Caffeine use disorder

Re:Caffeine use disorder by danieltillett on Monday March 14, 2016 @08:05AM (#11282304)

The thing to remember with caffeine is its half-life in non-smokers is 8 hours (it is 3 hours in smokers). I have a rule to never have any drink with caffeine after midday - if I break this rule even by an hour I suffer that night and the next day. Caffine is a morning drug.

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Re:Caffeine use disorder by randallsquared on Monday March 14, 2016 @08:34AM (#11282445)

This is highly personal, and there's no substitute for experiment. My rule is no (caffeinated) soda within an hour of bedtime, and no coffee within 3-4 hours, so the variation is wide. I don't smoke, by the way.

As an aside, the whole "8 hour half-life" is astonishingly high, to me. Caffeine is nice, but it doesn't seem to have that strong an effect on me, and certainly nothing I notice 5-8 hours after. I drink quite a lot of caffeine these days, but even at times when I went off caffeine for a few weeks, I didn't get effect durations any longer than 1-3 hours.

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Re:Caffeine use disorder by jon-wood on Monday March 14, 2016 @08:45AM (#11282499)

As you say, the variation is wide. I can drink tea up until about 6pm without any problems, but if I have even one coffee after lunchtime I'm going to be up half the night regretting it.

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Re:Caffeine use disorder by togedoge on Tuesday March 15, 2016 @01:44AM (#11287675)

Depending on the type of tea you drink, this could be due to the calming effects of l-theanine [1] in tea.

I have the genes that extend caffeine half-life. If I drink an American large coffee, I get anxious. I can drink a whole pot or two of green tea and feel a nice lift in mood.

As others have mentioned, any coffee after noon and I can't fall asleep until around 2am. I avoid caffeine most days except for the occasional morning kombucha.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/nootropics/wiki/faq#wiki_l-theanine

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Re:Caffeine use disorder by maldusiecle on Monday March 14, 2016 @03:31PM (#11284958)

It's the opposite with me. I can have coffee in the late afternoon, in some cases even in the evening, without problems--but if I have a tea after 3 pm or so, I'm sure to have trouble.

Might have something to do with the strength of the tea, though.

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Re:Caffeine use disorder by TTPrograms on Monday March 14, 2016 @03:26PM (#11284929)

There's also a gene that determines if you're a fast or slow metabolizer, I think it affects half life by around a factor of two. 23AndMe checks the associated SNP.

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Re:Caffeine use disorder by danieltillett on Monday March 14, 2016 @05:41PM (#11285789)

Yes this is true. I should have added these times are averages, not constants.

Metabolism of drugs like caffeine is genetically quite variable and is quite an issue for pharmaceutical companies.

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Re:Caffeine use disorder by enkephalin on Monday March 14, 2016 @08:46AM (#11282503)

you may want to rethink that practice after having a look at this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7796154

short summary: 200mg at 7 a.m., and going to bed at 11 p.m. had following effect: "Compared to placebo, sleep efficiency and total sleep time were significantly reduced."

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Re:Caffeine use disorder by AI_Overlord on Monday March 14, 2016 @08:12AM (#11282326)

I can drink coffe at night before going to bed and still sleep like a baby. I wonder if something is wrong with me.

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Re:Caffeine use disorder by creshal on Monday March 14, 2016 @08:17AM (#11282351)

Built-up tolerance? After drinking triple espressos like water in university I could drink coffee at 10 pm and still fall asleep an hour later. Of course, I'd wake up feeling more tired than before with a splitting headache, but that's what the triple espressos were for.

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Re:Caffeine use disorder by discreditable on Monday March 14, 2016 @10:06AM (#11282946)

For me I've found that it takes a while to take full effect. I normally go to sleep around 9:30. If I drink a cup at 9pm I'll fall asleep okay at 9:30. If I drink a cup at 6pm, I'm going to have problems sleeping.

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Re:Caffeine use disorder by muzani on Monday March 14, 2016 @09:51AM (#11282861)

It varies a lot per person.

The effects are 6 hours for me, less than 1 hour for my father (who smokes), and can last over 18 hours for my wife and mother-in-law.

I haven't seen the studies on caffiene half-life, but I suspect the variation is very high.

I personally take it early morning and after a siesta.

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Re:Caffeine use disorder by krylon on Monday March 14, 2016 @09:36AM (#11282768)

Yes! When I have coffee after ~14:00, I have trouble falling asleep at night (even though I am a smoker, then again, I am not exactly a chain smoker).

Green tea is less of a problem (then again, the way I prepare it, it contains much less caffeine).

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