Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss • Hacker News Board

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#151

Post by neves » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 3:46 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #28

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…

"restrict myself to mornings only" Do yourself a favour and take the next step. Stop ingesting daily and reserve coffee for sleep emergencies and medicinal purposes. Even a single daily cup of coffee is enough to build a tolerance to it. Besides affecting alertness, caffeine is also a very effective way of increasing the potency of many drugs. For me, Advil by itself has little effect, but in combination with caffein…

A lot of medicines have a version with caffeine to make it more efficient and prevent sleepiness.

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#152

Post by Legogris » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 3:47 PM UTC

mkirklions wrote: post #114

Legogris wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High- and medium grade green tea (especially the Japanese varieties) have significant amounts of L-theanine, which has its own effects and synergies with caffeine. For me, the same amount of caffeine will have me anxious and give me tunnel-vision if I get it from coffee while more euphoric and peppy if from green tea.

What should we be feeling with L-theanine? I never found it affected me.

I haven't really taken it as a supplement/extract by itself, but drinking lots of strong green tea gives me distinct but different effect from coffee/energy drinks/caffeine pills.

It mostly seems to negate the negative effects of caffeine (apart from problems falling asleep) and gives a mood-boost and counteracting stress. It only goes so far of course, over-consumption of tea will still yield anxiety and dependence, but the threshold for this is a lot higher.

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#153

Post by leshow » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

awinder wrote: post #50

bryanlarsen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"restrict myself to mornings only" Do yourself a favour and take the next step. Stop ingesting daily and reserve coffee for sleep emergencies and medicinal purposes. Even a single daily cup of coffee is enough to build a tolerance to it. Besides affecting alertness, caffeine is also a very effective way of increasing the potency of many drugs. For me, Advil by itself has little effect, but in combination with caffein…

I believe that is a factor of caffeine increasing blood flow, leading to quicker delivery within the body

My guess would've been CYP3A4, but you could be right.

I found a study of caffeine producing grapefruit-like inhibitory effects on some people https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5625156/

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#154

Post by Bartweiss » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

TheTrotters wrote: post #95

yomly wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caffeine == Caffeine But if a Coke is ~3mg caffeine 100ml and coffee is ~40mg per 100ml, drinking 13.3 "units" of cokes will not be equivalent to 1 "unit" of coffee. 1. Timing of the intake will affect the efficacy (x mg of caffeine over 2 hours vs. 20 minutes is very different to the body) 2. Controlling for time-dependent intake (the spherical human consumed both quantities instantly), concentration of the substanc…

Thanks for that explanation. That matches my experience very well. I regularly feel wired and a little anxious after coffee but almost never after Coke (keeping the caffeine consumed constant). Though my intuition tells me that chugging three beers would get me more drunk than drinking three shots. Sigh. The things I do for science.

> chugging three beers would get me more drunk than drinking three shots

The obvious question is what you're drinking - with the rise of craft beer scene, 3 beers could easily be substantially more alcohol than 3 shots. But assuming you match alcohol volume and consumption speed, absorption rates can still vary substantially.

From what I can find, it looks like beer actually would get you (and everyone) more drunk: diluting alcohol substantially speeds up absorption, and carbonating dilute alcohol probably does also.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17720590

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#155

Post by Legogris » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

skore wrote: post #147

mkirklions wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should we be feeling with L-theanine? I never found it affected me.

With good green tea that has lots of it (shaded tea, but doesn't need to be gyokuro, Sencha Momiji is my favorite, cold brewed over night, then strained in a french press), I usually feel a slow but steady rise in wakefulness and around the time where I would start to get jittery (say, like when drinking a few too many cokes), it transitions over to an incredible calm mixed with a feeling of... wideness. Like your FO…

This!

Another curious thing I have noted: While living in Japan I was binging on houjicha[0] (which has significantly less caffeine due to the roasting process) on late evenings so I would still be able to sleep. After several strong pots (we are talking litres of 1:1 water/leaf ration) I would often get into a different mind-space that is pretty close to what you are talking about. I tried to research if other catechins (like l-theanine) also disappear in the roasting process or if they could be the explanation, but weren't able to find anything to back this up.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Djicha

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#156

Post by themodelplumber » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

monktastic1 wrote: post #110

themodelplumber wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I was thrown off because I couldn't believe I was looking at post-12pm. Those are pretty extreme circumstances. In my own case I've been tracking caffeine use and some helpful strategies are: - 30mg after a brief afternoon nap - 50mg to 60mg after a long afternoon nap that resulted in grogginess - 100mg after a terrible night's sleep and before a long meeting - Extreme care if I have an exhaustion headache…

12 pm is noon not midnight, in case that's what threw you off.

Of course it would. :-) Thanks! 600mg still seems crazy strong but I guess everybody's different.

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#157

Post by mkirklions » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #121

mkirklions wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh... I hope I dont ruin anyones life talking about the legal solution... So I found that psudoephedrine (cold medicine) is pretty darn close to amphetamines. Find the 12 hour, 120mg capsules. I think you get 20 pills for like 6 dollars. Basically I'd take 2 saturday morning. Wait a half hour and drink caffeine as needed through the day. Wow. I'm talking from 5AM until 2AM I am able to work. Not just stuff I enjoy, b…

Pseudoephedrine is a scheduled drug, prescription only or available over the counter with various restrictions (such as e.g. showing ID) most places because it's sought after as a precursor to methamphetamine. Particularly be careful if you intend to take it over a border.

Yeah just show them your license.

I dont get it more than 1 time a month, but I have noticed that stores dont use the same database. You can go from CVS to walmart to the local pharmacy if you needed to.

But if you need more than 10 days a month of psudoephedrine, I wish I never recommended it to you.

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#158

Post by Bizarro » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

dwater wrote: post #73

euroclydon wrote: post #5

Surely there’s a better drug than coffee for staying awake for a long time.

There was an article I remember from 2600 about all the various stimulants readily available at the time (1996-97), I found a text version of it: http://67.225.133.110/~gbpprorg/2600/HackHead.html I believe the original title was "Hack Your Head". Ephedrine was an excellent stimulant, but a few people died because they didn't understand what it would do. You wouldn't feel thirsty, and it was sold as a workout supplem…

It's not illegal. You just need to show your ID at the pharmacy and sign the "I'm not going to make meth notice" on the screen.

Bronkaid works great as an appetite suppressant, a little energy boost without much of the caffeine jitters, and as its prescribed effect of opening up the lungs.

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#159

Post by monktastic1 » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

themodelplumber wrote: post #156

monktastic1 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

12 pm is noon not midnight, in case that's what threw you off.

Of course it would. :-) Thanks! 600mg still seems crazy strong but I guess everybody's different.

Yeah, I feel like I'd have a heart attack well before that myself.

Re: Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss

#160

Post by stallmanite » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

segmondy wrote: post #105

crazygringo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

Yeah, but combination of ingridents might affect it. "Monster Energy" does nothing for me. I can drink it and go to sleep. Mountain Dew will keep me more alert than it, Coffee keeps me more alert than Mountain Dew, and "Gridlock" energy drink from Aldi (knockoff of Monster Energy) is almost as good as Coffee. Different people react differently. If I need to stay up at night, only Coffee or Gridlock will do the trick.

I had the same experience with the Aldi "Gridlock" energy drinks and I noticed that cans of Gridlock are labeled as containing two servings per can whereas Monster is one serving per can. Therefore I think Gridlock has approx 2x the caffiene content since both claim about 200mg / serving if I remember correctly.