Rethinking Caffeine
Updated 08/19/18
I've been trying to reduce my caffeine intake for the last few months. I have had zero caffeine intake for about the previous 3 4 four weeks. To many of you, this may seem blasphemous when the average person starts their day with a cup of coffee or four. I am not advocating removing caffeine entirely, but I think we need to be more aware of the effects of the stimulant and leverage those benefits when needed. Now, I'm not advocating against pre-workouts. Nor am I suggesting you stop consuming caffeine. I want to provide a better idea of how caffeine affects the body. Caffeine should be considered a tool rather than your go-to pick-me-up every morning.
The thought process behind limiting caffeine intake was partly due to consuming a pretty hefty dose of caffeine in my pre-workout, roughly 300mg. Compared to coffee, this is equivalent to three cups worth at 3:00 - 4:00 pm, which gives it time to hit me by the time I am at the gym. Over the past few months, I noticed a smaller and smaller effect of what the pre-workout was doing for me. It's common knowledge that caffeine has a half-life of about six hours, which seems oversimplified. It just means that half of the dose is out of your system. So, in my case, I have another 150 mg to process at 9:00 - 10:00 p.m. Assuming I get about 7 hours of sleep, another half-life would have occurred, so I have a residual amount left of about 75mg. The average amount of caffeine in 8 oz. of coffee is 93mg. Now, say I have a cup of coffee in the morning; he throws a wrench into everything! The remaining dose has been bumped back up to about 120mg! We never give our bodies periods without caffeine in our systems, just like we spend too much time looking at screens or overeating sugar. Our bodies don't know what it’s like to be caffeine-free.
Caffeine blocks the adenosine receptor in the brain, which is what makes us feel sleepy. The receptor slowly gets more and more adenosine, but when you have caffeine, it completely stops the buildup. When the caffeine wears off, most people feel a crash because all the adenosine is there waiting to hit the receptor. Some people refer to this action as “sleep pressure since" it starts to build from the moment we wake up. This function is why we should take at least a few days off caffeine.
We all hear how vital sleep these days is. However, we don't know what quality sleep means and usually don't get enough. I'm guilty of not getting enough sleep and continuously trying to improve. One of the reasons I stopped using caffeine was to see if the quality of my sleep would improve. I found that the number of hours stayed the same. However, I would feel more well-rested each morning than when I consumed caffeine. I can't say I came up with these ideas on my own. Doctor Matthew Walker, author of Why We Sleep, was the most significant driving factor. He was recently on the Joe Rogan Experience, and if you want to dive into how to rewire your sleep, I highly recommend you check out that podcast. (Link at the bottom of this post.)
Now, this is what I think- we should limit caffeine to two days a week. If that sounds daunting, that’s more reason to try this out. If someone needs to take an outside substance to operate normally, they sell themselves short. If you can make it two days, I recommend taking the Tim Ferriss route and making it a two-week experiment of no caffeine. I want to reiterate that I'm not a doctor, and don't pretend to be one. From my own experiences, I believe that limiting any substance that affects a person mentally can have a tremendous benefit. Just like restricting sugar from your diet can have cascading benefits.
Let's see caffeine as a booster that can kick you into high gear when you need the boost, but it shouldn't be something you depend on to function. It's a tool and should be looked at and used as such. Our body should serve as the engine, and I'd choose not to inject some rocket fuel into my system to try to get that extra dose of energy. Let's start rethinking how we use caffeine.
Links:
Caffeine Withdrawal Recognized as a Disorder - Johns Hopkins Medicine
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
Matthew Walker on JRE
