[ultramancool]

> A cup of coffee has approx 100 mg and a strong energy drink has about 250 mg

That's a _very_ strong energy drink too, most are in the 140-160mg range in my experience. Less caffeine than a large at a major coffee joint.

Holy crap though, that's crazy. Over what time period did you consume that much caffeine? Do you mean daily or over the full 5th-11th period?

[jonpaul]

That caffeine intake was daily.

My poison of choice was Rockstar Pure Zero - Mango Orange Passion Fruit. They originally launched with 160 mg per can, but bumped it to 240 mg. http://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/rockstar-pu...

Like I said, not one of my brighter moments - I was just willing to do whatever it took to launch. In hindsight, not worth it at all.

[toomuchtodo]

As someone who experiments with nootropics, I highly recommend modafinil over caffeine for sprints like that (up to 36 hours of wakefulness at a time, no jittery feeling, etc). You should not do it for any appreciable amount of time though. See https://reddit.com/r/nootropics for more info.

[pstuart]

Modafinil is much more expensive, harder to get, and not everybody responds to it.

[wahern]

I once watched three engineers take Modafinil for an all-nighter. It was their first time taking it.

By about midnight none of the engineers felt any different. One of them decided it wasn't doing anything and went to bed. The other two decided to keep hacking until they got tired.

Come morning the two guys who kept hacking were still hacking. The third guy said he slept soundly. The two guys who kept working said that, while the Modafinil never made them feel different, neither were they particularly sleepy. Exhausted, yes, but not sleepy.

The guy who decided to go to sleep used Modafinil after that and it worked as advertised. He just needed to realize that it wasn't going to make him feel stimulated.

I know that at least one paper shows efficacy dependent on certain alleles. But AFAIK none say that it doesn't work at all. And the majority of people have the alleles where Modafinil works well.

Compared with OD-ing on caffeine or other stimulants, I'd say Modafinil is the better choice. There's no substitute for sleep, and unlike normal stimulants you can usually deliberately go to sleep even after taking a full dose of Modafinl. Which means you can use your time more efficiently during a marathon and still get some proper rest.

[toomuchtodo]

Modafinil, while a bit more expensive than caffeine in pill form, is easily available online without a prescription.

[dugditches]

You're correct.

There's lot of confusion here over beverage sizes.

240mg in a 16oz/473ml can. It also seems to have been reduced back to 160mg.

Even at 240mg it's equivalent to or less than a cup of medium strength regular coffee. And not close to Espresso.

The problem is, it's much easier to drink down sugary beverages than coffee(especially hot).

[vsync]

> 240mg in a 16oz/473ml can. It also seems to have been reduced back to 160mg.

A few of the "Pure Zero" variants seem to have (or had) a ludicrous quantity of caffeine. If I have any complaint (well, other than that a 16oz can doesn't have 2 servings worth!) it's that I don't know that the caffeine should really differ between them; one might not expect what seems to be simply a different flavor to differ markedly. My solution to that has been to read the ingredients.

> Even at 240mg it's equivalent to or less than a cup of medium strength regular coffee. And not close to Espresso.

Coffee varies but generally speaking if one goes by the "serving size" on an energy drink it's typically on par with coffee: http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ip9ia/ive_been_w...