variety of teas that I can switch between. I don't do it for alertness or withdrawal symptoms as much as I do it for the taste. Coffee to me, while tasting good, more or less seems similar (short of changes in roasting levels).

Coffee has as much variety as tea. Any good roaster can show you the difference between, say, a Kenyan and a Costa Rican. There's also more variety in coffee preparation with varying results. Tea steeping is a lot more 1-dimensional.

But what Tea has in quantity is L-theanine, which has additional stimulative effects on top of caffeine. A lot of people prefer it to coffee for stimulative effects because of this added kick.

Re: What Caffeine Really Does to Your Brain

#25

Post by etrautmann » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 11:01 PM UTC

This article doesn't address any downsides of drinking caffeine. It does happen to be a retrograde neuroinhibitor for adenosine, but to date, there's no evidence that this has negative long term health effects...

Re: What Caffeine Really Does to Your Brain

#26

Post by stephengillie » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 11:08 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #16

A few years ago I traded being permanently sleep deprived and drinking tons of coffee (which I love) for always sleeping 8 hours per night. My productivity has been very consistent and stronger than ever since. No more boom and bust cycles.

Recently I switched work schedules from overnight to mornings and held my coffee consumption constant (at about 5 cups a day, gotta love the MS Starbucks machine). My productivity has since gone up, I sleep better, and my moods have improved.

Re: What Caffeine Really Does to Your Brain

#27

Post by staunch » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 11:11 PM UTC

KirinDave wrote: post #19

staunch wrote: post #16

A few years ago I traded being permanently sleep deprived and drinking tons of coffee (which I love) for always sleeping 8 hours per night. My productivity has been very consistent and stronger than ever since. No more boom and bust cycles.

This has nothing to do with coffee and much more to do with regular sleep. Neither of which are mutually exclusive.

Caffeine can certainly interfere with one's ability to maintain a consistent sleep cycle.

Re: What Caffeine Really Does to Your Brain

#28

Post by enraged_camel » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 11:29 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #27

KirinDave wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with coffee and much more to do with regular sleep. Neither of which are mutually exclusive.

Caffeine can certainly interfere with one's ability to maintain a consistent sleep cycle.

Yep. I used to have very vivid dreams (indicative of light sleep) and wake up often. Ever since I stopped drinking caffeine (coffee, energy drinks, and to a lesser extent, tea), my sleep has been deep and uninterrupted.

Re: What Caffeine Really Does to Your Brain

#29

Post by hobin » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 11:30 PM UTC

berntb wrote: post #23

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_coffee From that we learn that coffe is linked to increased levels of smoking and lack of exercise -- AND: A May 2012 study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that, during the course of their study, coffee drinkers "who drank at least two or three cups a day were about 10 percent or 15 percent less likely to die for any reason during the 13 years of the study."…

"Edit: I should add that no chemical is good for everyone, not even caffeine."

I don't think it's the caffeine that causes all these benefits. (Though, being an avid hacker myself, I of course can think of a few benefits of that particular chemical.)

Also, 'water' falsifies your statement. ;)

Re: What Caffeine Really Does to Your Brain

#30

Post by _delirium » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 11:37 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #27

KirinDave wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with coffee and much more to do with regular sleep. Neither of which are mutually exclusive.

Caffeine can certainly interfere with one's ability to maintain a consistent sleep cycle.

True, and I believe partly because people underestimate some time-related aspects. They seem to vary a lot person to person, but a few bits:

1. Peak blood caffeine levels come about an hour after ingestion, at least for coffee. So a 3pm coffee, for example, is really hitting its peak closer to 4pm.

2. Biological half-life is anywhere from 3 to 6 hours, and that's counting from peak blood levels, so it's more like 4-7 hours considering #1. So if you have two cups of coffee at 3pm, you might still have a cup of coffee's worth of caffeine in the blood stream well into the evening. Much worse if you had 3 or 4 cups in the afternoon.

My guess is that there will be less sleep disruption if you stick to no more than 2 cups of coffee, no later than mid-morning, which should give enough time for most of it to be eliminated by evening. But not aware of whether there's good evidence on that.