[HN Gopher] Coffee Stats - Maximize Caffeine Intake and Get to B...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Coffee Stats - Maximize Caffeine Intake and Get to Bed at Night
        
       Author : Blaze854
       Score  : 164 points
       Date   : 2024-09-22 20:56 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | JoeAltmaier wrote:
       | Here's the thing: never mind getting to bed, that will happen
       | when you are tired enough.
       | 
       | How about sleeping through the night? A different function with
       | different math.
       | 
       | My model is caffeine is well-known for having a half-life, from
       | three to six hours depending. That means a geometric fall in
       | effective caffeine in your system after you go to sleep (you
       | don't continue ingesting caffeine in your sleep do you? Sleep-
       | brewing?)
       | 
       | What is the function for 'tired enough'? That is, how does
       | 'sleepiness' decline over the sleep period? Because, when the
       | functions cross (sleepiness drops below the caffeine line) then
       | Awake! That's often about 3AM for me.
       | 
       | If the sleepiness function is a different time-constant, or is
       | more nearly linear (as I suspect, as long as you get enough
       | cobbled-together hours of sleep you are functional which sounds
       | like a simple unweighted sum) then inevitably sleepiness will
       | fall faster (cross the caffeine-left-in-system curve).
       | 
       | At that point you can get up, knock around doing whatever,
       | getting sleepier again. Once caffeine drops below your remaining
       | sleepiness you can get a few more winks.
       | 
       | And wake up shortly after, another hour or half-hour, whatever.
       | Repeat the rest of the night in ever-shorter cycles as your
       | curves both approach the x-axis.
       | 
       | Anyway it describes my sleep behavior nearly perfectly.
        
         | jaggederest wrote:
         | And there are at least 3 different metabolic rates for
         | caffeine, rapid, standard, and slow. As a holder of the slow
         | gene, none of these calculators work for me since for me
         | caffeine has a ~9 hour half life. Caffeine after about 11 am is
         | a bad plan.
        
           | bigiain wrote:
           | Pretty sure there's some age related effects too. Over the
           | last ~20 years I've gone from being happily able to drink
           | coffee after dinner, through not being able to drink it after
           | 5pm or so, and now to having the espresso machine
           | automatically shut off at 2:30pm - otherwise my sleep quality
           | plummets.
           | 
           | I'm 57 now, I started noticing poor sleep related to late
           | night coffee in my mid 30s. I do got fairly hard earlier in
           | the day though, I've usually had 4 double espressos
           | (somewhere between 17-21g of beans) by mid morning, and
           | usually another one or two before my current self imposed
           | 2:30pm cut off.
        
             | jaggederest wrote:
             | Yeah it's well known that liver enzyme efficiency declines
             | slightly with age. Also you may unknowingly run into
             | medications that inhibit it, which gets more likely as you
             | age and accumulate chronic issues requiring medication.
             | 
             | I'm envious of your 100 grams of beans a day consumption -
             | if I have more than about 10g / one single espresso I'm a
             | wreck for the entire day! The area-under-curve for slow
             | metabolizers is 9 times larger - 3x the duration, 3x the
             | concentration.
        
             | err4nt wrote:
             | It's so funny but encouraging to read this. I started
             | drinking coffee in college and could easily finish a whole
             | pot, or have 3 Starbucks venti drip coffees in a day, but I
             | was not sensitive to caffeine at all and could sleep right
             | after. It also didn't seem to have that wake-up alertness
             | effect either
             | 
             | Then something changed, and now I am sensitive to it like a
             | normal person. It does wake me up after a sip or two I can
             | feel it, and I can easily have 'too much' if I have 2-3
             | cups in too short of a timespan, so I've had to learn to
             | slow down.
             | 
             | Having said all of this, my personal 'last call' is 6pm,
             | with the idea that I will be able to sleep at 12-1am. But
             | if I drink coffee after 6pm I might be delaying that
             | bedtime a little.
             | 
             | It will be interesting to learn more about the effects of
             | how much, and how long. Should I be tapering off hours
             | before 'last call'? What is the best 'last call' time in
             | the day and should it be earlier? I'll have to track some
             | of this and figure this out!
        
             | ec109685 wrote:
             | Given caffeine has a half life in the body, couldn't you
             | have less coffee but drink it for longer in the day and
             | have the same result?
        
             | o_nate wrote:
             | My problem isn't falling asleep, it's staying asleep.
             | Restlessness at night has become more noticeable as I've
             | gotten older. Cutting down on caffeine, especially later in
             | the day, seems to have helped some. I now have one cup of
             | coffee in the morning, and a cup or two of tea in the early
             | afternoon. This is instead of the two cups in the morning
             | and espresso in the afternoon that I used to have before.
        
               | pfdietz wrote:
               | You might try slow release melatonin. I've found
               | melatonin increases the vividness of dreaming, though.
        
               | kayodelycaon wrote:
               | Or reduce the dosage. I've had much better sleep on 1mg
               | than the 3+ mg you find most places.
        
               | malfist wrote:
               | Everyone is different, but if you aren't already, and
               | have the time for it, try incorporating more physical
               | exercise into your day. That helped me deal with
               | restlessness at night
        
             | Pawka wrote:
             | Honestly, I've noticed how sensitive I am to caffeine when
             | I have reduced my caffeine intake. I think that it is
             | important to clean the body before starting to observe,
             | understand, and make conclusions about how a particular
             | thing affects the body. Let it be caffeine, alcohol, or
             | anything else.
        
