AMA #8: Balancing Caffeine, Decision Fatigue & Social Isolation

00:00:00.000 | - Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:00:02.260 | where we discuss science and science-based tools

00:00:04.900 | for everyday life.

00:00:05.900 | I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology

00:00:12.260 | and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:15.340 | Today is an Ask Me Anything episode or AMA.

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00:01:42.420 | So without further ado,

00:01:43.580 | let's get to answering your questions.

00:01:46.180 | The first question is about the pros and cons

00:01:48.440 | of daily caffeine consumption.

00:01:50.740 | The question reads,

00:01:52.780 | what is your opinion on the net benefit

00:01:54.820 | of daily caffeine consumption?

00:01:56.380 | And how can somebody determine

00:01:57.760 | if daily caffeine consumption is right for them?

00:02:00.700 | Well, first of all, I did an entire episode about caffeine.

00:02:03.820 | You can find that by going to Hubermanlab.com.

00:02:06.000 | At that website,

00:02:06.840 | you can put in caffeine into the search function

00:02:10.140 | and you'll find links to that episode in all the formats,

00:02:12.720 | YouTube, Apple, Spotify, et cetera.

00:02:14.660 | And it's timestamped, of course,

00:02:15.960 | you can navigate to the particular topics

00:02:17.900 | most of interest to you.

00:02:19.620 | However, for sake of this discussion,

00:02:21.620 | I can summarize a few of the key points.

00:02:24.880 | The most important thing to understand

00:02:26.180 | is that for most adults,

00:02:28.020 | so that is people about age 18 to 20 or older,

00:02:32.600 | daily caffeine consumption is not going to be a problem

00:02:35.840 | provided it does not induce anxiety

00:02:39.440 | and certainly provided that not induce anxiety

00:02:42.000 | or panic attacks,

00:02:43.860 | and provided that it does not disrupt your nighttime sleep.

00:02:48.120 | This is why I always recommend

00:02:49.780 | that if you are going to consume caffeine in any form,

00:02:52.860 | coffee, tea, soda, or otherwise,

00:02:55.360 | that you try not to ingest caffeine within the eight

00:02:58.940 | and ideally within the 10 or even 12 hours prior to bedtime.

00:03:03.280 | That's because the half-life of caffeine is such

00:03:05.640 | that even if you are able to, for instance,

00:03:08.060 | have a cup of coffee around 3 p.m. or 4 p.m.

00:03:10.900 | and then fall asleep around midnight,

00:03:13.780 | the architecture of the sleep that you get

00:03:16.380 | is going to be disrupted.

00:03:17.980 | For instance,

00:03:19.260 | it is very important that you get sufficient amounts

00:03:21.420 | of both slow wave deep sleep

00:03:23.180 | as well as rapid eye movement sleep each night,

00:03:26.060 | and if you consume caffeine too close to bedtime,

00:03:28.940 | and here I'm defining too close

00:03:30.380 | as anywhere from eight to 12 hours before going to sleep,

00:03:33.960 | chances are you're not going to get

00:03:35.380 | as much rapid eye movement sleep or slow wave sleep

00:03:39.320 | that you would otherwise,

00:03:41.060 | and it is the amount of rapid eye movement sleep

00:03:43.140 | and slow wave sleep that together lead

00:03:45.780 | to whether or not you feel you had a good night's sleep

00:03:47.980 | in terms of your next day alertness and cognitive abilities.

00:03:52.040 | Now, again, some people may find

00:03:53.500 | that they can drink caffeine in the late afternoon,

00:03:55.300 | maybe even at night and still fall asleep,

00:03:57.340 | but I promise you, even if you're in that category,

00:03:59.960 | you will sleep far better,

00:04:02.100 | meaning the architecture of your sleep will be better

00:04:04.380 | and you will feel far more rested the next day

00:04:07.180 | if you abstain from caffeine

00:04:08.580 | within the eight to 12 hours prior to bedtime,

00:04:11.540 | and I should also say that none of us are perfect,

00:04:14.220 | myself included.

