HOW TO – Use caffeine efficiently

Caffeine_molecule.jpg

Scienceblogs has an interesting post up explaining how to maximize the benefits of caffeine for everyday use -

A landmark 2004 study showed that small hourly doses of caffeine (.3mg per kg of body weight [approx 20 mg per hour; thanks digg!]) can support extended wakefulness, potentially by counteracting the homeostatic sleep pressure, which builds slowly across the day and acts preferentially on the prefrontal cortex (an area of the brain thought responsible for executive and “higher” cognitive functions).

It’s often tempting to go for that uber-sized java when you’re trying to finish something important – but if you need a boost that’ll last more than an hour or so you’ll want to spread out those milligrams. The article includes other info like “How to play to your cognitive strengths” as well as a dizzying amount of journal citations (appears the author’s following his own advice). -Link

From the pages of MAKE:
bottomless portafilter
The Bottomless Portafilter – MAKE:04 p.117 -Link

3 Responses to HOW TO – Use caffeine efficiently

  1. j4ckknife on said:

    weird to see drugs advertised on the MAKE blog.

  2. I can testify from personal experience that a 20 min dosing schedule works better than a one hour schedule. Also, the resulting muscle shakes from doing this over an extended period (12 hours overnight) vibrate at around 2-3 Hz.

  3. Next article: “HOW TO – Keep your coffee mug warm all day.”

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s