Smart drugs reduce quality of effort, and slow decision-making

Re:Smart drugs reduce quality of effort, and slow decision-m... by qwertox on Thursday November 16, 2023 @09:15AM (#38289723)

Agree. If I don't drink coffee for a couple of weeks, which I rarely do due to the extreme migraine from withdrawal (3-4 days), and then drink one with half a spoon of coffee, I'm extremely alert and focused for house. Now I'm drinking like at least 10 cups a day with zero benefit.

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Re:Smart drugs reduce quality of effort, and slow decision-m... by robocat on Thursday November 16, 2023 @09:40AM (#38290056)

It is easy to quit without headaches - slowly reduce your caffeine intake over a few weeks. Quitting cold turkey (abruptly stopping) will give most people nasty withdrawal symptoms.

I regularly give up either (a) using caffeine pills and breaking them to linearly decrease caffeine, or (b) measured reduction of instant coffee over time.

Start at your current caffeine intake, and reduce slowly over say 3 weeks. It requires significant patience and self-control, but it has worked for me. The main problem I find is avoiding having social coffees: it is easy to fall back into the habit of drinking coffee if you don't follow the titration regime.

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=robocat%20caffeine%20quit&type...

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Re:Smart drugs reduce quality of effort, and slow decision-m... by ishjoh on Thursday November 16, 2023 @02:52PM (#38294527)

One easy thing you can do to reduce your caffeine intake is to drink 1/2 caff or have every X coffee be decaf. I switched to 1/2 caff and tapered down, that was a lot easier for me.

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