How to get started with caffeine?

[Soulbass]

I work in front of computers 50 hours a week, and looking for a way to improve my productivity.

I have 8 hours of sleep, so no improvements can be done here (+I've read Matthew Walker's book: Why We Sleep...)

I want to try having a drinking caffeine habit, I've heard people can't work without it and I want to try out to see if I'm indeed missing on something (looking for focus/productivity improvements, coffee as a nootropic if you will).

I've tried Matcha in the past, but stopped quite quickly because of heavy metal contaminants.

I've tried Yerba Mate as well, which I like and works, but it's said it's somehow toxic for the body (source: Michael Greger).

If anyone have advice for coffee/caffeine, I would like to hear your voice and experiences.

If you're coffee addict, I guess you're biased and can't really give good advice.

My motivation for this is that I've seen interviews of my favorites artists working in the video games field, and everybody seems to be drinking coffee.

I don't buy into the cultural aspect, I've always poo-pooed coffee since I was a kid, saying it was for normies.

Am I missing on something, or what?

[Javfly33]

Don't start! Don't be dumb. Once you get physically dependent to it Your receptors will be kidnapped by the caffeine, you will be slave to it and your productivity won't neccesarry will be better.

If your job is very mechanical and dumb, caffeine might help to be more productive, but if your work is somewhat intellectual (like software engineer or similar), it might be even a bad choice.

@flowboy can tell you more about it.

[Schizophonia]

9 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

Don't start! Don't be dumb. Once you get physically dependent to it Your receptors will be kidnapped by the caffeine, you will be slave to it and your productivity won't neccesarry will be better.

If your job is very mechanical and dumb, caffeine might help to be more productive, but if your work is somewhat intellectual (like software engineer or similar), it might be even a bad choice.

@flowboy can tell you more about it.

Ray Peat disapproves (https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/caffeine.shtml) 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Schizophonia

[flowboy]

2 hours ago, Soulbass said:

Am I missing on something, or what?

No, you're not missing out on something.

With regular caffeine drinkers, they can't feel like their normal upbeat motivated selves without it.

So without caffeine they're at 30% happiness, motivation and focus let's say.

Then they drink it, and they get up to 80%. Wow, coffee's so great! Too bad my whole body is tense, my heart is racing, my skin is bad and I don't wake up well rested. But hey, worth it!

But you... you're cruising at 100% while those poor coffee addicts are dosing and re-dosing all day to even approach 80%.

It's pathetic and the blogs you read about the "nootropic benefits of coffee" are all just drug addicts being vocal rationalising their addiction. It's like Hare Krishna's or Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on your door, or singing in the street all day about how their religion saved them and how you should also try it. Meanwhile I'm standing here, I'm fine, I don't need to be saved and certainly am not willing to give up 80% of my life's comforts for it.

Heroin also has many benefits for mood, and if you take it regularly, you'll really notice a day without it. You feel much worse.

Doesn't make it a good idea to start.

Now why is this so..?

I've experimented with and researched a lot of supplements and nootropics (and a few drugs), and they roughly fall into two categories:

1. Brain manipulators
2. Brain foods

Brain manipulators forcibly change your system to produce more of a certain neurotransmitter, or inhibit its reuptake. Whether it's noradrenaline, dopamine, acetylcholine, serotonine, there's suddenly more of it available and it was not your body's own idea. It got tricked into it by substances mimicking endogenous molecules.

Caffeine, ritalin, adderall and racetams all fall into that category.

Here's the drawbacks of brain manipulators:

• Because the boost in chemicals is not your body's own idea, it will start to compensate for it by lowering your baseline. Which means you only feel okay if you take it. Pretty soon you're just as dependent as the heroin addict you see on a park bench, just to feel "yourself again". It just looks and smells more acceptable.
• Because the boost is not your body's own idea, it also doesn't know how to turn it off smoothly. You'll sleep worse.
• It feels fake and distorts your personality.

Now what do I mean by brain foods?

There's substances that are found in food, and/or naturally produced in the body, that are used as precursors to make those coveted brain hormones out of. If you eat more of those, your brain certainly has enough to make all the dopamine or noradrenaline or acetylcholine it wants, but it still is going to be regulated by a natural process. Production will go up until a certain natural maximum, simply because there is plenty of precursor.

