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Caffeine at night does more than keep you up late
- pessimizer 11y agoCaffeine doesn't keep you up late: "Coffee consumption unrelated to alertness" http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2010/7051.html http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2010/7051.html [2010]
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- TerryADavis 11y agoI live on a 48-hour schedule. Yesterday, I had trouble getting my 16 hour sleep. Normally, I sleep 16 hours, like a rock. I have a dentist on 9/19/2015. I don't want to fuck that up, LOL.
- rainer_muell 11y agoFor anyone wanting to skip the chain of crap articles and derivatives, those are the sources: http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/7/305/305ra146 http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/7/305/305ra146 http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2015/09/16/caffeine-night-delays-human-circadian-clock-0 http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2015/09/16/caffeine-ni...
- retroam 11y agoWish the study was not behind a paywall but...5 human subjects?
- bildung 11y ago> Wish the study was not behind a paywall but...5 human subjects? Its an experimental study, the number of subjects isn't really that important. I can't access the full text, either, but I assume they did an ABAC test pattern (control, treatment caffeine, control, treatment caffeine + bright light) or something similar with all 5 subjects simultaneously. Generally speaking, you really only need many participants for field studies, e.g. situations where you cannot control most variables beside treatment itself. The assumption is that the Law of large numbers takes care of equal distribution of those confounding variables between treatment group and control group.
- petergatsby 11y agoRead up on P-values. http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/pvalues3.pdf http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/pval...
- bildung 11y agoI'm quite aware of P-values :) I neither mentioned posterior calculation of probabilites nor talked about correlation studies, so I'm not seeing your point in linking to Gelman's article?
- kriro 11y agoIn the part that can be accessed (2nd link) they mention it's a within-subject setup so yeah "with all 5 subjects simultaneously" is correct. within-subject basically means each subject gets all the treatments as opposed to between-subject which is the typical A/B-test setup.
- chatwinra 11y ago"Its an experimental study, the number of subjects isn't really that important." I'd be interested to understand why this is? My logical reaction would be that it's always important - as a crude example, surely doing an experiment on every single human on Earth would give you much more accurate results that on say 100 people, because you'd be sure to have covered all the innate variables that exist when experimenting with humans? (different metabolisms, etc)
- bildung 11y ago>> "Its an experimental study, the number of subjects isn't really that important." I'd be interested to understand why this is? I replied to cossatot below in more detail. The short version: In studies like this one, N isn't 5, but humans(e.g. the original N) x treatment repetitions x measurement points. You are right that it would be dangerous to ignore it, that wasn't what I implied.
- chaz72 11y ago
- johnbellone 11y agoIf only caffeine kept me up during the day nowadays. I cut back to two mugs a day and am seriously dragging. Although, anecdotally, I have noticed drinking a substantial amount of water does keep the lights on. I wonder if it similarity does so in the evening?
- amelius 11y agoYou might want to check out ice cream. It also keeps me awake.
- code_sterling 11y agoReplacing jitters with diabetes seems like an unwise tradeoff.
- abledon 11y agoCaffeine is like a purchase on a adrenaline system credit card, and your body's system is probably in huge debt - might take a while to regain composure.
- yoklov 11y agoI remember reading that it usually only takes a few days (like, one or two) of no caffeine in order to reset your body's tolerance to this. Not sure if it's accurate or not, but it sounds plausible to me.
- sageabilly 11y agoThis is really awesome to hear. For years and years I have thought I was probably just weird or anxious because if I have caffeine later than about noon I have serious trouble getting to sleep that night (bedtime around 10pm). It's nice to know that there could possibly be a reasonable physical cause for this and it's not just all in my head.
- dsfyu404ed 11y ago>volunteers who drank a double espresso three hours before bedtime experienced a 40-minute delay of the melatonin surge. >double espresso three hours before bedtime >double espresso >three hours before bedtime Somebody get the CNN on the phone, this is groundbreaking work right here!!
- DyslexicAtheist 11y agoautoplaying video blaring out of my speakers, wtf
- metasean 11y agoand command-+ (mac) doesn't increase font size.
- 6d6b73 11y agoIn 20 years, we will finally realize that humans evolved to drink only pure water.
- arbitrage 11y ago... and milk?
- mironathetin 11y agoMilk from cows? No. Causes many problems (lactose, cholesterol).
- krapp 11y agoI think arbitrage may be referring to human milk, because humans are, you know, mammals.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- noir_lord 11y agoNot really across all of humanity. The majority of the human race lack the ability to digest milk (more specifically lactose sugar) once they are passed weaning. It was a relatively recent mutation in some human populations (Northern Europe et al) that allows them to continue digesting lactose into adulthood. They think this was because in Northern Climates where growing crops was more difficult milk and dairy products where a much larger source of calories than in other places as well as an excellent way of storing a valuable food product (Cheese however has relatively low levels of lactose at around ~1% compared to regular milk at ~5%). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence
- debacle 11y agoEvolution is a result, not a method. Nothing ever evolves to do anything.
- MrJagil 11y agoI wonder if amphetamines and similar substances work in the same way. On speed for instance, people can stay awake and party for days on end without sleep; that would result in a tremendous push on the circadian clock, though I have an inkling it's not simple subtraction and addition.
- Raphmedia 11y agoTaking "speeds" will have a huge impact on your body. Most people that abuse of such substance will find themselves in some sort of chemical induced depression. Your body will stop giving you pleasure responses, nothing will seem worth doing or living.
- ArtDev 11y agoCaffeine at night does nothing to me. I can finish my coffee and fall straight asleep. I do it all the time, I sleep like a log. A sample size of 5 is way too low. If 15% of the population does not have sleep effected by caffeine at all, there is a good chance that this study missed people like me completely.
- pessimizer 11y agoI can do the same, and I'm an extremely irregular coffee drinker. A lot of people in a lot of cultures regularly have coffee after dinner to aid digestion. I think whether you stay up or not after coffee drinking is largely a matter of expectation: http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2010/7051.html http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2010/7051.html "Coffee consumption unrelated to alertness" [2010] sample size: 379 People just think that they're better reporters of their own conscious experience than they are.
- blktiger 11y agoSome people aren't effected by stimulants the same way others are. For example, generally with ADD/ADHD stimulants help calm the person down where with other in general people it would wire them up. Personally, I have to take enough caffeine to have an irregular heartbeat before I notice any effect besides going to the bathroom more often.
- grhino 11y agoCaffeine tolerance built up over time may play a role.
- cpncrunch 11y agoHow much coffee do you drink in a day? If you drink a lot of coffee you will develop tolerance, so you would need to drink more in order to see this effect.