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What I’ve read and heard recently is that if caffeine is consumed after adenosine is mostly flushed out after waking (90 minutes or so after a good rest), it se

What I’ve read and heard recently is that if caffeine is consumed after adenosine is mostly flushed out after waking (90 minutes or so after a good rest), it seems as though it doesn’t interrupt sleep for most people that night. This is not true if you continue consuming caffeine past late morning, or early afternoon at the very latest. This causes your adenosine to be useless as caffeine will still be plugging receptors by bed time. That doesn’t mean it can’t have negative side effects and generally make you jittery or wired; that’s a price some people seem to pay regardless. Outside of that though it seems like some strategies can negate energy and wakefulness issues. But the main thing is ensuring your adenosine isn’t blocked from being processed out of your system by consuming caffeine as soon as you wake. If you do, the night’s remaining adenosine will just hang around until receptors are freed up (when caffeine is metabolized), and you’ll experience a relative “crash”, going from alert to sleepy very suddenly in the early afternoon. I can’t confirm that this works, but people a lot smarter than I am seem to believe this is legitimate science, such as Andrew Huberman on his Huberman Lab podcast. I don’t experience crashes anymore so it seems alright to me, but I’m just one person reading and hearing things from the internet. This could all be GPT-generated and I wouldn’t know any better, haha.

rngname22 4y ago
To clarify, are you saying that you -do- need to wait a bit (90 min) after waking up before drinking it? Like - don't do it immediately? Or bad things happen? I already know about the 'stop drinking it as early as possible' rule.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  Yes, that was very poorly worded but you got it right. By waiting 90 minutes or so, adenosine will reach a reasonable baseline for daytime wakefulness. As I understand it, adenosine will inevitably build up during the day to some degree while caffeine is occupying receptors, but not enough to really matter. However if it’s combined with remnants from the night before, or you had a ton of it when you woke up and drank coffee, you wind up getting hit with enough to actually trigger your brain to try to go to sleep. That’s why sometimes you’ll suddenly be overwhelmed with sleepiness and might even start nodding off at your desk if you had a bad sleep. In my experience it feeds into severely inattentive mental states, even if I slept really well. It kind of ruins my work day by around 2pm.

rngname22 4y ago

To clarify, are you saying that you -do- need to wait a bit (90 min) after waking up before drinking it? Like - don't do it immediately? Or bad things happen? I already know about the 'stop drinking it as early as possible' rule.

steve_adams_86 4y ago
Yes, that was very poorly worded but you got it right. By waiting 90 minutes or so, adenosine will reach a reasonable baseline for daytime wakefulness. As I understand it, adenosine will inevitably build up during the day to some degree while caffeine is occupying receptors, but not enough to really matter. However if it’s combined with remnants from the night before, or you had a ton of it when you woke up and drank coffee, you wind up getting hit with enough to actually trigger your brain to try to go to sleep. That’s why sometimes you’ll suddenly be overwhelmed with sleepiness and might even start nodding off at your desk if you had a bad sleep. In my experience it feeds into severely inattentive mental states, even if I slept really well. It kind of ruins my work day by around 2pm.