Similar to how Heisenberg will keep cooking if Jesse keeps finding enough pseudo.

But he's not cooking at gunpoint. He's not dealing with rigged lab equipment that can't be turned off so he has to keep making more.

He's still going to go home and get a good night's sleep.

Here's some examples of brain foods that I have found to work well and boost my productivity without creating addiction, dependence or lower sleep quality:

• DMAE - found in fish and in the human body, supplementing with it boosts focus naturally and also improves the skin. It's excellent, really gives me a calm flowy focus. Also a great ADHD remedy
• Alpha-GPC - a form of choline that crosses the blood-brain barrier so that acetylcholine can be made out of it. Noticable increase in speed of typing and thinking.
• L-Phenylalanine (or DLPA) - essential amino acid, supplementing with it on an empty stomach helps produce noradrenaline and dopamine and also phenylethylamine, a low level of which causes adhd. Gets my brain into gear in the morning.

The best advice I could give you is to read widely on nootropics and how they work - and be aware that if they 'trick' your system, they create dependence and lower your baseline.

Also, if some substance is too close in the chemical processing chain to the neurotransmitter you want to optimize, for example L-Dopa, that will also lower your baseline and give you problems. Generally, the more indirect and the less manipulative and more foodlike it works, the better.

Edited September 20, 2023 by flowboy

[Jason Actualization]

Caffeine is a chemical crutch: it's okay to lean on when you absolutely need it, but long-term it will cripple your baseline state.

[Schizophonia]

1 hour ago, flowboy said:

No, you're not missing out on something.

With regular caffeine drinkers, they can't feel like their normal upbeat motivated selves without it.

So without caffeine they're at 30% happiness, motivation and focus let's say.

Then they drink it, and they get up to 80%. Wow, coffee's so great! Too bad my whole body is tense, my heart is racing, my skin is bad and I don't wake up well rested. But hey, worth it!

But you... you're cruising at 100% while those poor coffee addicts are dosing and re-dosing all day to even approach 80%.

It's pathetic and the blogs you read about the "nootropic benefits of coffee" are all just drug addicts being vocal rationalising their addiction. It's like Hare Krishna's or Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on your door, or singing in the street all day about how their religion saved them and how you should also try it. Meanwhile I'm standing here, I'm fine, I don't need to be saved and certainly am not willing to give up 80% of my life's comforts for it.

Heroin also has many benefits for mood, and if you take it regularly, you'll really notice a day without it. You feel much worse.

Doesn't make it a good idea to start.

Now why is this so..?

I've experimented with and researched a lot of supplements and nootropics (and a few drugs), and they roughly fall into two categories:

1. Brain manipulators
2. Brain foods

Brain manipulators forcibly change your system to produce more of a certain neurotransmitter, or inhibit its reuptake. Whether it's noradrenaline, dopamine, acetylcholine, serotonine, there's suddenly more of it available and it was not your body's own idea. It got tricked into it by substances mimicking endogenous molecules.

Caffeine, ritalin, adderall and racetams all fall into that category.

Here's the drawbacks of brain manipulators:

• Because the boost in chemicals is not your body's own idea, it will start to compensate for it by lowering your baseline. Which means you only feel okay if you take it. Pretty soon you're just as dependent as the heroin addict you see on a park bench, just to feel "yourself again". It just looks and smells more acceptable.
• Because the boost is not your body's own idea, it also doesn't know how to turn it off smoothly. You'll sleep worse.
• It feels fake and distorts your personality.

Now what do I mean by brain foods?

There's substances that are found in food, and/or naturally produced in the body, that are used as precursors to make those coveted brain hormones out of. If you eat more of those, your brain certainly has enough to make all the dopamine or noradrenaline or acetylcholine it wants, but it still is going to be regulated by a natural process. Production will go up until a certain natural maximum, simply because there is plenty of precursor.

Similar to how Heisenberg will keep cooking if Jesse keeps finding enough pseudo.

But he's not cooking at gunpoint. He's not dealing with rigged lab equipment that can't be turned off so he has to keep making more.

