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Comment by RankingMember | Hacker News Reader

> Last one -- I have no idea if this is a placebo effect. But caffeine seems to really help.

Yep. As has been mentioned, in this context you're basically using it like Adderall. Unfortunately, the body will build up a tolerance quickly, so I find myself needing to use them sparingly, Adderall especially, otherwise end up feeling the withdrawal symptoms (excessive irritability, more trouble focusing than before medicating).

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I'll only drink coffee if I know I have a busy morning and want to power through it. I miss taking Adderall daily but the effect from coffee is almost the same. I don't drink it that often mostly because I don't want a tolerance. Drinking coffee on my less busy mornings just leads me to getting dragged into some low priority task and spending all morning on it when I could be working other things. Sometimes I'll just grab a 300mg energy drink at the store or take a couple Excedrin on an empty stomach if that's all I got.

Same, if possible I try to plan my stimulant intake based on anticipated workload, i.e. I don't want to be using my focus energy if there's nothing requiring it going on. I have noticed that simply changing up the delivery substance can "fake out" the tolerance sometimes, e.g. drinking a cup of coffee might have no effect due to tolerance but drinking a cup of green tea gets my brain going despite the core drug being caffeine for both.

>Sometimes I'll just grab a 300mg energy drink at the store or take a couple Excedrin on an empty stomach if that's all I got.

Not suggesting medication or that you take something you shouldn't; absolutely do your own research!

Look into HVMN Sprint. Pretty long shelf-life, well-controlled dosage and focused on focus rather just ENERGY TO THE MAX.

I loved Monster back in the day but its taste makes me sick just thinking about it.

I've had good luck limiting my caffeine intake to three non-consecutive days a week. Avoids increasing my tolerance too much and allows for plenty of caffeine-free nights of sleep. Seems to work particularly well when paired with fasting.

Caffeine dependence isn't much fun either - whilst I don't know of any long term health impacts, the severe headache when you miss a caffeinated drink in the morning sucks.

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