[bayindirh]

> it has realistically speaking no negative side effects.

Realistically speaking, that's not true. I did some voluntary experiments on myself during Ph.D. corrections process and, besides resistance, when coupled with a lot of hard work for a prolonged time, it's certainly very unhealthy for the body.

If you regulate your consumption and pair it with good sleep, it's a boon. Otherwise, it's a slow-killing drug.

[kaba0]

From most studies I saw, moderate consumption (<=~3 cups of coffee) has no long term negative health effect.

Could you expand on what you found and what were the specifics?

[bayindirh]

I think moderate consumption is a function of tolerance and the specific metabolism of the person combined. I remember reading a comment in HN, where the commenter had a genetic trait which slowed caffeine metabolism by 4 times. So, he had it inside his system 4 times longer, and caffeine had no positive effect on him. However, let's not digress.

I'm not a body hacker, and I don't like to mess with my body much, however I had limited time, this was once in a lifetime situation, so I had to put some regular hours to finish my Ph.D. corrections.

Also, it's worth noting that I'm an avid black tea drinker since 6 or so. I didn't change my tea consumption habits through my life.

First, I read about resetting caffeine resistance/dependence. The method is simple and clear: "Give up coffee for a week. You'll have headaches in day 3-4. Endure. You'll be fine". Then I started to consume coffee to the point where I felt productive, yet not tipsy. I have a Starbucks mug, it's "Tall" in Starbucks parlance. I started with two cups. One morning, one after lunch. As the resistance built up, I started to increase in a controlled manner, to the same line. Productive, but not tipsy. I was putting 10-12 Pomodoros a day (250+ minutes of truly deep work), and my mind was mushy and tired everyday at ~5PM. I never pushed my body beyond that point, because I needed that brain tomorrow. Left my desk and got rest.

I finished everything on time, left coffee for ~3 months, had the headache on day 4, alleviated with 2 sips of coffee that day.

As of today, I drink half a "Tall" every day, and feels enough. If it's too stressful, I also drink another half on the other half of the day, and these are my findings about my body.

Considering I'm not in "battle mode", I can really work well with half a mug of coffee/day.

Coffee shorts my hunger regulation and appetite, and makes me lean to sugar. That's not good. Considering my brain has less brakes and way higher idle than most people (per my doctor's words), this is double bad. So regulating coffee has a net positive effect on everything.

I can reliably build and reset coffee reliance/resistance now, since I know how my body reacts to caffeine.

I always think 10-12 hours ahead since it's caffeine's life in your body. Will I be awake 10 hours later, or will I be battling against caffeine to sleep? This is important for me.

Coffees with mild/mild-high caffeine concentrations works best for me. I don't like high-caffeine or ultra-caffeinated coffees. They make me tipsy causes heart palpitations and creates stress for no reason.

Black tea is a good aid for sustaining my focus. It improves focus, but doesn't create the same stress on my body. I can almost drink infinite amount of coffee until 2 hours before sleep, and it'll keep me collected and focused. What I live is it doesn't create an illusion of being not-tired by priming the body, so I can reliably feel how tired I am and plan accordingly.

Hope this helps, and please don't hesitate to ask for further specifics.

[Levitz]

Perhaps you know if this makes any sense or if it's just a personal impression of mine.

I started taking coffee at 20, for some two or three years, I later started taking black tea instead. One teaspoon of Twinnings Earl Grey, to be precise.

Thing is, by any calculation I do, a cup of coffee ought to have more caffeine in it than the cup of tea. Especially since I sometimes had not one, but two cups of coffee back then. I can still do this, if I'm travelling or I spend the day outside for some reason I'd rather take coffee than tea.

Problem is, tea wrecks my sleep in a way coffee just doesn't. It feels as if tea stays with me way, way longer than coffee does. If I ever take more than one cup of tea in a day I know that I'll be feeling it the next day, maybe even the day after, whereas with coffee, as long as I don't take it too late in the day I'm largely ok. Sleep does worsen somewhat but nothing I can't manage.

It puzzles me, since as far as I know it's caffeine in both cases, I don't understand why my metabolism seems to act in such a different way.

[perilunar]

> Black tea is a good aid for sustaining my focus. It improves focus, but doesn't create the same stress on my body.

Black tea contains 30–90 mg of caffeine per cup (and some theobromine and theophylline, which are similar to caffeine, and also stimulants.) Giving up coffee because of the caffeine but dinking black tea instead is self-defeating.

[bayindirh]

I'm aware, but as some studies [0], and my body, shows, their effects are not similar. Black tea doesn't make me tense and causes heart palpitations for me. Instead, I keep my calm and being able to focus.

I don't reduce coffee because of caffeine, but because it affects my appetite, makes me tense when I drink too much, and causes heart palpitations and makes me uncomfortable. Black tea doesn't do any of that.

[0]: http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/apjcn/17/s1/167.pdf

[hirvi74]

Have you ever tried Yerba Mate? If so, what do you think about it? I have found it to be similar to green tea and its derivatives, but it seems to have has less pronounced physical effects -- especially compared to coffee.