Culinary, Health, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Caffeine Addiction

6 Comments

How it happens to your brain.

I started drinking coffee a few weeks ago, primarily for medicinal purposes (a couple cups in the morning). I don’t really enjoy it, and I’ve never noticed any mental effect from doing so. If I didn’t make a pot for her every morning, I probably wouldn’t bother. When I skip a day, I don’t notice anything, either. So maybe I’m sort of impervious to its effects. Of course, that could also mean that I’m not getting any of the hoped-for health benefits of drinking it.

6 thoughts on “Caffeine Addiction”

  1. I don’t know about the addiction, but I have experienced withdrawal problems from caffeine. I’m also very sensitive to caffeine.

    A few years back, I was able to associate headaches to caffeine withdrawal. I’d drink tea or sodas (I can’t stand coffee) during the work week and then not drink on the weekend. I started noticing the regular headaches, so like any scientist, I tried a few experiments and discovered the association with caffeine. It does take a few days of repeated consumption for me to have headaches when I stop.

    I also noticed a correlation to sleep problems. This is a bit more obvious, as caffeine is typically consumed to gain alertness. For me, the metabolizing of caffeine takes about 12 hours. So if I drink something with caffeine after noon, I’m mentally still alert well past midnight. This doesn’t mean fully awake, because I can be physically exhausted. This condition keeps from entering a deep sleep state. The next day, I will feel less rested and to that extent an addiction routine starts. I’ll feel tired, drink caffeine to wake up, not get a good night’s sleep, and then repeat the cycle.

    So it is water and beer for me once the clock passes noon. Not a bad gig really.

  2. The problem with all these studies is they neglect genetic variability. Now that easy DNA sequences are becoming available they will need to start correcting for it instead of assuming that sample size corrects for it. And this includes the mice studies as well 🙂

    I drink coffee on a regular basis because it seems to help my asthma, not surprising as caffeine is chemically similar to a drug family used for asthma control. But it doesn’t keep me awake, instead it helps me relax and go sleep at night. I suspect its because the caffeine is helping relax and open my airways but I have never found any studies on it. As a side note I have never seen any withdrawal symptoms so I probably don’t have the genes to be addicted to it.

  3. It takes a while to build up an addiction that will produce withdrawal effects, a couple weeks probably isn’t enough time. For me, withdrawal is being extra sluggish in the morning for a week or so. And I can’t drink it after noon either or will be up all night but that happens a lot without coffee.

  4. Coffee also contains a number of other components that might be beneficial to health – including quite a lot of polyphenols and the like that act as rather powerful antioxidants.

    For this purpose, use coffee roasted as lightly as possible.

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