He's still going to go home and get a good night's sleep.

Here's some examples of brain foods that I have found to work well and boost my productivity without creating addiction, dependence or lower sleep quality:

• DMAE - found in fish and in the human body, supplementing with it boosts focus naturally and also improves the skin. It's excellent, really gives me a calm flowy focus. Also a great ADHD remedy
• Alpha-GPC - a form of choline that crosses the blood-brain barrier so that acetylcholine can be made out of it. Noticable increase in speed of typing and thinking.
• L-Phenylalanine (or DLPA) - essential amino acid, supplementing with it on an empty stomach helps produce noradrenaline and dopamine and also phenylethylamine, a low level of which causes adhd. Gets my brain into gear in the morning.

The best advice I could give you is to read widely on nootropics and how they work - and be aware that if they 'trick' your system, they create dependence and lower your baseline.

Also, if some substance is too close in the chemical processing chain to the neurotransmitter you want to optimize, for example L-Dopa, that will also lower your baseline and give you problems. Generally, the more indirect and the less manipulative and more foodlike it works, the better.

Yeah.
It is better to play with hormones and in particular neurosteroids to avoid dependence, because you directly change the balance towards where the brain wants to tend.

[Soulbass]

Alright guys, thanks for saving me

[Schizophonia]

2 minutes ago, Soulbass said:

Alright guys, thanks for saving me

Lol, it's just coffee.
If you want to avoid tolerance, limit consumption and that's it.

It's all a question of context.

[flowboy]

Bottom line: there's better things on the market with less side effects, if you know where to look.

I just drank caffeine for 4 or 5 days after a long hiatus, and stopped again.

A very small amount too, like one drink a day.

And now 2 days after stopping again, I feel hung over and sleep deprived.

This is why I don't do that shit. Guess I needed another reminder.

[Schizophonia]

22 minutes ago, flowboy said:

Bottom line: there's better things on the market with less side effects, if you know where to look.

I just drank caffeine for 4 or 5 days after a long hiatus, and stopped again.

A very small amount too, like one drink a day.

And now 2 days after stopping again, I feel hung over and sleep deprived.

This is why I don't do that shit. Guess I needed another reminder.

Lol, either it's a nocebo effect, or you are hypersensitive to caffeine.

[flowboy]

2 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

Lol, either it's a nocebo effect, or you are hypersensitive to caffeine.

I'm hypersensitive to caffeine.

Which is a shame because I used to drink it by the bucket and enjoy it. No more of that, it became a source of chronic stress.

In your 20s you can just burn out your adrenals like that without worry. At some point it just doesn't work like that anymore.

 

[something_else]

I think people react to caffeine differently. I can drink a cup of coffee before bed and it can even make me sleepier.

You aren’t gonna get hooked if you drink coffee occasionally. One cup a day is pretty easy habit to get into and also to kick.

Though another issue with caffeine is that it’s hard to gauge dosage unless you buy caffeine pills. A cup of coffee can be anywhere from 20mg to 500mg of caffeine. Even most of the big coffee chains vary wildly in the amount of caffeine in their coffee.

[Soulbass]

I started drinking caffeine-free coffee

I felt I was missing part on the most important ritual of humans, which I wanted to experience.

I've been a fan of alcohol-free beers before, so caffeine-free coffee doesn't seems unfamiliar

Being an outsider was fun, I'm 32 old now and I'm lookin for something a bit more casual...

I ALWAYS been fascinated by people doing "x" because it's the normal thing to do...

Doing these "normal" things are fun, I'm dissimulating

Important: I'm doing caffeine-free coffee, I'm not a crazy at all and I know what I'm doing (don't try these stunts at home).

As of nootropic @flowboy, I feel it's a bit too much, and impracticable because:

- You can't rely of these chemicals, if the company/supply/FDA regulation is interrupted for some reason.

- Running 20 km, cold showers and meditation always helped with mind clarity, I see nootropic as a "helper" when you have tried everything else before.

Thanks all for replies.

[TheAlchemist]

Here's the best take on caffeine I have heard, from Daniel Schmachtenberger. 