             | dharma1 wrote:
             | Caffeine metabolism becomes less effective as you age
        
           | munksbeer wrote:
           | This is interesting.
           | 
           | One thing I am fairly sure about, the amount of caffeine
           | makes a difference to my sleep quality. If I have a single
           | cup of coffee in the morning, no more, then my sleep quality
           | seems not to be impacted. If I have several cups of coffee,
           | only in the morning, I feel great for the morning, very
           | stimulated, but my sleep is impacted. I wake up with a
           | buzzing several times a night and have never been able to
           | understand what is causing the buzzing.
        
             | Rinzler89 wrote:
             | _> have never been able to understand what is causing the
             | buzzing_
             | 
             | Most likely it's the leftover caffeine still in your system
             | that's beyond your personal threshold for quality sleep.
             | 
             | I have the same issue. If I drink two double espressos very
             | early in the morning and then no more after that for the
             | rest of the day, I have no problem falling asleep at night
             | but I keep waking up several times during the night with a
             | buzz, while my gf can drink 3 coffees per day and an
             | espresso after dinner and still sleep.
             | 
             | The only way to get rid of this is reduce my caffeine
             | intake to absolute zero, which is hard when you get the
             | smell and taste of fresh single origin beans. I guess some
             | people are just that much more sensitive to it than others,
             | genetics be dammed. I wish there was a cheap way to measure
             | the caffeine content in the coffees I make so I can
             | precisely determine my personal threshold.
        
               | munksbeer wrote:
               | > have no problem falling asleep at night but I keep
               | waking up several times during the night with a buzz.
               | 
               | Yes, that's me. I can fall asleep, but I wake up a lot.
        
           | lecunn wrote:
           | Just curious, but how do you know that you are a "holder of
           | the slow gene"?
        
             | FollowingTheDao wrote:
             | Probably though 23andMe and the CYP450 enzyme CYP1A2.
             | 
             | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6212886/
        
               | jaggederest wrote:
               | Actually went through fullgenomes.com - they apparently
               | don't offer exome sequencing any more but for under $1200
               | getting your genome sequenced is interesting.
               | 
               | If you ask anyone who works in genetics, though, they'll
               | advise you never to do it. It can be bad news, but
               | there's virtually no good news there.
        
               | dunk010 wrote:
               | It's useful to have as a resource that you can dip into;
               | for instance to check a specific thing like "how fast do
               | I metabolise caffeine (bad example as youc can get that
               | from a SNV checking service like 23&Me. However, never
               | ever EVER dump your whole genome into a program that will
               | output every match for some potential condition. Now
               | that's not for the reason you might immediately think
               | ("Oh no look at all the bad stuff"), but rather because
               | the databases that tools like this use are pretty chock
               | full of junk where some researcher threw in a reference -
               | along with a few thousand others - to say that their
               | particular piece of research implicates this gene at this
               | poistion with this variant. I've seen it with my own
               | eyes, and a lot of it is very low quality. You therefore
               | need highly curated databases where the genotype-
               | phenotype associations are well-defined and thoroughly
               | researched. You'll spend the rest of your life either
               | trying to prove/disprove every potential false positive,
               | or just worrying yourself needlessly. So, yeah, it's not
               | a bad resource to have if you can be responsible with it.
        
               | bick_nyers wrote:
               | Hmm, now I'm interested in seeing if an LLM could be
               | finetuned to give an effective quality score on such a
               | study.
        
               | FollowingTheDao wrote:
               | I had mine run twice through 23andMe just to make sure
               | they didn't get something wrong. I tried to get my full
               | genome once but the company screwed me over.
               | 
               | And I take exception to your "no good news".
               | 
               | I discovered a gene polymorphism that led to the
               | discovery the reason for my immune deficiency and mood
               | disorder.
               | 
               | I found it gave me agency as well since I know that these
               | genes are all risk genes and not fully determinant genes.
        
               | jaggederest wrote:
               | It's funny because your post in another thread is one of
               | the reasons I brought it up here.
               | 
               | I would regard that as one of the exceptions in the
               | "virtually no" caveat.
        
               | bick_nyers wrote:
               | Nowadays whole genome sequencing can be done for $300-400
               | (for 30x WGS, with 100x around $1000?), it's been on my
               | TODO list for a few years.
        
             | jaggederest wrote:
             | a) personal experience, also my mom carries it. b) I had my
             | exome sequenced in 2018, and Promethease generated a report
             | from it that showed slow metabolizer in cyp1a2
        
           | dotancohen wrote:
           | Try drinking more water. When I drink a lot of water, I feel
           | that I can drink a cup much later in the evening and sleep
           | much better at night. I highly suspect that the water intake
           | and release washes caffeine away with it (e.g. helps with
           | whatever mechanism caffeine is removed be it filtration,
           | chemical, metabolism, etc). There are lots of other benefits
           | to remaining well-hydrated, I wish that I understood this
           | decades ago.
        
         | sokka_h2otribe wrote:
         | Mm, there is more than one function fwiw you're looking at.
         | Biological processes are complicated.
         | 
         | You may enjoy
         | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9541543/ which
         | explains more than I can
        
       | mindslight wrote:
       | This is such a foreign way of looking at caffeine to me. I've got
       | no problems falling asleep. My constraint is that the more
       | caffeine I have today, the more I will need tomorrow morning to
       | even get started feeling like a person.
        
