#19: Caffeine 101: Understanding the basics

Hey guys,

The past couple weeks we’ve been going through the importance of making the most of your mornings and how to become more of a morning person. With any talk about the morning, I feel like it’s only right to talk about caffeine too.

This week will be the first of a three week series talking about caffeine. I’ll focus on the basics of caffeine this week including what it is and how it works. Next week I’ll break down some of the pros and cons of caffeine, and then I’ll finish it out in week three by talking about a protocol that you could be following to use caffeine appropriately in your own life.

Weekly Action Point

🙏Gratitude practice: Every day this week, I want you to text one person in your life and tell them you are thankful for them, followed by a specific reason why you appreciate them.

Will this action point help you lose fat or build muscle? No, sorry.

But things like this help bring awareness to the people that bring meaning to our life. One of these texts shouldn’t take you longer than 30 seconds to send, and can have huge impacts on the people you’re texting and your relationship with them.

Type up a genuine one or two sentence text about why you appreciate someone and why you’re grateful they are in your life, and send it their way.

And yes, actually do it.

If it’s something you’ve never done, it may feel awkward/uncomfortable, but that’s ok. 7 days for 7 texts to 7 different important people in your life.

What is Caffeine?

If I asked you “what is caffeine?”, or “do you know how caffeine works?”, how would you respond?

My guess is that your response might include something like “Well it wakes me up in the morning and makes me feel less tired throughout the day.”

But have you ever thought about how that happens?

Caffeine is the most used drug worldwide. It’s a drug classified as a stimulant, meaning that it “speeds up” your central nervous system. It speeds up messages between the brain and body and can increase your heart rate making you feel more alert.

A couple of quick facts about caffeine use:

• Rougly around 85% of American adults consume caffeine daily

• Roughly 70% of caffeine consumption comes from coffee, around 16% from tea, and the rest mostly from sodas or energy drinks

• After just three days of regular caffeine consumption, people start to build a tolerance.

• The average adult drinks roughly 200 mg of caffeine per day, which is about two 8-oz cups of coffee

• Around 10% of adults drink more than the 400mg daily max recommended by the FDA

• The average American consumes about 30mg of caffeine per day from non-beverage sources such as chocolate, energy bars, and supplements.

I cited my sources for these stats at the bottom of the newsletter if you’re curious to read through the full articles

In the Ben’s Best section of this week, I included multiple videos that I watched about caffeine, would recommend watching/listening to those.

How Does Caffeine Work?

Most people know generally that caffeine is a stimulant, but I would bet fewer people know how caffeine takes action in the brain.

Caffeine binds to adenosine receptors in the brain. When adenosine usually binds to these receptors, it inhibits the neurons in the brain, causing them to fire more sluggishly and leading to a drowsy/sleepy feeling. When caffeine is present, it binds to the receptors that adenosine would usually bind to and blocks adenosine from coming in.

Think of adenosine receptors as parking spaces in a parking lot. When adenosine parks in its spot, it sends signals to the brain to make you relaxed and sleepy.

When caffeine comes into the parking lot with its fake parking permit and gets to the spot first, adenosine can’t park because the spot is taken, and thus it can’t send signals that cause you to be drowsy. Instead, your brain is more alert and responsive.

This is an extreme oversimplification of what is a pretty complex biochemical pathway in the brain, but since I know not everyone thinks biochemistry is cool like I do, I won’t bore you with the details.

Do me a huge favor and check out this 5 minute Youtube video from TED. This video does a phenomenal job, and after just 5 minutes you’ll understand more about caffeine than probably 90% of the population.

Why do I care that you understand what caffeine is and how it works?

If you’re just consuming caffeine like a coffee zombie (the term I made up to describe people who feel that they can’t function in the morning without coffee, a surprising percentage of the population), then you’re much less likely to be using it optimally.

Caffeine has many benefits, and in my opinion understanding how it works better will ensure you’re maximizing the positive effects while minimizing any negative effects.

Next week I’m going to talk through the many positives and negatives of caffeine and address some of the common caffeine myths I hear, then two weeks from now I’ll talk through how I think you should be using caffeine to get the most benefit from it.

Ben’s Best

🥕Food for the week:

Instead of giving you a recipe this week, I’m going to give something that I’ve been eating almost every day: Sheet pan frozen vegetables from Tattooed Chef. 

I bought my bag from Costco, and they are amazing. So easy to throw in the airfryer and use for vegetables with any type of meal. I’ve been using these as my lazy (and delicious) way to get my veggies in with almost every dinner.

☕️Check out some of these short clips of Andrew Huberman talking about caffeine:

• Caffeine timing

• Caffiene and anxiety

Check out this TED Talk from Matt Walker about caffeine and alcohol and how they impact your sleep:

🎙️ Podcasts I loved this week:

• Huberman lab: Using Caffeine to Optimize Mental & Physical Performance

  • This is the audio only podcast of the Youtube video I posted above

• The Diary of a CEO: The Big Porn Debate (3 Experts Debate): The Unseen Dangers Of Nofap, The Adult Industry Is Exploiting Our Brains, How Porn Will Change Your Brain!

  • I thought this was an extremely interesting discussion on the impacts of pornography on mental health, sexual health, relationships, and fertility.

  • People often don’t associate sexuality with health, fitness, and wellbeing, but I do. If you enjoy educating yourself, it’s a great listen.

Sources