00:04:15.380 | I will sometimes have a cup of coffee in the late afternoon,

00:04:18.600 | and sometimes that will cause me

00:04:19.940 | to stay up a little bit later.

00:04:20.940 | Sometimes it won't.

00:04:22.240 | I don't think you want to obsess or worry too much

00:04:24.620 | about having some caffeine every once in a while

00:04:27.080 | in the late afternoon if you are still able to fall asleep,

00:04:29.820 | but don't make it a regular habit.

00:04:31.720 | Now, as far as we know,

00:04:32.880 | there is no drawback to consuming caffeine on a daily basis,

00:04:37.300 | again, provided it does not disrupt your nighttime sleep

00:04:40.260 | and provided that does not induce anxiety.

00:04:43.280 | In fact, most of the world consumes caffeine

00:04:46.060 | every single day.

00:04:47.260 | The current estimates are that 90%,

00:04:50.000 | that's right, nine zero, 90% of adults throughout the world

00:04:54.880 | consume a caffeinated beverage every single day.

00:04:58.000 | That's a staggeringly high number,

00:04:59.480 | making caffeine the most popular drug on the planet.

00:05:03.260 | In fact, because of the way that caffeine works,

00:05:06.380 | and just to remind you how it works,

00:05:07.740 | it effectively blocks adenosine receptors.

00:05:10.800 | Adenosine is a molecule that builds up

00:05:12.740 | in your brain and body more and more.

00:05:16.020 | According to how long you've been awake,

00:05:17.540 | it makes you feel sleepy.

00:05:18.800 | Caffeine blocks the adenosine receptor,

00:05:20.820 | and then when it is dislodged from that receptor,

00:05:23.980 | whatever adenosine has built up and is around

00:05:26.100 | can then bind to the adenosine receptor

00:05:29.460 | and makes you feel very sleepy.

00:05:30.860 | That's the caffeine crash.

00:05:32.500 | So if 90% of the adult population of the planet Earth

00:05:35.380 | is consuming caffeine every day,

00:05:36.820 | that means 90% of the adult population of planet Earth

00:05:40.500 | is blocking their adenosine receptors

00:05:42.900 | for some portion of their daily life,

00:05:45.500 | and then their adenosine is binding to the vacant receptor

00:05:48.740 | once the caffeine has dislodged.

00:05:51.140 | And why are 90% of adult humans consuming caffeine every day?

00:05:56.140 | Well, to feel more energized, more focused,

00:05:59.100 | to have more both cognitive energy and physical energy.

00:06:04.100 | Now, of course, most people are not walking around thinking,

00:06:06.820 | oh, caffeine gives me more energy, more focus, et cetera.

00:06:10.160 | Most people are consuming caffeine every single day

00:06:13.700 | and are consuming caffeine every single day

00:06:15.700 | in order to feel quote unquote normal

00:06:18.420 | to be at their baseline level of cognitive ability

00:06:21.880 | and physical energy and so on.

00:06:24.260 | In fact, if you look at the data on caffeine consumption,

00:06:27.340 | what you'll find is that caffeine

00:06:29.340 | actually is a cognitive enhancer.

00:06:31.140 | It can improve learning and memory,

00:06:32.740 | it can increase physical energy,

00:06:34.320 | it can increase mental and physical stamina.

00:06:37.300 | But a feature of those studies that's not often discussed,

00:06:40.300 | but that was however discussed

00:06:42.160 | in the full episode on caffeine,

00:06:44.260 | is that studies of caffeine typically are done

00:06:46.880 | by taking chronic caffeine users

00:06:49.220 | and then having them abstain from caffeine

00:06:52.020 | for some period of time,

00:06:53.060 | usually four days to two weeks,

00:06:56.020 | in which time they undergo caffeine withdrawal.

00:06:58.360 | They do not feel well, they get foggy headed,

00:07:01.400 | they have less energy, there's some malaise,

00:07:03.680 | sometimes even some mild depression.

00:07:05.640 | And then what they do is they have people take caffeine

00:07:09.680 | and take a cognitive exam or do some physical activity

00:07:13.660 | and compare their performance to what it was

00:07:15.520 | when they were in the withdrawal state.

