This is such a foreign way of looking at caffeine to me. I've got no problems falling asleep. My constraint is that the more caffeine I have today, the more I will need tomorrow morning to even get started feeling like a person.
Tolerance was my only issue for the longest time too. But in the last few years I started to get mild insomnia in the beginning of the night if I had coffee late in the day. It wasn’t making me feel active or awake but just unable to fall asleep even if I was tired. So I’d spend about 2-3 hours unable to fall asleep while tired. Now my cutoff is actually 11:00 and I try not to have any after that
I have some of those friends too. They can drink coffee at 11pm and sleep at 11.30. Meanwhile I can't sleep until 8 hours after drinking coffee. I don't know whether this is differing sensitivity to coffee or something else (better production of whatever it is that makes you tired at night perhaps).
A clear and curious correlation is this: The same people that can drink coffee late can and do take naps during the day too. That is: if they lie down in the middle of the afternoon, they could sleep for a little while. That's completely foreign to me, I have never in my soon 50 year life been able to take a daytime nap (at least not since I was 5). It's curious that it seems like a related capability, in my small sample.
Well said. I find starting the day with hydration helps me understand where I actually am in terms of rest before caffiene.
The advice going around to try and delay coffee for the first 90 minutes after waking seems to make a difference for me too, any unprocessed adenosine can be handled by my brain, and then caffeine is ready.
Yup, I could easily finish a meal out or whatever with coffee or two with no worries on how it'll affect my sleep (if anything the stimulation brought my dopamine up enough to sleep)
First day I was put on (low dose) stimulant meds I slept for 16 hours haha
Question, how old are you? I lost the ability to be able to drink coffee late at night and still sleep well in my mid/late 30s.
Also, coffee power naps are totally a thing, I get a real boost if I drink a coffee and immediately lie down to sleep, then get woken up 25-30 mins later when the caffeine is doing it's thing. Definitely end up feeling better and able to concentrate deeper into the afternoon when I do that round lunchtime, compared to taking a nap without first having coffee.
50 this year. Though I can no longer drink coffee as it now gives me IBS like issues. Other forms of caffeine are fine, just not coffee or decaf or instant. :-(
It's worth noting, from a youngish age (15) I spent about 10 years working as a Baker, sleeping all sorts of strange hours... so I developed by nessacity the ability to put my head down and sleep no matter whats going on. Caffeine has never hindered that in me.
Coffee powernaps sounds wonderfull and totally logical. I might have to experiment with that concept!