         | j45 wrote:
         | Well said. I find starting the day with hydration helps me
         | understand where I actually am in terms of rest before
         | caffiene.
         | 
         | The advice going around to try and delay coffee for the first
         | 90 minutes after waking seems to make a difference for me too,
         | any unprocessed adenosine can be handled by my brain, and then
         | caffeine is ready.
         | 
         | One explanation: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/maximizing-
         | your-morning-coffe...
        
         | senectus1 wrote:
         | same here.. i can consume a caffiene ladened drink and go to
         | sleep no issues.
        
           | bigiain wrote:
           | Question, how old are you? I lost the ability to be able to
           | drink coffee late at night and still sleep well in my
           | mid/late 30s.
           | 
           | Also, coffee power naps are totally a thing, I get a real
           | boost if I drink a coffee and immediately lie down to sleep,
           | then get woken up 25-30 mins later when the caffeine is doing
           | it's thing. Definitely end up feeling better and able to
           | concentrate deeper into the afternoon when I do that round
           | lunchtime, compared to taking a nap without first having
           | coffee.
        
           | corobo wrote:
           | idk what other quirks you've got but this one turned out to
           | be an adhd symptom for me lol
           | 
           | Coffee actually works on me now I'm on stimulant medication
           | haha
        
             | voidUpdate wrote:
             | I've found that high caffeine drinks make me very sleepy.
             | I'm still trying to get hold of some kind of ADHD
             | medication
        
               | corobo wrote:
               | Yup, I could easily finish a meal out or whatever with
               | coffee or two with no worries on how it'll affect my
               | sleep (if anything the stimulation brought my dopamine up
               | enough _to_ sleep)
               | 
               | First day I was put on (low dose) stimulant meds I slept
               | for 16 hours haha
        
         | coffeebeqn wrote:
         | Tolerance was my only issue for the longest time too. But in
         | the last few years I started to get mild insomnia in the
         | beginning of the night if I had coffee late in the day. It
         | wasn't making me feel active or awake but just unable to fall
         | asleep even if I was tired. So I'd spend about 2-3 hours unable
         | to fall asleep while tired. Now my cutoff is actually 11:00 and
         | I try not to have any after that
        
         | carabiner wrote:
         | This is called tolerance. You require more caffeine just to
         | reach baseline and it no longer confers any stimulation.
        
         | alkonaut wrote:
         | I have some of those friends too. They can drink coffee at 11pm
         | and sleep at 11.30. Meanwhile I can't sleep until 8 hours after
         | drinking coffee. I don't know whether this is differing
         | sensitivity to coffee or something else (better production of
         | whatever it is that makes you tired at night perhaps).
         | 
         | A clear and curious correlation is this: The same people that
         | can drink coffee late can and do take naps during the day too.
         | That is: if they lie down in the middle of the afternoon, they
         | could sleep for a little while. That's completely foreign to
         | me, I have never in my soon 50 year life been able to take a
         | daytime nap (at least not since I was 5). It's curious that it
         | seems like a related capability, in my small sample.
        
       | aliljet wrote:
       | Does this work to assess each individual'd actual caffeine half
       | life? Every individual is metabolizing caffeine at a different
       | rate...
        
         | 4gotunameagain wrote:
         | Line 6 of readme.md:                  Assumptions          The
         | script works on some generalized assumptions that would be
         | difficult to take into account.
        
           | shlant wrote:
           | why read anything when you can just ask the comments and make
           | someone else do the work? /s
        
         | err4nt wrote:
         | As long as you're consistent enough, if you use this tool for a
         | while could you learn how to tune the value it gives you? E.g.
         | if you know you need extra time, or less time you can take that
         | into account when reading this.
        
         | danielbarla wrote:
         | Indeed, and the variance on this number is surprisingly large.
         | From [1]:
         | 
         | > The mean half-life of caffeine in plasma of healthy
         | individuals is about 5 hours. However, caffeine's elimination
         | half-life may range between 1.5 and 9.5 hours, while the total
         | plasma clearance rate for caffeine is estimated to be 0.078
         | L/h/kg (Brachtel and Richter, 1992; Busto et al., 1989). This
         | wide range in the plasma mean half-life of caffeine is due to
         | both innate individual variation, and a variety of
         | physiological and environmental characteristics that influence
         | caffeine metabolism (e.g., pregnancy, obesity, use of oral
         | contraceptives, smoking, altitude).
         | 
         | On the one end of the scale, it'd be nigh-undetectable within a
         | few hours, and on the other end, significantly present for 24
         | hours+. I suspect estimating this number is also fairly
         | difficult. I mean, I have some idea of the _outcome_ of what
         | happens if I drink coffee at say 6PM, but I have little way of
         | reversing this into a half-life number.
         | 
         | [1] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK223808/
        
       | ac130kz wrote:
       | Or drink green tea that negates these effects via l-theanine
       | automatically.
        
         | astura wrote:
         | The more likely explanation is that green tea is just much
         | lower in caffeine.
         | 
         | l-theanine is available in pills & powder, which can be
         | consumed with coffee.
        
       | pratio wrote:
       | This looks like a windows only app, here's another source, that
       | runs on the browser. https://www.gkbrk.com/wiki/caffeine-
       | halflife/.
       | 
       | Not affiliated, I just use it
       | 
       | Also, Smokers metabolise caffeine faster.
       | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/657717/
        
         | adamnew123456 wrote:
         | They only have Windows binaries, but it's just Python 3 with
         | Tkinter. Should work anywhere if you have a GUI-enabled Python
         | (eg python3-tkinter).
        