00:07:17.860 | Another typical form of study on caffeine

00:07:20.420 | is to take people who are naive to caffeine

00:07:22.580 | or who never take caffeine and then have them ingest caffeine

00:07:25.380 | and then measure their cognitive and or physical performance.

00:07:28.120 | And in both cases, you see improvements.

00:07:30.080 | What I'm saying here is that daily caffeine consumption

00:07:33.340 | is not going to lead to improvements in cognitive ability

00:07:38.340 | or improvements in physical ability above one's baseline

00:07:41.580 | unless you either abstain from caffeine

00:07:44.220 | for some period of time, typically four days

00:07:46.240 | to two weeks prior, or you are not somebody

00:07:49.260 | who typically ingests caffeine.

00:07:51.420 | In other words, 90% of the world's population

00:07:53.980 | is drinking caffeine on a daily basis

00:07:56.180 | to be at their normal level

00:07:58.380 | of mental and physical functioning.

00:08:00.380 | So the question was, is there a net benefit

00:08:02.900 | to daily caffeine consumption?

00:08:04.700 | And here I can reliably say,

00:08:06.920 | provided you don't suffer from anxiety attacks

00:08:08.960 | or lack of sleep from the caffeine consumption,

00:08:10.920 | provided that you're mindful of not ingesting caffeine

00:08:13.540 | too late in the day, there doesn't seem to be

00:08:15.780 | any big drawback to drinking caffeine on a daily basis.

00:08:19.860 | However, there doesn't seem to be any great benefit,

00:08:22.740 | at least in terms of direct effects

00:08:25.080 | on cognitive or physical ability, okay?

00:08:27.680 | So I realize this is a little bit of a convoluted answer,

00:08:30.860 | but we have to be honest with one another here.

00:08:34.140 | Caffeine is a performance enhancing drug,

00:08:36.820 | but only when compared to the non-caffeinated state

00:08:39.740 | and 90% of the adult population in the world is caffeinated.

00:08:43.920 | So adding more caffeine above what you would normally consume

00:08:47.180 | is certainly not going to allow you to think better

00:08:49.540 | and perform better physically.

00:08:50.940 | Here's a useful way to think about caffeine.

00:08:53.240 | Most people can pretty well tolerate doses of caffeine

00:08:56.340 | anywhere from 100 milligrams to 300 milligrams.

00:08:59.740 | Depends on body weight and depends on your tolerance.

00:09:02.520 | Tolerance, of course, based on how familiar you are

00:09:05.640 | with the effects of caffeine

00:09:07.060 | and how regularly you consume it.

00:09:08.980 | A typical cup of coffee, which by the way, does not exist,

00:09:11.540 | depending on the vendor,

00:09:12.560 | depending on how much water to coffee ratio one uses,

00:09:15.380 | depending on whether or not it's French press

00:09:16.900 | or it's pour over, the type of coffee, et cetera,

00:09:19.700 | all of that is going to determine

00:09:21.660 | the total amount of caffeine in that coffee.

00:09:24.320 | But we can set some outer bounds

00:09:25.720 | on the total amount of caffeine

00:09:27.480 | that likely exists in a cup of coffee.

00:09:28.980 | And it's probably somewhere between 100 milligrams,

00:09:31.660 | that would be on the weaker side

00:09:33.540 | for a six or eight ounce cup of coffee,

00:09:35.340 | out to about 300 milligrams

00:09:37.300 | for the equivalent six to eight ounces of coffee.

00:09:39.780 | But if you were to brew your coffee very, very strong,

00:09:42.420 | or like me occasionally throw a shot of espresso in there too,

00:09:44.760 | you could get that number

00:09:45.600 | up to 400 or 500 milligrams of caffeine.

00:09:47.980 | I personally tolerate caffeine pretty well.

00:09:49.800 | I've been drinking caffeine since I was a teenager,

00:09:51.660 | mostly in the form of brewed, unflavored yerba mate tea.

00:09:55.660 | It's important to stay away

00:09:56.500 | from the smoked varieties of yerba mate.

