I’ve dealt with the tolerance effect by using caffeine only intermittently. After an extremely hectic semester, when my policy was “drink coffee on mornings when I’m up before 6 am, and not on mornings when I get to sleep in to a normal time.” The result: I was more tired when I slept in, because of caffeine withdrawal, and when I did drink coffee on early-wakeup days, it no longer made me feel especially alert or cheerful, but rather brought my energy and mood up to average.
My current policy is to drink coffee only when I get up early and I find myself feeling extremely tired and groggy, and I have good reason to need my alertness (i.e. for an exam). If I have an exam and I got to sleep in that day, no coffee, whether or not I’m groggy. If I’m sleep deprived, I wait on drinking coffee until I actually feel tired and groggy, because often if I’m busy enough, I’ll stay alert for the whole day anyway. If I didn’t get much sleep and I’m groggy, but it’s a weekend and/or I don’t have anything important to do, no coffee...I just take a nap. I have only one coffee per day, max, and two days per week max, preferably not consecutive days.
Probably the only reasons I was able to make this change are that a) instead of waking up at 5 am on four or five days out of the week and getting around five hours of sleep most nights, I get up at 7 or later most days and can get 8 hours of sleep per night, and b) I was able to wean myself off coffee during a two-week family vacation, when I could sleep 10 hours a night and laze around all day. I don’t think I would have made it through the caffeine withdrawal if I was extremely busy at the time and had important things to do.
That being said, the transition was very worth it. I’ve acclimatized so that I don’t feel especially groggy without caffeine, and if I do, I have non-caffeine methods that work, i.e. taking a 5-minute nap while on break at work, or getting up and walking around when I start to get sleepy. And when I do drink coffee...look out! It catapults me to ecstatic joys of cheerful alertness.
I’ve dealt with the tolerance effect by using caffeine only intermittently. After an extremely hectic semester, when my policy was “drink coffee on mornings when I’m up before 6 am, and not on mornings when I get to sleep in to a normal time.” The result: I was more tired when I slept in, because of caffeine withdrawal, and when I did drink coffee on early-wakeup days, it no longer made me feel especially alert or cheerful, but rather brought my energy and mood up to average.
My current policy is to drink coffee only when I get up early and I find myself feeling extremely tired and groggy, and I have good reason to need my alertness (i.e. for an exam). If I have an exam and I got to sleep in that day, no coffee, whether or not I’m groggy. If I’m sleep deprived, I wait on drinking coffee until I actually feel tired and groggy, because often if I’m busy enough, I’ll stay alert for the whole day anyway. If I didn’t get much sleep and I’m groggy, but it’s a weekend and/or I don’t have anything important to do, no coffee...I just take a nap. I have only one coffee per day, max, and two days per week max, preferably not consecutive days.
Probably the only reasons I was able to make this change are that a) instead of waking up at 5 am on four or five days out of the week and getting around five hours of sleep most nights, I get up at 7 or later most days and can get 8 hours of sleep per night, and b) I was able to wean myself off coffee during a two-week family vacation, when I could sleep 10 hours a night and laze around all day. I don’t think I would have made it through the caffeine withdrawal if I was extremely busy at the time and had important things to do.
That being said, the transition was very worth it. I’ve acclimatized so that I don’t feel especially groggy without caffeine, and if I do, I have non-caffeine methods that work, i.e. taking a 5-minute nap while on break at work, or getting up and walking around when I start to get sleepy. And when I do drink coffee...look out! It catapults me to ecstatic joys of cheerful alertness.