Basically the main points about caffeine in the video: 

• Caffeine is a psychoactive drug
• Using caffeine to deal with tiredness from not resting enough can lead to adrenal fatigue and burnout.

•  It is best used when already energized and it is used for enhancement of metabolic activity/stimulation/dopaminergic effects in an already healthy system that can handle being stimulated and has rested and repaired enough. 

 

• Rule of thumb - don't use caffeine when you feel you need it, use it when you do not need it, as an enhancement to the system. 

 

• Signs of caffeine misuse include desensitization and down-regulation, where the stimulating effect of caffeine decreases over time, and the need for more caffeine to achieve the same effect increases.
• Cycle caffeine - either use it sporadically, or every 3 months take at least a week off to help your body rebalance. For those who have been habitual users for years, it can take even months off it to rebalance the system.

 

(Time-stamped)

Ps. I probably would not have posted this if I wasn't on on a caffeine high :D. It helps me with focus and I suddenly get pleasure from mundane tasks or research and writing. Also, music is much more pleasurable for me with a solid caffeine high. 

Edited September 25, 2023 by TheAlchemist

[Rigel]

I love me a nice cup of green tea in the morning ? Coffee is way to strong for me. I can’t take it even though I love the smell and taste because it turns me into a vibrating pill of nerves.

[Soulbass]

Nevermind folks, I'm giving up:

"5 Unexpected Side Effects Of Decaf Coffee"

https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/unexpected-side-effects-of-decaf-coffee/

water is the shit..

[flowboy]

@Soulbass The things I named are not going to get banned by the FDA, because they are food. They are more natural than caffeine, you could say. You think the FDA is going to ban essential amino acids?

that would be like banning a vitamin.

[Princess Arabia]

I make this tea at home. It tastes like coffee depending on how much fresh cloves you use. I'm not substituting coffee, as I don't have a problem with it. One or two cups a week if that. I just like the taste of this tea and.it is healthy. Also maintains fresh breath because of the cloves. Can even use it for mouthwash, which I do sometimes using 1oz. of the tea. 

It's Cloves, Star Anise and Cinnamon Sticks. Just eye-ball them and lightly crush, add water to pot and boil for 10mins or longer. Let sit for a few minutes to steep for the flavors to meld. It's delicious, healthy and tastes like coffee if you add more cloves than the other ingredients. It will look darker and tastes stronger the more cloves you add. Can also add orange peel for a more rounded, balanced flavor.

You can also buy dandelion root coffee or make it yourself or Mushroom coffee.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Princess Arabia

[RawJudah]

I know this is an old post, but I recommend you never even start drinking caffeine beverages. It feels good  at first and it does make you feel alert, but after a while you will experience burnout. Then you will rely on caffeine to get through the day. Then you will realise you need to stop but you struggle because you're addicted. 

I've struggled with caffeine addiction for years now and I wish I could stop. I've tried going a while drinking only water, then I get a bored, flat feeling and I feel like a cup of coffee would elevate that feeling and it does to a point, but then I'm addicted to caffeine again. 

I seriously wish caffeine never existed in the first place,  but here we are. Some asshole goat herder had to start this shit off. 

Caffeine and coffee exist because we are working too much and not sleeping enough. If we all worked less and got decent sleep there would be no need for caffeine.

[sholomar]

This forum has an obsessive anti-caffeine bias, that said I don't recommend using it, but both my parents do with no issue.  Coffee is one of the largest sources of anti-oxidants in most people's diets which is why I generally promote it, that and I love the smell of roasting it myself, the taste of a freshly roasted and ground light roast coffee that's been brewed in a clever dripper at optimal temperature and grind. I roast decaf beans, because I don't want the caffeine, and it's nice because there's no chaff.

By the way, the compound that supposedly increases risks of heart problems in coffee gets totally removed with a paper filter. It's really only an issue if you use some method that uses a course or metal filter such as french press.

Bottom line, you can find articles telling you that just about every food in existence is going to kill you. I'm not going to live off vegetables and water so I can live to 100. That's what the glycine, magnesium, NAC, bodybuilding, exercise, and antioxidants are for.  It's about quality of life, and I have that part down.

Edited November 14, 2023 by sholomar