Romans didn't consider opium an addiction as much as a medicine. Same as many of the drugs we now consider illicit. Marcus Aurelius was taking opium every day for "stomach issues" (krohns or similar perhaps?) and "nerves".
> it has realistically speaking no negative side effects.
Realistically speaking, that's not true. I did some voluntary experiments on myself during Ph.D. corrections process and, besides resistance, when coupled with a lot of hard work for a prolonged time, it's certainly very unhealthy for the body.
If you regulate your consumption and pair it with good sleep, it's a boon. Otherwise, it's a slow-killing drug.
I think moderate consumption is a function of tolerance and the specific metabolism of the person combined. I remember reading a comment in HN, where the commenter had a genetic trait which slowed caffeine metabolism by 4 times. So, he had it inside his system 4 times longer, and caffeine had no positive effect on him. However, let's not digress.
I'm not a body hacker, and I don't like to mess with my body much, however I had limited time, this was once in a lifetime situation, so I had to put some regular hours to finish my Ph.D. corrections.
Also, it's worth noting that I'm an avid black tea drinker since 6 or so. I didn't change my tea consumption habits through my life.
First, I read about resetting caffeine resistance/dependence. The method is simple and clear: "Give up coffee for a week. You'll have headaches in day 3-4. Endure. You'll be fine". Then I started to consume coffee to the point where I felt productive, yet not tipsy. I have a Starbucks mug, it's "Tall" in Starbucks parlance. I started with two cups. One morning, one after lunch. As the resistance built up, I started to increase in a controlled manner, to the same line. Productive, but not tipsy. I was putting 10-12 Pomodoros a day (250+ minutes of truly deep work), and my mind was mushy and tired everyday at ~5PM. I never pushed my body beyond that point, because I needed that brain tomorrow. Left my desk and got rest.
I finished everything on time, left coffee for ~3 months, had the headache on day 4, alleviated with 2 sips of coffee that day.
As of today, I drink half a "Tall" every day, and feels enough. If it's too stressful, I also drink another half on the other half of the day, and these are my findings about my body.
Considering I'm not in "battle mode", I can really work well with half a mug of coffee/day.
Coffee shorts my hunger regulation and appetite, and makes me lean to sugar. That's not good. Considering my brain has less brakes and way higher idle than most people (per my doctor's words), this is double bad. So regulating coffee has a net positive effect on everything.
I can reliably build and reset coffee reliance/resistance now, since I know how my body reacts to caffeine.
I always think 10-12 hours ahead since it's caffeine's life in your body. Will I be awake 10 hours later, or will I be battling against caffeine to sleep? This is important for me.
Coffees with mild/mild-high caffeine concentrations works best for me. I don't like high-caffeine or ultra-caffeinated coffees. They make me tipsy causes heart palpitations and creates stress for no reason.
Black tea is a good aid for sustaining my focus. It improves focus, but doesn't create the same stress on my body. I can almost drink infinite amount of coffee until 2 hours before sleep, and it'll keep me collected and focused. What I live is it doesn't create an illusion of being not-tired by priming the body, so I can reliably feel how tired I am and plan accordingly.
Hope this helps, and please don't hesitate to ask for further specifics.
Perhaps you know if this makes any sense or if it's just a personal impression of mine.
I started taking coffee at 20, for some two or three years, I later started taking black tea instead. One teaspoon of Twinnings Earl Grey, to be precise.
Thing is, by any calculation I do, a cup of coffee ought to have more caffeine in it than the cup of tea. Especially since I sometimes had not one, but two cups of coffee back then. I can still do this, if I'm travelling or I spend the day outside for some reason I'd rather take coffee than tea.
Problem is, tea wrecks my sleep in a way coffee just doesn't. It feels as if tea stays with me way, way longer than coffee does. If I ever take more than one cup of tea in a day I know that I'll be feeling it the next day, maybe even the day after, whereas with coffee, as long as I don't take it too late in the day I'm largely ok. Sleep does worsen somewhat but nothing I can't manage.
It puzzles me, since as far as I know it's caffeine in both cases, I don't understand why my metabolism seems to act in such a different way.
> Black tea is a good aid for sustaining my focus. It improves focus, but doesn't create the same stress on my body.
Black tea contains 30–90 mg of caffeine per cup (and some theobromine and theophylline, which are similar to caffeine, and also stimulants.) Giving up coffee because of the caffeine but dinking black tea instead is self-defeating.
I'm aware, but as some studies [0], and my body, shows, their effects are not similar. Black tea doesn't make me tense and causes heart palpitations for me. Instead, I keep my calm and being able to focus.
I don't reduce coffee because of caffeine, but because it affects my appetite, makes me tense when I drink too much, and causes heart palpitations and makes me uncomfortable. Black tea doesn't do any of that.
Have you ever tried Yerba Mate? If so, what do you think about it? I have found it to be similar to green tea and its derivatives, but it seems to have has less pronounced physical effects -- especially compared to coffee.
It doesn't come with many positives. It steals energy from later in the day for now. Potentially leaving you an over stimulated wreck. And the level at which you notice is higher than it should be for you to dial in the optimum amount.
Much like nicotine, it fools the user into thinking the cessation of withdrawal is part of the positive effect, rather than just removing a negative you wouldn't have if not for caffeine dependence.
That is very dependent on the consumed quantity, and the time of consumption.
And is nothing compared to the next most frequently used drugs, alcohol and nicotine, hell it has plenty of positive effects.
So my initial statement I believe still stands that humanity could hardly happen upon another substance that they could use in such a huge amounts with minimal negatives.
You could say the same thing for most amphetamines.
I don't think caffeine is particularly harmful, but it is a huge stretch to paint it as purely beneficial and without side effects. As a point of fact most people getting their "morning jolt" are just treating the side effects of extended caffeine usage - they are physically addicted.
About once a year I spend a month doing no caffeine. Every single year it is quite illuminating to do through first withdrawal and then to experience the first cup of coffee. I recommend it, and you might change some of your thoughts on caffeine if you do this.
only if it has an effect on you, I tried it many times and the only effect it seems to have on me is the bitter taste and heart palpitations if I drink too much of it.
if I'm tired or sleepy and drink it, I'm still tired/sleepy but with a higher blood pressure/heart rate.
sometimes I wonder if it's just people that oversell the effect of coffee.
You might be like me and apparently 1/5th of the human population doesn't really feel the effects of caffeine. Basically goes in and out of your system without 'proper processing'. Been years since I read about it, so things might have become more clear.
I can drink coffee/red bull all day and it'll do very little. Can drink just before going to bed and sleep just fine.
I'll try to find the study on this again if you're interested.
Some coffees with high caffeine have this effect on me as well. I find that different brands of coffees have very different effects on me, I can even get a good coffee feeling from some decafs. I'm convinced it's the other alkaloids in there besides caffeine that I like
Many people have a sleep problem disguised as a caffeine problem. Also many people have a caffeine problem disguised as a sleep problem.
Taken now and then, sure, probably worth it. The part in which a lot of people's brains are seemingly unable to wake up without taking caffeine? Probably not good.
Is it known what the dosage would have been? I read elsewhere before that though they drank wine all the time, its alcohol content was very low compared to today.