00:09:58.220 | If you're going to get your caffeine from yerba mate,

00:09:59.940 | the smoked varieties can be carcinogenic.

00:10:02.820 | The non-smoked varieties don't seem to have that property.

00:10:07.200 | But there's a lot of caffeine in yerba mate.

00:10:09.540 | So I'll drink yerba mate and have for many, many years,

00:10:12.060 | or I'll drink black coffee or espresso

00:10:14.380 | or espresso Americano, things of that sort.

00:10:16.300 | That's my preferred source of caffeine.

00:10:18.420 | Most people are drinking coffee to get their caffeine.

00:10:20.860 | And I would say that if you are going to drink your caffeine,

00:10:23.620 | drink it in the early part of the day,

00:10:25.380 | as I mentioned earlier,

00:10:26.380 | I am a big proponent of delaying your first caffeine intake

00:10:29.700 | until at least 90 minutes after waking

00:10:31.560 | in order to avoid the afternoon crash.

00:10:33.360 | I've talked a lot about this on the podcast.

00:10:35.000 | There are a lot of clips on the internet

00:10:36.260 | explaining the rationale behind that.

00:10:38.160 | And if you do experience an afternoon crash in energy,

00:10:41.100 | I do recommend delaying your morning caffeine intake

00:10:43.520 | to 90 to 120 minutes after waking.

00:10:46.400 | Now, for people that want to get more

00:10:48.240 | of a true cognitive enhancing

00:10:50.600 | and performance enhancing effect from caffeine,

00:10:53.200 | again, you're going to have to abstain from caffeine

00:10:55.180 | for about four days.

00:10:57.700 | For regular caffeine drinkers,

00:10:59.060 | that's going to be difficult, right?

00:11:01.120 | That is going to lead to headaches.

00:11:03.260 | That's going to lead to brain fog.

00:11:04.680 | That's going to lead to feelings of malaise.

00:11:07.220 | In fact, the last time I took four days off

00:11:09.780 | or even a week off from caffeine consumption

00:11:12.280 | was when I was sick.

00:11:13.620 | I don't get sick very often,

00:11:14.760 | but when I am sick, I generally abstain from caffeine.

00:11:17.240 | And sometimes I wonder whether or not the malaise I feel

00:11:19.420 | from whatever viral or bacterial thing

00:11:22.760 | I might be dealing with when I'm sick

00:11:24.240 | is in part the malaise of caffeine withdrawal.

00:11:26.900 | I certainly noticed I feel much better

00:11:28.360 | when I returned to drinking caffeine,

00:11:29.820 | but that tends to coincide with feeling relief

00:11:32.360 | from whatever sinus symptoms

00:11:33.680 | and other symptoms I might have been experiencing

00:11:35.400 | from the illness.

00:11:36.240 | So it's not a good experiment.

00:11:37.440 | I can't tease apart those variables.

00:11:39.300 | So the short answer is for most adults,

00:11:40.920 | there does not seem to be any major downside

00:11:43.000 | to consuming caffeine.

00:11:44.000 | And there have been scattered reports here and there

00:11:46.760 | in humans showing that ingesting caffeine

00:11:49.880 | can increase dopamine receptors,

00:11:52.380 | which will effectively allow you to get more out

00:11:56.000 | of the dopamine that you produce.

00:11:57.840 | This is why caffeine has a mood elevating

00:12:00.500 | as well as energy elevating effect.

00:12:02.580 | I should point out that some people

00:12:03.900 | just cannot tolerate caffeine.

00:12:05.360 | It makes them too jittery, too anxious.

00:12:06.880 | They start sweating, they get heart palpitations.

00:12:09.520 | It's very hard for these people to build up a tolerance

00:12:11.660 | to caffeine that allows them to enjoy it.

00:12:13.300 | These are the people that can even feel

00:12:15.760 | a fluttering of the heart and a lot of energy left

00:12:17.840 | from decaf coffee.

00:12:19.920 | Something that to me is just a foreign concept,

00:12:22.500 | but some people are just that sensitive to caffeine

00:12:26.040 | that even the small amounts of caffeine and chocolate

00:12:28.240 | or decaf coffee make them feel too alert.

