No. I’ve become very physically aware of how caffeine borrows from my body’s resources. There’s always a need to recover later. After all, there was a reason my energy wasn’t that high in the first place! So that reason comes home to roost.
I also suspect I adapt to caffeine faster than average. I think I get a little dependent. My body growing a few more adenosine receptors. So the next day or two it has to notice that those aren’t needed.
But I think I’m just super aware of these energy fluctuations. Mostly because I trained my awareness to be this fine-tuned. I doubt I would have noticed the effects I’m talking about five years ago.
No. I’ve become very physically aware of how caffeine borrows from my body’s resources. There’s always a need to recover later. After all, there was a reason my energy wasn’t that high in the first place! So that reason comes home to roost.
This seems intuitive, but I’m a bit suspicious based on the use of stimulants to treat a broad range of conditions like ADHD that we might generically think of as conditions where one is persistently understimulated relative to your body’s desired homeostatic level of stimulation. For these people caffeine and other stimulants seem to just treat a persistent chemical misalignment.
Further thoughts:
but maybe persistent understimulation isn’t just a chemical condition but something that can be influenced heavily by, say, meditation and may for many people be the result of “trauma”
perhaps not all stimulants are created equal and caffeine in particular behaves differently
the phenomenon you’re describing might still make sense in light of this if it’s just describing what stimulants are like for folks who aren’t significantly below their homeostatic stimulation target
However I’m speculating from the outside a bit here, since I’ve never had to figure this out. My desired level of stimulation is relatively low, and I can get overstimulated just from too much sound or light or touch, so stimulants are really unpleasant, so I generally stay away from them because the first order effects are bad, so I’ve not personally had to explore the second order effects, thus I’m merely inferring from what I observe about others.
…I’m a bit suspicious based on the use of stimulants to treat a broad range of conditions like ADHD…
Just to be clear, I was describing my experience as a case study, and my impression is that I can pretty directly read how caffeine affects my body’s energy reserves. And I don’t have ADHD or anything like that.
The things I observe sure seem to have clear mechanisms behind them, like adenosine sensitization. Between that and what I observe about how people act around caffeine, I get the impression that what I’m seeing in myself is pretty general.
But I don’t know. And I definitely don’t know if ADHD brains are meaningfully different in some relevant way. (Do they not sensitize to adenosine? I don’t get how chronic caffeine use can fix a chemical imbalance unless there’s too little caffeine adaptation!)
Hopefully it’s clear that for the purposes of the example in the OP, it doesn’t matter if ADHD and other conditions happen to be cases where caffeine works differently.
But maybe you mean to suggest that things like ADHD hint at caffeine working meaningfully differently in everyone than I’m suggesting…? Including in myself? In which case you mean this to challenge whether the example of using sapient algorithms is a relevant one?
what is this cost? Are you talking about late caffeine drinking disrupting your sleep?
No. I’ve become very physically aware of how caffeine borrows from my body’s resources. There’s always a need to recover later. After all, there was a reason my energy wasn’t that high in the first place! So that reason comes home to roost.
I also suspect I adapt to caffeine faster than average. I think I get a little dependent. My body growing a few more adenosine receptors. So the next day or two it has to notice that those aren’t needed.
But I think I’m just super aware of these energy fluctuations. Mostly because I trained my awareness to be this fine-tuned. I doubt I would have noticed the effects I’m talking about five years ago.
This seems intuitive, but I’m a bit suspicious based on the use of stimulants to treat a broad range of conditions like ADHD that we might generically think of as conditions where one is persistently understimulated relative to your body’s desired homeostatic level of stimulation. For these people caffeine and other stimulants seem to just treat a persistent chemical misalignment.
Further thoughts:
but maybe persistent understimulation isn’t just a chemical condition but something that can be influenced heavily by, say, meditation and may for many people be the result of “trauma”
perhaps not all stimulants are created equal and caffeine in particular behaves differently
the phenomenon you’re describing might still make sense in light of this if it’s just describing what stimulants are like for folks who aren’t significantly below their homeostatic stimulation target
However I’m speculating from the outside a bit here, since I’ve never had to figure this out. My desired level of stimulation is relatively low, and I can get overstimulated just from too much sound or light or touch, so stimulants are really unpleasant, so I generally stay away from them because the first order effects are bad, so I’ve not personally had to explore the second order effects, thus I’m merely inferring from what I observe about others.
Just to be clear, I was describing my experience as a case study, and my impression is that I can pretty directly read how caffeine affects my body’s energy reserves. And I don’t have ADHD or anything like that.
The things I observe sure seem to have clear mechanisms behind them, like adenosine sensitization. Between that and what I observe about how people act around caffeine, I get the impression that what I’m seeing in myself is pretty general.
But I don’t know. And I definitely don’t know if ADHD brains are meaningfully different in some relevant way. (Do they not sensitize to adenosine? I don’t get how chronic caffeine use can fix a chemical imbalance unless there’s too little caffeine adaptation!)
Hopefully it’s clear that for the purposes of the example in the OP, it doesn’t matter if ADHD and other conditions happen to be cases where caffeine works differently.
But maybe you mean to suggest that things like ADHD hint at caffeine working meaningfully differently in everyone than I’m suggesting…? Including in myself? In which case you mean this to challenge whether the example of using sapient algorithms is a relevant one?