4 ms·
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,
by randallsquared 11y ago
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.
- jon-wood 11y agoAs 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.
- maldusiecle 11y agoIt'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.
- togedoge 11y agoDepending 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 https://www.reddit.com/r/nootropics/wiki/faq#wiki_l-theanine