00:12:31.060 | And they should abstain from caffeine.

00:12:32.720 | I don't think they are in any way harming their health

00:12:35.620 | by abstaining from caffeine.

00:12:37.200 | Then there's the issue of children and adolescents

00:12:39.900 | and teenagers and young adults ingesting caffeine.

00:12:43.480 | And I covered some of this in the episode about caffeine,

00:12:46.600 | but there's been a lot of debate as to whether or not

00:12:49.200 | caffeine can cause osteoporosis,

00:12:51.100 | whether or not it can leach calcium out of the bones,

00:12:52.840 | whether or not it can stunt growth.

00:12:54.960 | Frankly, there's not a lot of evidence

00:12:57.160 | for those sorts of claims.

00:12:59.040 | And yet the developing brain is a very tender

00:13:01.500 | and malleable environment.

00:13:03.340 | And as somebody who started off his career

00:13:05.620 | as a developmental neurobiologist

00:13:07.060 | studying developmental brain plasticity and wiring,

00:13:09.900 | it does sort of make me cringe to think about children

00:13:12.860 | younger than the age of say 14,

00:13:15.380 | ingesting large amounts of caffeine in any form,

00:13:18.020 | soda, coffee, tea, et cetera,

00:13:19.940 | despite the fact that there's very little evidence

00:13:21.880 | that it can stunt their growth.

00:13:23.780 | I don't personally like the idea of the young brain

00:13:26.640 | being bathed in an adenosine receptor antagonist,

00:13:29.900 | which is effectively what caffeine is.

00:13:32.580 | As much as possible, one wants the developing brain

00:13:35.140 | to develop in a milieu of unencumbered,

00:13:39.260 | non-chemically encumbered interactions

00:13:41.060 | between neurotransmitters and their receptors,

00:13:43.080 | unless of course there's a clinical need

00:13:45.500 | for a prescription drug or a supplement

00:13:48.020 | or some modification of a nutritional program

00:13:51.600 | specifically to up or down regulate the dopamine system

00:13:55.220 | or up or down regulate the serotonin system.

00:13:57.040 | But those are the sorts of decisions

00:13:58.340 | that really should be made in close oversight

00:14:01.540 | and recommendations by a psychiatrist.

00:14:04.540 | So the short answer around daily caffeine consumption

00:14:08.620 | in young people, meaning 14 and younger,

00:14:10.820 | is avoid it if you can.

00:14:13.000 | Have your children avoid caffeine if they can.

00:14:15.060 | The occasional bit of caffeine

00:14:16.900 | is probably not going to be a problem.

00:14:18.800 | The amount of caffeine in small amounts of chocolate,

00:14:21.400 | probably not going to be a problem.

00:14:23.100 | But caffeine in the form of energy drinks,

00:14:25.420 | sodas, coffee, tea for children younger than 14

00:14:27.760 | just seems like a bad idea

00:14:29.140 | from everything we understand about brain wiring

00:14:31.540 | and the trajectories of brains

00:14:33.060 | that develop with a lot of chemical adjustment

00:14:35.400 | from other sources like caffeine.

00:14:38.500 | Now for kids age 15 to say 18 or 20,

00:14:42.660 | a lot of brain wiring is still occurring,

00:14:44.660 | but a lot of it has been completed.

00:14:46.540 | So probably not as risky to consume caffeine

00:14:50.620 | every once in a while, or maybe even on a daily basis.

00:14:52.860 | But there are two, I think there are great advantages

00:14:54.580 | to limiting the amount of caffeine that one ingests.

00:14:57.460 | And of course, in the adolescent and teen years,

00:15:00.500 | nowadays a lot of kids are consuming energy drinks and soda.

00:15:03.540 | And some of those energy drinks and sodas

00:15:05.260 | contain a lot of caffeine,

00:15:06.500 | anywhere from 200 to 800 milligrams of caffeine.

00:15:09.540 | And nowadays more sodas and energy drinks

00:15:11.900 | contain other things like amino acid precursors

00:15:14.520 | to neuromodulators like dopamine.