       | niemandhier wrote:
       | Cool. But to guard your sleep a bit more than just caffeine blood
       | concentration is needed.
       | 
       | Caffeine will influence your sleep schedule by influencing your
       | cicardian clock via its effect on the underlying signaling.
       | 
       | That effect stacks with that of bright light etc, so half-life is
       | not enough.
       | 
       | Rule of thump: 2 espressos 3h before normal bedtime will delay
       | your sleep by ca. 40 minutes even without bright light.
       | 
       | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4657156/#:~:tex....
        
       | FollowingTheDao wrote:
       | A note about caffeine and adenosine. What keeps you awake is that
       | adensosine turns into inosine via Adensoine Deaminase (which
       | needs zinc). Inosine ends up inhibiting the GABA receptor[1].
       | 
       | [1]https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02255859
       | 
       | When I drink caffeine I get mild hallucinations and my blood
       | pressure skyrockets.
       | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8421806/
        
       | froh wrote:
       | great! now, has anybody found apps to approximate caffeine
       | contents from bean, roast and prep?
       | 
       | this could be a basis for computation:
       | 
       | How Much Caffeine in Coffee Cup? Effects of Processing
       | Operations, Extraction Methods and Variables
       | 
       | Carla Severini, Antonio Derossi, Ilde Ricci, Anna Giuseppina
       | Fiore and Rossella Caporizzi
       | 
       | Reviewed: 05 April 2017 Published: 21 June 2017
       | 
       | DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.69002
       | 
       | open access:
       | 
       | https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/55623
        
       | bilsbie wrote:
       | Coffee must have a very different half life in me. Even 400mg in
       | the morning won't completely leave my system over 24 hours. So it
       | seems to gradually build up and by the fourth day of 400 mg I
       | can't sleep at all.
        
         | kayodelycaon wrote:
         | Everyone is different. I can't tolerate the amount in decaf
         | coffee.
        
       | bilsbie wrote:
       | I don't have a link handy but I was just reading that broccoli
       | can speed up caffeine metabolism!
       | 
       | Someone should do a test.
       | 
       | More broadly we should be researching products to increase
       | caffeine metabolism. It would have a huge market.
        
       | delichon wrote:
       | I had a >300mg caffeine/day energy drink habit for a few of
       | years. It took around six months to get past the additional
       | fatigue after quiting. There seems to be some long term effect on
       | me way beyond the half life. Does everyone else get past the
       | effects of going cold turkey in a matter of hours?
        
         | hbs18 wrote:
         | Would gradually decreasing the amount of caffeine consumed have
         | made quitting the habit easier?
        
           | e1ghtSpace wrote:
           | I quit caffeine in January and it took me about the same - 6
           | months for the fatigue to go away - though I would say it
           | gets much easier after 3 months. I think gradual decrease
           | would make it easier but it would take longer. You might need
           | to step down to one cup of coffee/tea a day for 6 months
           | before quitting. I ended up mixing small amounts of instant
           | coffee with decaf instant coffee so that at the end of the
           | day it was like I had only consumed one cup of coffee. I only
           | did that for a few weeks and then just quit altogether and
           | still got huge fatigue. I have recently started going for
           | runs almost every day and that has helped me a lot so you may
           | be in a better position if you exercise. I tried lifting
           | weights for ages but couldn't get into it then I switched to
           | running and found that to be way better at reducing fatigue
           | for me.
        
         | jessyco wrote:
         | Not a chance. The body has to adapt and start producing
         | chemicals naturally again which it hasn't. You'll also have to
         | go through the addiction side effects of the habit which can be
         | hard for your mental health. In my experience it's taken about
         | 2 weeks for my body to adjust and get rid of the side
         | effects... but then again _sips coffee_ I 've not stopped for
         | to long.
        
         | systems_glitch wrote:
         | I went cold turkey after developing a facial tic and realizing
         | I was consuming 1000 - 1200 mg of caffeine a day (mostly
         | coffee, French press and canned, with some energy drinks too).
         | I was 100% not aware that caffeine is physically addictive and
         | causes receptor changes in your brain. Aside from withdrawal
         | symptoms (joint aches and pains for me), the fatigue didn't
         | fully go away after several months.
         | 
         | What did "fix" it was bringing it up to my doctor at my yearly
         | checkup -- I explained that my mystery joint pains from a few
         | years ago were almost certainly physical symptoms of caffeine
         | withdrawal. This led to "why in the world were you consuming
         | that much?!" questions and an eventual diagnosis of adult ADHD
         | (likely lifelong and never diagnosed). 10 mg of generic ritalin
         | twice a day and not only is the no-caffeine fatigue gone, but I
         | basically don't tolerate caffeine anymore and have zero desire
         | to consume it. Fortunately the local coffee roaster has a decaf
         | :P I love coffee with or without the caffeine.
        
           | ectospheno wrote:
           | My last non-decaf drink was early July. Went from ~1000 mg a
           | day to ~60. Change in sleep was pretty dramatic. I am sleepy
           | every evening. Sleepy during the day just means I'm bored. I
           | wake up feeling more rested.
           | 
           | The third day quitting was rough. Other than that it was
           | pretty easy. Now my biggest complaint is finding decaf when
           | I'm out.
        
