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Comment by flyGuyOnTheSly | Hacker News Reader

I would have thought that problem solving abilities necessitated creativity?

If the solution was obvious, where's the problem?

>In the paper, Zabelina differentiates “convergent” from “divergent” thinking. The former is defined as seeking a specific solution to a problem, for example, the “correct” answer. The latter is characterized by idea generation where a large set of apt, novel or interesting responses would be suitable. Caffeine was shown to improve convergent thinking in the study, while consuming it had no significant impact on divergent thinking.

Yeah, this was a bit was odd. IMO, problem solving begins with 'divergent' thinking and only later converges toward a, or the, solution. A study like this hinges upon how variables like'divergent thinking' were quantified, and there were no examples given of how they tested for either style of thinking here.

Anecdotally, I was recently cramming a lot of "Leetcode medium" questions to prepare for job interviews, and after a couple of weeks, I was drinking Starbuck's coffee and solving those problems like a machine... seriously, like a machine.

I found I did get better (or at least much faster) at recognizing subproblems and quickly composing an overall solution, even if none of the steps was particularly creative.

After about 3 weeks I had to ditch the coffee, I was getting too addled.

(Not a controlled experiment, of course, just conveying my impression of the experience).

Another anecdote, but when prepping for any sort of competition I used to be a hard-core caffeine consumer (measurable in grams, instead of mg) and it sometimes led to some weird effects.

After a day or two of that level of caffeine intake, I go into an almost trance of productivity and performance. It feels like I'm watching myself do what I need to do, not that I have to 'do it' myself. It's a very strange sensation. It's the same sensation I get when I'm 'in the zone' and competing in something with 100% of my focus on it (emotionally engaged, you might say).

I don't get into that state anywhere close to as easy without caffeine. I've been off caffeine for about 4-5 months now and I've noticed a change. My productivity isn't worse in any measurable way, but it feels different. I wish I could describe it in more relatable terms but I have nothing I can really relate it to.

I know exactly what you mean. My theory is that getting amped up on caffeine keeps you from getting decent sleep, which means your cortisol/whatever hormones are still kinda high when you wake up, so when you take even more caffeine upon awakening, your body seems to move forwards from a different baseline than when you drink coffee after completely resting. This along with the fact that for me personally, being tired makes me more focused in a very one dimensional way, i can be very immersed in what im doing without ever really questioning if what im doing is even worth doing in the first place.

I think there's a kind of 'loading' period where your body absorbs caffeine and normalizes into a caffeinated state. I don't know if the sleep cycle has much to do with it though. In my case, I sleep much better after I have caffeine. I've been sleeping poorly for several months now because of my decision to cut it out.

I might be abnormal (people I live and work with certainly think so!), but I basically never feel 'tired.' I go from feeling 100% to "I need to sleep." This has remained true even after I cut out caffeine, so I can't really relate to how you describe working while tired.

No kidding huh, sleep better after grams of caffeine? Yea, i guess my experience wouldn't apply to you.

Definitely not a healthy habit, but I used to take an energy drink to bed at night because without the caffeine it would take forever to fall asleep. I'd believed it was an addiction, except now I have been 'clean' of caffeine for so long (without any urges to consume it) and still suffer the same difficulty of falling asleep.

How do you not end up spending all your time on the toilet when consuming that much caffeine?

If I drink coffee I definitely notice a need to clear the bowels more often (probably twice a day). Energy drinks and caffeine tablets don't have that effect on me, so once a day works fine.

The only negative thing is that I often work until right before I need to sleep, so if I'm drinking something mindlessly while working I end up waking up in the night once.

I wish I could experiment with it like you, but the risk that it'll send me into an anxiety episode that feels like a heart attack/food poisoning combo and which begins in the middle of the night in a sweat-soaked bed and leads with waking up in a colder, harder bed (the floor) because you passed out when you got out of bed because the blood pressure drop to your brain was too intense because your heart was beating too fast to pump blood quickly enough to adjust and continues with at least one day of zombified, ambient nausea and terror is just too high for it to possibly be worth it.

(Cacao did this to me, btw, after I consumed a ton of it one time. Theobromine -- scuffed caffeine; caffeine without a methyl group that hardly passes the blood-brain barrier! I don't want to think about how that much ACTUAL caffeine would feel...)

For me there was a optimal caffeine intake for peak leet code problem solving, the biggest thing is that coffee makes me perform better but if that disturbs my sleep that day, then the next day more coffee would make me more wired but much slower at problem solving. So peak leetcode for me is good sleep and adequate caffeine but not too much that it destroys sleep.

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