riceissa
commented
4 years ago After writing the above, I got less interested in caffeine because it started giving me lots of anxiety (almost a panic attack if I drank a strong cup from zero tolerance).
However, recently I've been experimenting with super low amounts (up to around 1/2 the amount of a regular cup of coffee).
One thing I realized is that the anxiety that comes from caffeine seems to also be tolerated, i.e. if I drink coffee after not having drunk coffee for a long time, I can get anxious, but if I keep drinking that amount for several days, I no longer get any anxiety. Previously I already knew that the alertness/increased energy effects were tolerated, but I had assumed that the anxiety would stay constant. Partly because of my own experience (see above, where I wrote "But if I increase the amount, I notice more of the side effects (anxiety, body ache)"), and partly because of things like this: "The one very important connection – if you drink too much coffee, or any other source of caffeine, that will make you anxious. I once had a patient come to me with severe recurrent anxiety. I asked her how much coffee she drank, and she said about twenty cups per day. Suffice it to say this was not a Dr. House-caliber medical mystery." https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/13/things-that-sometimes-work-if-you-have-anxiety/ That quote seems to imply that if you keep drinking the same amount per day, you still get anxious. My own experience with low amounts suggests the opposite though, and I'm wondering if this only works with low amounts.
I am interested in coming up with a good schedule of caffeine intake. Two obvious schedules that I don't like:
Right now I do something like drink one cup of coffee a day until it seems to stop working at all (maybe ten days or so), and then I stop for about a week to reset the cycle. But when I stop, I experience some withdrawal symptoms (mainly, feeling tired), which I don't like.
I suspect that a cycle with fewer days of caffeine like "drink for two days, stop for one day, drink for one day, then stop for seven days" might work better. Something I've realized is that the natural "rhythm" with which my body processes caffeine is longer than 24 hours, so if I drink coffee when I want to, the drinking times keep getting delayed each day even if my waking times stay the same. But I don't want to drink coffee in the afternoons and evenings.
A schedule should specify some period, and what to do on each day (including amount of caffeine) until the start of the next period.