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Comment by johnbellone | Hacker News Reader

If only caffeine kept me up during the day nowadays. I cut back to two mugs a day and am seriously dragging. Although, anecdotally, I have noticed drinking a substantial amount of water does keep the lights on. I wonder if it similarity does so in the evening?

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I've had the same issue and here is what worked for me. You might want to work on cutting back to zero caffeine, and work on drinking plenty of water and doing general diet improvement. If you're eating and drinking lots of sugar that can give you uneven energy levels throughout the day. Some grains like rice or toast in the morning for energy. Eating meals and/or snacks every 2-3 hours, and getting away from your screen for a mental break in the afternoon, combined with a healthy diet and some exercise cured me of my late afternoon sleepiness problem.

This matches my experience. Kicking caffeine was a pain, and ditto for refined carbs. But off of those, my energy levels are very even throughout the day. I also have automated my house lights [1] so that they mimic a day-night cycle in brightness and color. Afternoon sleepiness is not a problem for me anymore.

[1] https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise

I recently just quit caffeine (went down one drink a day for a week, then quit 7 days ago.) It's been a process getting my energy back.

I have noticed that food affects me MUCH more than it used to. If I don't pay attention to what I eat now (or when I'm not eating, for that matter), I will end up feeling like crap.

It's difficult because food isn't something I've focused on for years, thanks to caffeine masking my low energy.

"anecdotally, I have noticed drinking a substantial amount of water does keep the lights on"

I only drink water in the morning, 1/2 - 1 litre. This replaces the loss during the night and I found out that I don't need any coffee after that any more (provided I got enough sleep). Similar things happen during the daytime: if I don't drink at work, I crawl home completely run down. With lots of water, I leave the office in good mood and after a few minutes, I am back to full capacity again.

All this raised many doubts in the effects of caffeine in the morning. Overrated, I think. Its the liquid, not the coffee that does most of it (most, not all).

Caffeine is like a purchase on a adrenaline system credit card, and your body's system is probably in huge debt - might take a while to regain composure.

I remember reading that it usually only takes a few days (like, one or two) of no caffeine in order to reset your body's tolerance to this.

Not sure if it's accurate or not, but it sounds plausible to me.

I remember reading it takes 10-15 days, but yeah it's relatively fast to reset your body's tolerance to caffeine.

In general, it can take between 7 and 14 days to fully recover. Source: http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2014/03/25/caffeine-withdrawal-...

In my case it takes a couple of weeks. I've had to go cold turkey once in my 20s and since then i keep an eye on my intake. In some cases (crunch time, onsite, etc) I binge and then it takes a while to readjust, but never less than 3-4 days. I'm slightly obese as well so that doesn't help either, but I've noticed that the solution when I feel slow is usually "more and more water".

Having quit 7 days ago, I can tell you that the worst of the symptoms (headaches, aching body, etc.) mostly passed within the first 3-4 days.

But the lack of energy is real and persistent. My body and routine are both recovering.

I recently quit, and my caffeine intake was at most moderate, but it took me 6-7 days to feel totally normal.

Caffeine on net suppresses stress systems and improves many cellular level functions. Reams of epidemiological data strongly indicate the equivalent of four or five cups of coffee a day is good for you.

If caffeine makes you jittery or causes other signs of increased adrenaline that means you are probably in poor health. Note that it's best to take it with food or a bit of sugar and taking it while hungry or low on glycogen can cause a bit of stress.

Coffee is nothing but calming for me and I have zero withdrawal symptoms if I go a day or two without it.

> you are probably in poor health

Or you're sensitive to caffeine.

You might want to check out ice cream. It also keeps me awake.

Replacing jitters with diabetes seems like an unwise tradeoff.

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