             | toyg wrote:
             | _> my biggest complaint is finding decaf when I'm out_
             | 
             | I've been drinking decaf for a long time (now exclusively
             | so), and this is a real issue sadly. Even when you go to a
             | regular coffeeshop that has it, it's often been roasted and
             | ground aaaaages ago (because of low demand) and then very
             | loosely preserved, which results in drinks that taste bad
             | and are potentially unsafe.
        
           | highcountess wrote:
           | It's minimal, but just FYI; caffeine free coffee still has
           | small amounts of caffeine.
        
           | cruffle_duffle wrote:
           | Not to intrude but I highly recommend you "play around" with
           | longer acting ADHD meds. Generic short acting Ritalin is the
           | worst. It doesn't last long and you can "feel it go away".
           | There are much better meds that have the same underlying drug
           | but in much better delivery mechanisms.
           | 
           | I'm sure you've done the homework but if anybody is reading
           | who hasn't... if generic short acting ritalin works, great!
           | You know you respond to stimulant adhd meds. Now go find a
           | better long acting one... focalin xr, adderal XR, vyvanse,
           | etc...
        
         | TinkersW wrote:
         | Hum I sometimes just don't drink coffee for a week or whatever,
         | and never noticed any symptoms
        
       | systems_glitch wrote:
       | As a heavy caffeine consumer since at least middle school (I'm 37
       | currently): consider why you're wanting so much and maybe talk to
       | your doctor about it. Turns out I was dealing with ADHD probably
       | my whole life and caffeine abuse was a cope.
        
         | hombre_fatal wrote:
         | Though ADHD meds tend to have even more extreme physiological
         | effects on the body than a bunch of caffeine. But at least, in
         | return, they work.
        
       | Dowwie wrote:
       | I've been replacing most of my morning coffee with yerba mate.
       | Yerba Mate isn't a roller coaster ride of highs and lows but a
       | smooth, elevated sense of caffeine alertness.
        
         | filcuk wrote:
         | I would have like that, but trialing it for several weeks it
         | seems too much effort and caution is required (I.e. easier to
         | ruin a brew). I take <5 minutes to make a coffee from roasted
         | beans, whilst yerba required expertly making a stable mound,
         | priming an isolated kettle, then pumping water in slowly
         | throughout the day as to not over-extract.
         | 
         | Does it get much better with experience?
        
           | swah wrote:
           | 11 seconds mate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laZ72qWdBSQ
        
           | flobosg wrote:
           | Don't overthink it: add some yerba mate into a container, put
           | the straw ( _bombilla_ ), use a thermos to pour some hot
           | water[1], sip it, pour again.
           | 
           | [1]: Or cold if you fancy -
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terer%C3%A9
        
           | dharma1 wrote:
           | There's also Guayusa which is pretty much same routine as tea
        
             | flobosg wrote:
             | Mate cocido as well:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_cocido
        
       | astura wrote:
       | Caffeine sensitivity and metabolism is highly, highly
       | individualized, and it's affected by medications, etc. Its a much
       | better idea to learn your own body tolerance/limits than rely on
       | a generic app. It will vary.
       | 
       | You might also have many other reasons to limit caffeine besides
       | being able to sleep at night - heart issues or migraines for
       | example. An app can't take these sorts of things into account.
       | 
       | Caffeine pretty much doesn't effect me, so I will have a cup of
       | coffee and go right to bed if I want to. I also can be a regular
       | consumer for weeks-to-months and stop suddenly and have none of
       | the terrible withdrawal symptoms people always talk about.
        
       | devops000 wrote:
       | Why not a web app?
        
       | alienlike wrote:
       | The HiCoffee app for iOS has been a great resource for me. It
       | allows parameterized inputs for your personalized caffeine half-
       | life, bedtime, bedtime caffeine levels, and daily caffeine limit.
       | As you log your intake, it shows a nice chart of caffeine in your
       | body throughout the day. The visualization has really helped me
       | understand how caffeine is affecting me, and it has been very
       | helpful in curbing my caffeine intake when it has gotten away
       | from me. As an added bonus, the app has a lot of caffeine data on
       | common drinks on the market.
        
       | xpe wrote:
       | Does anyone have personal experience or an understanding of why
       | sometimes coffee in the afternoon actually results in a feeling
       | of perceived tiredness?
        
         | xvedejas wrote:
         | This is known as a "paradoxical" reaction:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradoxical_reaction
        
         | toyg wrote:
         | From what I understand (I'm not a scientist), caffeine doesn't
         | "give" you energy, but rather makes your body _ignore the
         | tiredness_ , by turning off some of the machinery that would
         | make you feel tired.
         | 
         | By having coffee in the morning and then in the afternoon, you
         | build a "high" of caffeine that forces most of your "alert
         | systems" to shut down. Once the peak wears off though, your
         | body starts remembering to alert you to tiredness, which by
         | then is often multiplied by the fact that by ignoring tiredness
         | you've pushed your system hard when it was already tired. Hence
         | you might feel like crashing.
         | 
         | On top of that, caffeine de-hydrates, so if you've not had
         | enough water, your body will start to crawl.
         | 
         | On top of that, a lot (most?) people will have sugar with their
         | coffee, and often quite a lot of it. Sugar can cause similar
         | "crashes", particularly in the obese (like me), and obviously
         | this combines with the abovementioned items.
        