00:15:16.020 | So for instance, a lot of energy drinks now

00:15:18.380 | contain L-tyrosine, which is a precursor to dopamine.

00:15:21.760 | A lot of them will contain theanine.

00:15:24.020 | I've talked about theanine as a supplement

00:15:25.980 | that can promote more restful sleep

00:15:28.060 | if taken 30 to 60 minutes before sleep.

00:15:30.380 | The reason why a lot of energy drinks and sodas,

00:15:34.820 | and frankly now coffee brands are including theanine

00:15:37.820 | in the coffee or energy drink or soda

00:15:40.420 | is because it tends to have a mild anxiety reducing effect

00:15:45.420 | and it reduces the jitters that caffeine creates.

00:15:48.420 | And so that's actually a trick that these companies

00:15:50.900 | are using in order to get people to ingest more caffeine

00:15:53.880 | because by including the theanine,

00:15:55.520 | it's preventing the kid or adult from feeling too jittery

00:15:58.880 | and therefore they can continue to consume that drink

00:16:01.500 | without feeling like they're overstimulated.

00:16:03.780 | So if I were to take the parental neuroscientist,

00:16:08.780 | adult voice here, I would say avoid caffeine intake

00:16:12.940 | as much as you can until you're about 18 years old.

00:16:15.720 | But I'm realistic, I realized that adolescents and teens

00:16:19.000 | age say 14 or 15 out to 18 and older

00:16:22.860 | are going to be consuming caffeine

00:16:24.280 | in the form of energy drinks and sodas,

00:16:26.300 | but reducing the total amount of caffeine

00:16:28.880 | that one is ingesting in those years,

00:16:30.640 | it just seems really advantageous.

00:16:32.120 | Again, for all the same reasons I mentioned earlier,

00:16:34.380 | you don't want the young brain bathing

00:16:36.060 | in a bunch of exogenous,

00:16:37.680 | meaning externally introduced neurochemicals

00:16:40.540 | or in things like theanine or L-tyrosine.

00:16:43.460 | If you're going to indulge in caffeine or in energy drinks

00:16:47.740 | or theanine or L-tyrosine for that matter,

00:16:50.860 | that's the sort of thing that probably is best left

00:16:53.240 | for people 18 and older.

00:16:54.880 | And even there, if one finds that caffeine is for them,

00:16:57.380 | as do I, I think always best to try and get your caffeine

00:17:01.300 | from a clean source, a clean source,

00:17:02.820 | meaning something that contains just coffee or just tea.

00:17:06.680 | Again, this isn't a knock on energy drink specifically,

00:17:09.500 | but you really have to make sure

00:17:11.100 | that whatever energy drink you're going to consume,

00:17:13.520 | you know what's in it,

00:17:14.860 | you recognize what the different ingredients do,

00:17:17.700 | and you recognize the potential of ingesting

00:17:20.420 | those ingredients chronically over and over again.

00:17:22.600 | And I've talked a little bit about this

00:17:24.020 | on previous podcasts, and I'll get into this.

00:17:25.940 | Again, maybe we'll do an entire episode about energy drinks

00:17:29.060 | because they are so commonly consumed nowadays.

00:17:32.260 | Now, getting back to the original question

00:17:33.780 | about daily caffeine consumption,

00:17:35.580 | this person goes on to say that for them, okay,

00:17:38.900 | this is their personal experience,

00:17:40.340 | after a few weeks of consumption of daily caffeine,

00:17:43.820 | the negatives start to outweigh the positive ones.

00:17:45.780 | They're getting poor quality sleep, lack of appetite,

00:17:47.860 | anxiety, et cetera.

00:17:49.140 | And when they don't consume caffeine,

00:17:50.900 | they find it a lot easier to be mindful

00:17:52.660 | and their meditation practice is much better,

00:17:54.540 | but they're lethargic and less motivated.

00:17:56.460 | Okay, so what they're describing

00:17:57.500 | are all the classic symptoms of caffeine overuse,

00:18:00.420 | probably not abuse in this case,

00:18:02.020 | although caffeine can be truly abused,

00:18:04.120 | people taking caffeine pills, et cetera,

00:18:06.580 | in large quantities.

