For people who do use caffeine, I recommend using caffeine tablets rather than coffee. They are dirt cheap: for me, a year's supply costs about the same as a couple of lattes at Starbucks (you can order them from
Amazon). Caffeine tablets also take no time to prepare and require no waiting in lines, nor do they force you to take more trips to the bathroom.
The downsides are two. First, you can overdose pretty easily, so keep them away from children and don't get them if you are or have been suicidal. Surprisingly, the bottle that mine came in wasn't child proof. Second, you miss out on the
possible health benefits of chronic coffee consumption (the benefits are associated with consumption of decaf, so it's not the caffeine that's doing the work). I don't believe health benefits should factor in your decision, since epidemiolical evidence is always suspect, and the diseases that coffee may protect against (type-2 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, dementia, cancer, heart rhythm problems, and strokes) would most likely affect you only several decades in the future.
I agree that using caffeine every day is probably not optimal, but completely avoiding it probably isn't either. Most people can use a given drug (including heroin or cocaine) without becoming addicted, and caffeine relatively pretty benign, so it's probably good to try caffeine out to see what it can do for you. (It is probably not good to try heroin or cocaine, since their cost-benefit profiles are less favorable.)
Many people on the Internet recommend consuming L-theanine with caffeine tablets. L-theanine (which is in green tea) supposedly makes caffeine use less anxiety- and jitter-provoking. L-theanine costs significantly more than caffeine, though.
Interesting article. Here's
the full text.
The article doesn't make the case that chronic caffeine consumption decreases performance, only that it fails to increase performance:
"There is little evidence of caffeine having beneficial effects on performance or mood under conditions of long-term caffeine use vs abstinance...Appropriately controlled studies show that the effects of caffeine on performance and mood, widely perceived to be net beneficial psychostimulant effects, are almost wholly attributable to reversal of adverse withdrawal effects associated with short periods of abstinence from the drug." [emphases mine]
Even if caffeine or other stimulants provide no net benefit and only time-shift your mental resources, judicious use can be beneficial. Stimulants can help you
* Tackle aversive tasks. Sometimes you need some extra energy to do something you've been putting off. Rather than wait till the deadline approaches, you could use stimulants to give you a temporary energy boost and perhaps get it done ahead of time.
* Concentrate when you need to. My job has modest cognitive demands—basically, I need to stay awake. When I get home, I face more-demanding tasks, such as studying. Others might face the opposite situation: a demanding job followed by a period of relaxation at the end of the day. Stimulants can help shift your energy to when it's more valuable.
* Succeed in high-stakes situations. This is essentially the same as the last point, but I need three points to justify a bulleted list. Stimulants might help you give better answers in a job interview or make you more outgoing or interesting at a party.
LMJ1979 wrote:I say this as someone with a caffeine addiction myself, though, but I'm trying to stop. I only have coffee or caffeine a couple of times a month now.
If you have caffeine only bimonthly, you probably don't qualify as an addict (except in the Alcoholics Anonymous sense of "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic"
).
LMJ1979 wrote:Most US adults can't go more than 8 hours without caffeine.
I was surprised to read in the article you linked to that "more than 80% of the population consumes one or more caffeine beverages daily."
I started using caffeine regularly (but no more than every three days) only a couple of months ago, so my enthusiasm for it might be tempered if tolerance sets in. And yes, I'm on it now.
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