           | martinpw wrote:
           | > From what I understand (I'm not a scientist), caffeine
           | doesn't "give" you energy, but rather makes your body ignore
           | the tiredness, by turning off some of the machinery that
           | would make you feel tired.
           | 
           | I have heard this too, but it doesn't _feel_ like this to me,
           | it feels like a stimulant getting me to a state above and
           | beyond the one I would be in without the caffeine. There are
           | also a lot of references to caffeine as a stimulant. So what
           | is really going on?
        
         | vren wrote:
         | Are you having coffee with milk? Casein/whey allergies affect a
         | single-digit number of the population and can lead to feelings
         | of sluggishness. Try black/almond/oat/etc.
        
         | dr_orpheus wrote:
         | Yeah, I have had this feeling as well. I don't think it is a
         | direct cause of the coffee consumption and is more of an
         | association that the tiredness is still building rapidly at the
         | time you decide you need an afternoon pick-me-up. There is a
         | hysteresis in the caffeine actually kicking in leading to the
         | perception that drinking that cup of coffee in the afternoon is
         | making you more tired.
         | 
         | My understanding (I don't have any experience in any
         | bioscience, just an avid coffee consumer) is caffeine works
         | because it blocks receptors of adenosine which has a depressive
         | effect and is a signaler that makes you tired. While the
         | caffeine is blocking these receptors, the adenosine is still
         | building up. So once the caffeine starts to wear off all of the
         | adenosine comes rushing in to those receptors and you start to
         | crash. Drinking more caffeine after you have started to feel
         | tired now takes longer for the caffeine molecules to start to
         | muscle in and start filling those receptors again. If you can
         | start to clear out the tiredness receptors ahead of the
         | caffeine hitting them it will make the caffeine more effective.
         | This has led some people to start taking a "coffee nap" where
         | you drink you afternoon coffee, immediately take a short nap to
         | help the caffeine be even more effective when you wake up.
        
         | digging wrote:
         | Have you tried a "coffee nap"? I find that if I just drink
         | caffeine to counteract building tiredness, it's not going to
         | help. Like sponging up water from a broken faucet. But if I lay
         | down and rest (this doesn't have to include sleep, I set an
         | alarm and let my body do what it needs, but the primary factor
         | is giving your brain the peace it needs to process and flush
         | stress accumulated through the day, in pseudoscientific terms),
         | and then drink coffee, I'm reset and it can take effect.
         | 
         | The "Coffee Nap" is where your drink a cup of coffee (quickly,
         | I guess), then lay down for 10-20 minutes to rest, and by the
         | time you get up the caffeine will begin to kick in. I find that
         | process to be a bit more stress-inducing.
        
         | avandekleut wrote:
         | Im the same, caffeine after ~1pm results in afternoon sleepies.
         | I have ADHD and caffeine affects me differently.
        
       | aantix wrote:
       | Please take in to account slow vs fast caffeine metabolizer.
       | 
       | "CYP1A2 Gene: Fast or Slow Caffeine Metabolizer?"
       | 
       | https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/liver-detox-genes-cyp1a2/
       | 
       | This is one of those subjects where people argue past each "I can
       | drink a cup of coffee and sleep like a baby!" vs "One cup of
       | coffee in the morning and my sleep quality is impacted". And
       | neither understands how the other can have a vastly different
       | personal experience.
       | 
       | This extends to any online discussion regarding weight loss/gain,
       | politics, wars, etc.
        
         | lagniappe wrote:
         | I think this is me, interesting.
        
         | wnolens wrote:
         | Oh wow, I'm surprised that this is not common knowledge given
         | how common coffee is. I didn't even know it was a thing.
         | 
         | File me under "A cup of coffee feels like a small dose of MDMA"
        
           | seper8 wrote:
           | Lucky you! LOL. Hope it doesnt come with the nasty comedown
           | :P
        
             | wnolens wrote:
             | It's a thin silver lining.
             | 
             | I can't have coffee multiple days in a row, else I'll
             | experience panic attacks (and in that moment i think I'm
             | going to die, nearly reaching for a phone to call 911). And
             | can't partake in coffee ~95% of the time (friends don't
             | have decaf, a ton of nicer coffee shops don't either, and
             | often decaf is neglected so i'm drinking black water). I
             | still love the taste of coffee, so i've kinda been robbed
             | of that unless i'm at home and can make it myself.
        
           | aantix wrote:
           | 1) Slow metabolizers of caffeine have an increased risk of
           | hypertension or a cardiac event with coffee consumption.
           | Whereas fast metabolizers may have net positive health
           | benefits from coffee consumption.
           | 
           | 2) We genuinely lack fidelity on so much subjects that we
           | confidently pontificate about. I've read several reports that
           | coffee is a "net positive". Imagine niavely following that
           | advice your entire life only to realize you're a slow
           | metabolizer and you've been increasing your risk by
           | consuming?
           | 
           | There probably so many aspects to our lives that have genetic
           | components that no one knows about or acknowledges. Even to
           | the point where people will shame others.
           | 
           | "I don't understand, I can drink a whole pot of coffee before
           | bed and sleep like a baby. You'll be fine."
           | 
           | "I don't understand, why can't you just eat less and exercise
           | more and then maybe you wouldn't be a fatty?"
           | 
           | They have no clue.
        
           | embwbam wrote:
           | For anyone else who discovers they are a fast metabolizer of
           | coffee: try eating a big breakfast before drinking coffee to
           | slow absorption.
           | 
           | I wanted to be a coffee drinker for YEARS, but it made me
           | really high, and I felt super tired later in the day. I don't
           | know why I didn't connect the dots until I searched my
           | genome, but once you know whether you are a fast or slow
           | metabolizer you can play all sorts of games. I can now drink
           | coffee _before_ dinner, and the crash hits right at bedtime.
        