00:18:08.340 | We're not talking about that,

00:18:09.220 | but this person is describing the classic pattern

00:18:11.980 | of overuse of caffeine

00:18:13.740 | and the classic pattern of withdrawal from caffeine

00:18:16.420 | when they stop taking it.

00:18:17.380 | So what should somebody like this do?

00:18:20.080 | And I think that's an important question to answer

00:18:21.720 | because I think a lot of people fall into this category.

00:18:23.500 | They drink caffeine every day.

00:18:26.300 | They're no longer getting

00:18:27.240 | the performance enhancing effect of caffeine,

00:18:29.300 | so they're taking it just to be normal

00:18:30.980 | or feel like they can focus normally

00:18:32.820 | and have normal amounts of energy.

00:18:34.440 | But then if they try and come off, they feel worse.

00:18:36.660 | Okay, there are a couple of ways to do this.

00:18:37.900 | You can taper your caffeine intake off

00:18:40.740 | over the course of four to seven days,

00:18:43.180 | but most people don't have the discipline

00:18:44.600 | or don't want to spend the time doing that.

00:18:46.460 | But if you want to, the way you would do that

00:18:48.280 | is you would cut it by about 10 or 15% per day.

00:18:51.780 | You could do that by volume

00:18:52.860 | or you could do that by concentration of coffee,

00:18:55.140 | that sort of thing.

00:18:55.980 | A simpler way to go about all this

00:18:57.960 | that still will allow you to get

00:18:59.300 | some of the performance enhancing effects of caffeine

00:19:01.580 | and yet experience far less withdrawal would be two things.

00:19:05.800 | First of all, just halve your amount of caffeine intake

00:19:10.100 | for two or three days.

00:19:11.900 | So again, that could be by volume

00:19:13.260 | or it could be by concentration,

00:19:15.420 | probably easiest to do by volume.

00:19:17.100 | And so instead of drinking an eight ounce coffee

00:19:19.080 | in the morning, maybe you do four ounces of regular coffee,

00:19:21.760 | four ounces of decaf,

00:19:22.820 | or you just have the four ounces of coffee.

00:19:24.460 | You do that for three or four days

00:19:27.620 | and then you take perhaps one full day off from caffeine,

00:19:32.100 | maybe another full day off.

00:19:34.020 | You're going to feel a lot less bad on those two days,

00:19:37.900 | having cut your caffeine intake in half

00:19:39.740 | in the previous four days

00:19:40.660 | than you would if you just went cold turkey.

00:19:43.000 | And then you go back to ingesting caffeine,

00:19:45.740 | but you go back to ingesting caffeine at that 50% dose

00:19:49.580 | or what used to represent that 50% dose of caffeine for you.

00:19:52.780 | And you just continue that way on a daily basis.

00:19:55.100 | And then every once in a while,

00:19:56.060 | when you want the performance enhancing effects of caffeine,

00:19:59.020 | you go back to what was your original dose,

00:20:00.940 | which is now double what you're taking on a daily basis.

00:20:04.700 | So what we're really talking about here

00:20:05.860 | is not going cold turkey.

00:20:06.980 | We're not talking about quitting caffeine indefinitely.

00:20:10.220 | What we're talking about is cutting the amount of caffeine

00:20:12.140 | that you drink in half for about four days, okay?

00:20:15.840 | Plus or minus a day.

00:20:17.500 | And then taking two days off from caffeine completely

00:20:21.620 | and then going back on that half dose of caffeine

00:20:25.020 | indefinitely, that's your new baseline of caffeine intake.

00:20:28.300 | And then every once in a while,

00:20:29.580 | if you need a bit more of a lift,

00:20:31.080 | you ingest twice as much caffeine

00:20:32.620 | or a coffee that's twice as concentrated.

00:20:35.020 | We should acknowledge that most people

00:20:36.260 | aren't going to be really precise

00:20:38.300 | about the amount of ounces and the amount of caffeine.

00:20:41.260 | Nonetheless, it's pretty straightforward

00:20:42.860 | to know that you're reducing your caffeine intake.

