21 tweets · April 2020 · 268 likes · 11 retweets · read on Twitter
Most people: 1. drink coffee every day 2. never drink coffee 3. coffee only when sleepy/bored Galaxy brain: 4. Use caffeine on days you would already be very focused & engaged, to reach new levels of creativity & focus! Increase frequency of breakthroughs 🤯🚀 Thread 🧵👇
The basic gist is that the way caffeine tolerance works means that after 2-3 weeks of drinking coffee daily, your body upregulates adenosine production and now you need coffee to even feel awake & alert in the first place! So this suggests strategy #1(daily) doesn't help much...
What about strategy #2? (no caffeine) 🤷♀️ Totally acceptable to avoid a particular drug, especially if you don't know of a sustainably workable way to consume it.
Then strategy #3? (caffeine only when sleepy) If this is super rare (a 4am airport drive; morning after kid was up sick; etc) then it's like #2 but with a secret power up your sleeve—useful! But if it becomes a regular thing...
...well, if you drink coffee every time you're sleepy, and you stay up too late 3-4 times per week, then you're going to end up drinking enough coffee that you get tolerance, which will then put a cap on your max alertness! (plus maybe get dependence) Blue line, below
@random_walker, who invented this model, notes that lower max alertness for higher minimum alertness is a good trade for: - boring, repetitive work, where max output is limited by external constraints (eg data entry) - work where very-low attention is disastrous (eg truck driver)
So caffeine can't help your average alertness, but can allow you to change the variance. What about that higher-variance red line? The red peaks are perfect for non-repetitive work: - challenging technical problems - insight-generation - synthesizing nuanced perspectives!
Use caffeine where it'll make the most difference. In the 2 charts below, say caffeine moves your attn the same amount to the right. Nonlinear returns! 🔵 antagonistic: get out of the pit (function at all while tired) 🔴 synergistic: reach the peak (deep flow at 120% capacity)
Tips for synergistic caffeine usage: - get good sleep - avoid tolerance: do it once/week (maybe 2-3× during an atypical 1week sprint, then a week off) - take L-theanine to reduce jitters - maybe 1 dose first thing, then when that wanes, take a nap + more caffeine
Oh! Also, some find that taking caffeine while rested when they have no tolerance causes anxiety rather than excitement. If so, I suggest starting low & combining it the first time with some movement (running, dancing) or meditation, to unlearn "fast heartrate = anxiety"
Why isn't this more common? Probably most people who get into coffee originally do it as a daily habit, & it's hard enough to quit, let alone do something more strategic. Also, a lot of people are tired & find their work boring, so caffeine just helps them get through each day.
However! Why hack yourself into a shape that doesn't mind doing boring work? I was inspired to make this thread today because @reasonisfun & @m_ashcroft were tweeting about how coffee is a tool that The System uses for mass control of the populace 😜
And as Lulie points out here, the actual issue isn't the coffee but being surrendered to perpetually doing boring things! I'm a huge fan of rearranging your life to avoid doing things you find boring, tedious, etc.
There's actually 2 separate things here, though they kind of naturally go together: - whether to use caffeine while sleepy vs rested - whether to use caffeine to numb out & tolerate boring work, or to enhance your flow on challenging & meaningful work
I want to comment on that, given that boredom isn't 100% evitable. 1: if I start well-rested, then caffeine can sometimes make an otherwise boring task *fun*. eg I did my taxes one year with 300mg of caffeine and I was dashing around organizing biz receipts!
2: Often meaningful projects have random boring bits in them (even if they only take 1min) or bits that seem boring until you start them (then they're fun) Here caffeine (or any focus tool) can prevent fleeing challenge into distraction. Flow+work is more enjoyable than YouTube!
3: something something dzogchen something something emptiness there's a way to do unpleasant or boring things without suffering or self-coercing it's very hard to articulate what this is 🙃
I'll close with: caffeine is an amazingly safe drug to experiment with. A 10× dose isn't 10× energy but actually just weird 😒 (and will mess up your sleep) There's physical dependence (headache when you quit) but its tolerance profile caps out rather than escalating.
Contrast w other stimulants (cocaine, amphetamines, etc) which act on the dopamine system & are thus more seriously psychologically addicting. There tolerance means "take more for roughly same effects" til "more" is too much & then you die. Oh also they're illegal & expensive.
Huge shout-out to @random_walker for: - having this idea at all - writing about it here: arvindn.livejournal.com/57651.html - licensing it CC-BY-SA, so I could happily remix it, liberally quoting the original text & using his graphics, while also upgrading them I'll buy you a ☕️🙏😝
I recently read that caffeine increases broad activation in whole brain (makes sense, since it affects wakefulness) whereas dopaminergic stimulants (eg ADHD meds & their illegal counterparts) primarily cause narrow activation (makes sense, since left hemisphere favors dopamine)