             | BeFlatXIII wrote:
             | For me, I found the secret was eating anything other than
             | cereal (or egg & toast) for breakfast. Those seem to make
             | me jittery. Eating something like yesterday's dinner
             | leftovers for breakfast turns the coffee into an on switch
             | instead of leaving me exhausted but adding jitters and
             | sleeplessness.
        
         | ben7799 wrote:
         | I think people simplify this too much. Fast metabolizer doesn't
         | mean it just doesn't effect you.
         | 
         | I am an ultra-fast metabolizer on CYP1A2 based on genetic tests
         | and yet I can still easily get negative side effects from
         | caffeine. This is not an on/off thing, most of these
         | metabolizers are rated on scale of 4 or 5 levels IIRC. I have
         | been told the understanding of some of these metabolizer tests
         | is not that great. They can test for it but they don't really
         | understand how it changes things that well. The bigger thing
         | with these tests is they point towards people of different
         | genetic backgrounds needing different drugs or different doses
         | of some drugs when it comes to certain treatments and that
         | typical drug guidelines are heavily biased towards male
         | patients with typical Northern European genetic
         | characteristics. If you're an ultra-fast caffeine metabolizer
         | there are apparently some drugs that don't work correctly on
         | you.
         | 
         | I typically try to limit myself to only 2 caffeine drinks a
         | day.
         | 
         | It's possible the tests can be wrong I guess. It's also
         | possible I still metabolize it faster than usual but I have
         | some other thing going on that makes me get jittery or anxious
         | from caffeine easily. I suspect what happens is I just get a
         | rush of the effects and then they wear off faster than usual
         | but with a larger effect.
        
         | pazimzadeh wrote:
         | Also needs to take into account if/when you're exposed to
         | nicotine since nicotine can affect caffeine metabolism by
         | CYP1A2 depending on your genotype.
         | 
         | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3243019/
        
       | aantix wrote:
       | To determine whether you're a slow or fast caffeine metabolizer..
       | 
       | Wait for a sale at Nebula.org. Get your whole genome sequenced.
       | ~$200. Having your whole genome sequenced could have added
       | benefits down the road.
       | 
       | Download the .BAM file. It will be several gigabytes.
       | 
       | Use WSG Extract to generate the 23andMe raw data files.
       | 
       | https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/convert-whole-genome-file/
       | 
       | Connect that data file to Genetic Life Hacks. Take a look at the
       | article on CYP1A2. This will show you whether you're a slow
       | metabolizer or not.
       | 
       | https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/liver-detox-genes-cyp1a2/
       | 
       | The linked data file at GLF never uploads to the server. All
       | analysis is local, client side.
        
         | smith7018 wrote:
         | Thank you for this, I've wanted to do genetic testing for years
         | but don't want it to be stored on anyone's server. Can you
         | explain how it's not stored on any server? Like, you're
         | downloading the .BAM file from Nebula; doesn't that mean they
         | hold onto the data?
        
           | petercooper wrote:
           | Anyone who does the actual sequencing has the data. I think
           | they mean the final service that does the _analysis_ runs
           | locally in the browser. You still need to trust whoever does
           | the sequencing.
        
             | rahimnathwani wrote:
             | I think the point is to prevent the data from being linked
             | to your identify (name, address etc.).
        
               | tehjoker wrote:
               | Your identity can be reconstructed from relative's
               | samples. If you submit your sequence its out of your
               | hands forever. The only way to do this privately is to do
               | the sequencing in your own lab.
        
               | uneoneuno wrote:
               | I sequence my own genome in my own private lab. At least
               | weekly. The rush when the sequencing begins. I almost
               | can't help but sequence all over the place.
        
           | aantix wrote:
           | Nebula.org does the data sequencing.
           | 
           | They support anonymous sequencing.
           | 
           | https://nebula.org/anonymous-seq/
           | 
           | Genetic Life Hacks provides the analysis on a number of
           | health and disease related topics. Their analysis is simply
           | allele matching for any given topic (string comparisons).
           | It's all done within the browser.
           | 
           | https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/faqs-about-
           | genetics/#:~:tex...
        
             | hiatus wrote:
             | > They support anonymous sequencing.
             | 
             | > https://nebula.org/anonymous-seq/
             | 
             | The button to purchase says "coming soon" for me.
        
               | rahimnathwani wrote:
               | Same for me (in the US).
        
         | borg16 wrote:
         | this is wonderful.
         | 
         | can i ask how you went about arriving at this workflow?
        
         | taeric wrote:
         | I'm curious if there is a basic set of tests you can do with
         | drinking locally to know one way or the other, as well?
        
           | aantix wrote:
           | Measure your blood pressure.
           | 
           | Measure before consumption. Take three different readings.
           | 
           | Measure at one hour intervals after caffeine consumption.
           | 
           | Fast metabolizers BP should return to baseline within a
           | couple of hours.
           | 
           | Mine would remain elevated for 10-12 hours.
        
             | Cthulhu_ wrote:
             | Did you measure your baseline blood pressure without
             | caffeine as well?
        
               | aantix wrote:
               | Yes.
        
               | earleybird wrote:
               | How many hours/days/weeks should you be caffeine free for
               | the baseline BP?
        
