Search This Blog

Coffee, Caffeine, Tapering Back, More Sleep, Recovery, Health, Upper Limits & More

WHO, NIH, FDA recommending a maximum daily intake of 400mg Caffeine

What does 400mg of caffeine mean in terms of coffee, tea, cola / soda or energy drinks? A typical cup of tea, single shot of espresso, 8oz energy drink or 12 oz soda have 70-90mg caffeine

With coffee, your grinds to water ratio, hot water infusion temperature, time for extraction, pressure of extraction, method of making coffee, will all influence aroma, taste, flavor & caffeine content.

Using James Hoffman method, 30grams of coffee beans freshly ground, 185F hot water, into a French Press, SS, Glass or Ceramic, 5 min brew time, press basket, rotate cap, dispense hot coffee. Notice amount of water missing, how many ml or grams of water? 

30g coffee about 450mg caffeine
1 gram of ground coffee contains about 15mg of caffeine
3 grams of tea leaves contains about 20mg of caffeine

In my personal SS French Press, double wall insulated camping approved model, 18oz of water along with 30 grams of hand grinder coffee grinds fills the unit enough so that the cap & basket pressed into it do not cause coffee to spill out of the spout, but just barely. This is strong coffee, resulting 17.75oz of coffee you dispense contains over 400mg of caffeine.

I was doing this daily for almost 18 months, when I decided to do back to doing a double shot of espresso into room temp water to dial back, that would be 24 grams with 12 grams in each shot. Then after a few times of doing 2 shots in water, I went to one 12 gram shot in 12 oz of water, now on day 2 of this. I am slowly dialing back caffeine intake, similar to intermittent fasting to dial back calories. 

Why would an adult want to dial back caffeine, to reduce tolerance, improve gastric stability, increase hydration & sleep quality, & feel more rested, less jittery, less anxious, less disturbed, less annoyed, to become calmer & more stable, to feel tranquility and peace without over stimulation. So that you do not have to wake up in the middle of the night to pee as much. To lower your blood pressure. To not upset your tummy as much. Tapering off slowly over the course of 2 weeks also helps to avoid headache, nausea, irritation, & other side effects of abrupt cold turkey stopping all sources of caffeine. I did the same think to stop drinking alcohol, I gradually dialed back until giving it up entirely.  

Dr Sten Ekberg on YouTube says "Caffeine lets you borrow more energy now, but you end up having to pay it back later" "like spending on a credit card, then having to stress about the balance increasing" "you borrow now but have to pay it back later" analogy. I was inspired to cut back on coffee intake after watching his video about Caffeine. 

Adenosine builds up during your time awake, eventually plugging into all its receptors to cause you to become tired & seek sleep and to go to bed & fall asleep & continue sleeping for at least 5 cycles, that five deep cycles in 6 hours or as much as 9 hours if your cycles are longer, some people can get away with 4 cycles inside of 5 hours of sleep, other people can sleep for 12 hours & get 8 cycles because they have sleep debt from not sleeping enough previously or having a sleep disorder or crazy variable work schedules, close then open earlier, or late night then early morning, so many people in USA are sleep deprived that it actually increases vehicle accident rates. 

Caffeine block Adenosine receptors, so as to prevent accumulated while awake increasing drowsiness, and caffeine a wakefulness promoting agent, performance enhancing drug, but not a stimulant. It is true that coffee contains many other substances, more than 10,000 that upregulated dopamine release, improve dopamine transport, improve dopamine receptor binding, reduce dopamine metabolism to keep it bound to its receptor longer, and does the same for norepinephrine and serotonin, just weakly so, nothing as extreme as mixed salts of amphetamine like Adderall or methamphetamine. 

Coffee is a weak microdosing cocktail of antidepressant wakefulness promoting early AM pick-me-up, but going above 400mg of caffeine can increase risks of sleep disorders, gastric problems, increased urination at night, dehydration, high blood pressure & many other problems. 

In terms of caffeine, like food in older age, less can be much more, as in healthier, better for your wellness and overall health. Over-eating increases risks of all causes of mortality but so does abusing caffeine in excess. Same can be said for sugar or cocaine, using less, less of the time, less often, at lower doses, ends up being better overall that abusing at increasing doses.

Noting that if Fentanyl users measured out 20mcg, that would be a relatively safe hit, but many are taking 200mg, a fatal dose, because they are not having a high precision scale needed for microgram measurements and are not familiar with how to operate a scientific scale. I believe social workers & government should be educating public about dosing, how to measure a safe dose, noting that 120,000 young people have died in USA from fatal fentanyl overdose. 

Day 6 of 1 shot espresso in water diluted, still going strong, much more sensitive now, maintaining for 8 more days, may continue to do one 12 gram shot per day for a long time for other reasons! 

No comments:

Post a Comment