I’m fascinated that caffeine is so well-established (the most popular drug?) and yet these kinds of self-experiments still seem to add value over the scientific literature.
Anyway, I have a suspicion that tolerance builds at different rates for different effects. For example, if you haven’t had any caffeine in a long time (like months), it seems to create a strong sense of euphoria. But this seems to fade very quickly. Similarly, with prescription stimulants, people claim that tolerance to physical effects happens gradually, but full tolerance never develops for the effect on executive function. (Though I don’t think there are any long-term experiments to prove this.)
These different tolerances are a bit hard to understand mechanistically: Doesn’t caffeine only affect adenosine receptors? Maybe the body also adapts at different places further down the causal chain.
I’m fascinated that caffeine is so well-established (the most popular drug?) and yet these kinds of self-experiments still seem to add value over the scientific literature.
Anyway, I have a suspicion that tolerance builds at different rates for different effects. For example, if you haven’t had any caffeine in a long time (like months), it seems to create a strong sense of euphoria. But this seems to fade very quickly. Similarly, with prescription stimulants, people claim that tolerance to physical effects happens gradually, but full tolerance never develops for the effect on executive function. (Though I don’t think there are any long-term experiments to prove this.)
These different tolerances are a bit hard to understand mechanistically: Doesn’t caffeine only affect adenosine receptors? Maybe the body also adapts at different places further down the causal chain.