               | aantix wrote:
               | A couple of days.
               | 
               | I usually have to go through a withdrawal headache first.
        
             | taeric wrote:
             | I'm assuming elevated is purely relative to your baseline?
             | 
             | Oddly, I don't think my blood pressure changes much at all.
             | Will try this test again, though.
        
         | Y_Y wrote:
         | 23andme has a "report" about this called Caffeine Consumption.
         | The markers they use are rs4410790 and rs2472297, whereas
         | geneticlifehacks.com talks about rs762551. I'm not sure what to
         | make of that, since that second 23andme one is "near" cyp1a2.
         | 
         | https://you.23andme.com/reports/wellness2.caffeine_consumpti...
        
           | onethumb wrote:
           | This article seems to tie them together nicely:
           | https://www.gbhealthwatch.com/Trait-Caffeine-Consumption.php
        
         | candiddevmike wrote:
         | You can also search for the CYP1A2 gene using Nebula's gene
         | analysis: https://portal.nebula.org/reporting/gene-analysis
         | 
         | Look at the variants to see if you have rs762551--that means
         | you're a rapid metabolizer.
        
         | mapt wrote:
         | When I think about sequencing, I think about verifiability.
         | With anonymity blinkers on, you could give me several gigabytes
         | of random data and I'd have limited recourse.
         | 
         | Will Nebula give me an intelligible whole-genome data file if I
         | happen to be a Golden Retriever?
        
           | aantix wrote:
           | Totally understand.
           | 
           | Luckily I had previously completed 23andMe, so I could cross
           | reference that data with that generated by Nebula/WSG
           | Extract.
           | 
           | My caffeine metabolism did match up.
        
         | idiliv wrote:
         | Is the "Ultra Deep" analysis worth it over the standard "Deep"
         | analysis?
        
         | wakefulsales wrote:
         | nebula genomics uses chinese labs - would be careful about your
         | data
        
           | squigz wrote:
           | Why?
        
         | wslh wrote:
         | Do you have other alternatives which are more privacy
         | preserving? The last time I heard about 23andMe was here in HN
         | [1].
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=0&prefix=fal...
        
         | squigz wrote:
         | nebula.org privacy policy.
         | 
         | https://nebula.org/blog/privacy-policy/
        
       | karlzt wrote:
       | Reminder: too much coffee will give you diarrhea.
        
       | bschmidt1 wrote:
       | Feature requests:
       | 
       | - Let me save coffees I normally drink on file so I can just
       | choose my regulars: "Temple pour over", "Starbucks Americano",
       | etc. and it knows the ounces and mg of caffeine in that drink.
       | 
       | - Let me define my wake/sleep times, or like the coffees keep a
       | few saved times to easily choose from later.
       | 
       | - After I drank the first coffee, it should ask me if I want
       | another one at the optimal peak (unless it's too near to my sleep
       | hour). Partner with DoorDash to fulfill the order.
       | 
       | - The important part: Because DoorDash drivers will occasionally
       | no-show, or drink the coffee themselves, you'll need some extra
       | cash to cover costs, comp angry customers, etc. so you'll need a
       | Series A. So we need to convert your UI into a ChatGPT wrapper
       | that converses with the user in a friendly way, rather than in
       | the VB6-esque UI I see here (as slick as it is).
        
       | alkh wrote:
       | I had a similar idea to track my caffeine intake(assuming that
       | the half-life is 6 hours). The only question I haven't had time
       | to look into yet is what is the biological effect of previously
       | taken vs newly taken caffeine? Say I had a cup of coffee at 9 am
       | and then have another one at 9+6 hours=3 pm. Assume that 1 cup of
       | coffee has 90 mg of caffeine. Does it mean that at that moment, I
       | will have to track 2 different half-lifes? That is, I have
       | 90/2=45 mg of caffeine from cup #1 and 90 mg of caffeine from cup
       | #2 at 3 pm. Should I just add those up and track the combined
       | amount now or should it be kept separate? I am leaning towards
       | the latter because I think that the effect(i.e. alertness) will
       | be higher with the newly digested caffeine and not the one taken
       | 6 hours ago? No idea how true this is though as I am not a
       | biologist :)
        
         | slwvx wrote:
         | If I were to estimate my blood caffeine, I'd calculate the
         | caffeine right before I took more, add that to the new
         | caffeine, and use that in the exponential decay function.
        
       | standardUser wrote:
       | In my many years of consuming many drugs, no rule is more obvious
       | than the fact that each person responds to different drugs
       | differently, develops tolerances differently and develops
       | addictions differently. The only way to understand drugs is to
       | start from the position that my experience and your experience
       | are almost certain to be different.
        
       | yoyohello13 wrote:
       | Quitting caffeine was one of the best health decisions I've ever
       | made. My sleep is much better and I have just way more energy in
       | general than when I was a heavy coffee drinker. The craziest
       | thing is now when I wake up in the morning... I'm just awake.
       | There is no groggy pre-coffee malaise.
        
         | mettamage wrote:
         | How long did it take to not wake up groggy?
        
           | yoyohello13 wrote:
           | It took me about 3 months to get through the worst of the
           | withdrawals and noticing sleep improvements.
        
       | scop wrote:
       | This is innovation
        
       | byyoung3 wrote:
       | 3pm as a limit seems to work pretty well for me.
        
       | ulrischa wrote:
       | But why a desktop app? A simple website would do the job
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-09-23 23:02 UTC)