00:20:44.860 | Certainly it's clear to know

00:20:45.900 | if you're ingesting no caffeine for a couple of days.

00:20:48.580 | And it's pretty clear

00:20:50.060 | when you're doubling the amount of caffeine,

00:20:51.540 | but you don't have to worry so much

00:20:52.520 | that you're exactly doubling the amount of caffeine.

00:20:54.820 | You could drink one and a half times

00:20:56.160 | as much as you happen to drink on the day before,

00:20:58.340 | or you could drink three times as much.

00:21:00.780 | You would definitely feel it

00:21:01.800 | if you drink three times as much.

00:21:03.540 | One very important thing to recognize

00:21:05.100 | is that on any day where you really spike

00:21:07.380 | your caffeine intake above baseline,

00:21:08.900 | no matter where that baseline is when you start,

00:21:11.620 | could be zero, could be 400 milligrams,

00:21:13.900 | could be 200 milligrams.

00:21:15.300 | When you double that intake,

00:21:17.440 | you will get a big boost of energy.

00:21:20.140 | And the next day,

00:21:21.420 | you're going to feel the crash from that.

00:21:23.320 | You're going to feel more lethargic.

00:21:24.720 | You're going to feel not so good.

00:21:25.740 | This has to do with dopamine receptor modulation.

00:21:27.980 | This has to do with adenosine receptor modulation.

00:21:30.620 | The important thing to do is not continue

00:21:32.480 | to consume that elevated level of caffeine,

00:21:34.220 | which is what most people do.

00:21:35.500 | And then they set a new higher baseline

00:21:37.060 | just to feel normal.

00:21:37.900 | The key thing is to just manage

00:21:40.640 | to get through that crash day,

00:21:43.500 | manage to get through that one day

00:21:44.860 | where you feel a little less good,

00:21:46.240 | or maybe even down a bit,

00:21:47.560 | get outside a bit, get some more sunshine.

00:21:49.140 | We know that spikes your cortisol in a good way, right?

00:21:51.620 | It can increase the catecholamines, dopamine, et cetera.

00:21:55.020 | Get a little bit more sunlight,

00:21:56.180 | get a little bit more movement, get outside,

00:21:58.080 | do something to offset those feelings of malaise,

00:21:59.980 | and then get right back to your original goal

00:22:02.520 | level of caffeine each day.

00:22:04.180 | There's no use in getting so quantitative

00:22:06.460 | that you make your life miserable,

00:22:08.100 | measuring things out like a laboratory chemist.

00:22:10.520 | If you're that type and you want to do that, be my guest.

00:22:12.700 | But unless you're taking caffeine in pill form,

00:22:14.540 | it's very, very hard to get extremely exact

00:22:18.300 | about the amounts of caffeine that you're ingesting.

00:22:20.620 | So it is okay to eyeball it,

00:22:21.940 | but understand the contour of how caffeine works

00:22:24.720 | and what the caffeine performance enhancing effect

00:22:26.980 | comes from.

00:22:27.820 | It comes from a caffeine intake above baseline.

00:22:30.000 | Understand that anytime you go above baseline

00:22:31.940 | with your caffeine intake,

00:22:33.140 | there's the potential of some anxiety.

00:22:34.740 | Understand that there's going to be a slight withdrawal

00:22:37.620 | effect that lasts about 24 to 48 hours,

00:22:41.060 | battle through that short period,

00:22:42.860 | and you'll be right back where you started

00:22:45.020 | and where you need to be so that you can enjoy caffeine

00:22:47.380 | on a daily basis and derive the benefits,

00:22:50.200 | because there are many benefits to drinking caffeine

00:22:53.140 | and avoiding some of the potential hazards.

00:22:55.380 | And again, if you're a young person,

00:22:57.200 | I recommend delaying that caffeine intake

00:22:59.560 | maybe, I don't know, 10 years.

00:23:01.620 | Thank you for joining for the beginning

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00:25:15.860 | [upbeat music]

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AMA #8: Balancing Caffeine, Decision Fatigue & Social Isolation

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