If you stopped taking caffeine (or adderall or whatever other drug that enhances focus)... how long do you think you could continue to do your job effectively. Would you be fired within a month?
Any mental performance ascribed to caffeine in studies is always due to removing withdrawal symptoms. It doesn't increase them past their baseline.
In addition, caffeine works by stressing the body, thus reducing creative problem solving capabilities.
So, really if you quit caffeine, your performance might suffer for a few days, then it'd be back up to 100% or even higher.
I don't use caffeine (though I love coffee, it does not love me) I do use smallish dose Adderall XR for my ADHD, but even then I reduce/stop it when I need to be creative (architecture/design of complicated systems). For me, Adderall is great for slamming out repetitive tasks, it reduces my capacity for lateral thinking.
That tickles a memory of a book series that I've enjoyed. (digging about in the ebook reader for the right passage)
> Pip shambled into the galley as the coffee gurgled its last gasp and gave up the ghost with a sigh. I handed him a mostly clean cup and grabbed one for myself before pouring for us both. We sat on opposite sides of the galley table. I for one stared into my cup and tried to wake up as the magic molecules worked their way into my brain.
> “You know coffee doesn’t wake you up?” Pip said.
> “Speak for yourself.”
> “No, it just reverses the effects of caffeine withdrawal. If you didn’t drink coffee, you wouldn’t need it in the morning.”
> “If I didn’t drink coffee, I wouldn’t need morning,” I said.
From In Ashes Born by Nathan Lowell... book 1 of the 3rd trilogy (start with Quarter Share if you're going to read it - coffee plays a role throughout the entire series).
The thing though is... I _like_ coffee. The caffeine is maybe 20% of the experience for me. I enjoy the routine I have with coffee: Weigh the beans, run them through the grinder, prep my drip filter, carefully pour the hot water in, listen to the drips while taking in the wonderful aroma... and then finally, when I take that first sip of the morning, feeling the warmth of the drink in my chest.
Everything in that process is soothing for me, and serves as mental preparation for the day to come. It's the marker for the start of my workday, separating work from home. It's the mental replacement for the commute I no longer have.
I don't _need_ those things, and I could totally do my job without any of them, but I'd be losing the happiness I get from the experience.
Humans ritualize all sorts of activities, positive and negative.
Bread aroma vs coffee aroma...maybe up for debate, but I'll take the bread.
If you really feel that caffeine is sustaining your existence, time to reset. Start cutting down by substituting tea, do some sort of ritual or physical activity after work to establish a boundary and get more sleep. Before bed, turn off the TV and do something without a computer. Read, have sex, do a puzzle, whatever.
The first 1-2 days were hard, I had a headache and couldn't focus. After that, the body adapts. I have less control over my level of alertness. So if I don't get a good night's sleep, I'll probably need a mid-day nap. Luckily, my job is flexible enough to allow this (I'd say it happened once a week or so).
It isn't like going cold turkey on heroin or anything like that.
[0]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012409....
Well, you think incorrectly, this literally has its own wikipedia page [0].
You would have to be consuming extreme amounts of caffeine regularly to suffer from withdrawals. It's not like giving up 2 cups of coffee a day is going to turn you into a wreck.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribose-5-phosphate_isomerase_d....
One great side effect is that on occasion we will have coffee in the evening, which we never used to do.
I had hoped that I'd start sleeping better, between coffee and establishing a better bedtime routine. Dropping caffeine did very little to help, getting better bedtime routines and not drinking much fluids after 5pm (cutting down bathroom trips in the night) helped the most.
I tend to last about 2-3 weeks before going back to caffeine, and my brain is usually foggy for most of that. Less near the end, but my brain still seems to be less sharp the whole time. I do usually drink less caffeine when I start again, though, and gradually build back up again.
My productivity has never gone down enough from not drinking coffee that it's been an issue at work, and I don't think it ever would.
I also worked for a company where energy drinks and coffee became part of my diet, then left of my own volition. Then I left, and they're still doing just fine in spite of none of my team hitting caffeine anywhere near as heavily, so I assume the feeling that I'd get fired or somehow disciplined is/was all in my head.
Some of my most productive periods were when I completely eschewed caffeine for months at a time. That is when the work itself is motivating enough though - then I'll pull 14 hour days with no problem. Enjoying a good cup of coffee helps me cope with less interesting work...
Also, with or without the latte/espresso, and definitely with no drugs ever, I can routinely pull all-nighters and even the occasional 48-hour stretch when I let a deadline get past me and need to catch up before a launch.
I'm 43 and haven't worked out regularly in years and eat horribly, but damn can I pull an all-nighter when I need to. Problem now is my bounce-back is a week as opposed to a day like when I was younger. Also, no matter the time of day, whether I slept 8 hours or 0, the moment I lay my head down vertically I am out like a light.
Treat it like a drug. When I do actually have an exceptional need to stay awake and focused late at night, yeah an energy drink can help me keep my eyes on the road for hours without fading or feeling bored. But then if I drink them every day because I like them I do start feeling dependent. Just step yourself down, or go cold-turkey when you have a few days of down time. You can reset yourself fairly quickly.
Same goes for athletic performance. I used to do jiu jitsu regularly and everyone would drink energy drinks right before training or competing. I tried it and it seemed that I could have bursts of exceptional energy but I would drain my batteries a lot faster. Just help your body learn to bring itself up and down on its own. It can do it.
I don't get addicted to things generally, so I don't think my work would even notice. Using other drugs to gain that edge has sharply diminishing returns.
I don't think it would have any material effect on my job; neither is required. One just makes the coding process a little more fun -- and keeps my brain from wandering off to the next shiny thing.
On the more general question of whether stimulants are necessary for work... my experience is this idea is bizarre and out of line with professional programmers more than a few years out of university (where desperate students take adderall to cram for exams, and thus come into the workforce with that somewhat normalized).
Once a few years out you will have so many employment options that the idea of risking your heart health for a programming job will seem asinine... like biking to school without a helmet.
I'd just like to point out that it's QUITE a large step up from an innocent cup of coffee to pharmaceutical grade amphetamines. Also the side effects of stopping one vs the other can be vastly different, and one is often taken as a medical necessity while the other is just a luxury.
Personally if I stopped caffeine for a while, I know from experience I'd be headache-y and irritable for a day or two then I'd feel fine pretty soon after. Definitely wouldn't impact my job unless I chose to do it during workdays, but even then I don't feel like it would be more than what I could solve with some Panadol and water.
I often drink coffee before going to bed, even strong ones. This always makes my parents and wife worried, despite the years.
I like the taste very much but if there is no available I am just sad and drink some water. For some time I was missing coffee at home and it took me some time to go shopping some, because lazyness and procrastination.
There are times I drink 6 or 8 espressos a day (without any special reaction), then days without coffee, then a few a day, etc. No withdrawal effects.
Once I started drinking coffee again, I immediately enjoyed being able to get a little more focused earlier in the morning. I still drink ~4 cups a day, but now it’s half-caf. Love coffee. However, it turns out that under some circumstances lots of caffeine can impact retinal health - no source for that, just a recommendation from an ophthalmologist.
I would be fine, but would WE?
I (always) get the withdrawals after about 2 days of no caffeine, which is usually accidental. I normally ingest quite a lot via soda & "energy" mio flavoring, but sometimes I'll just drink OJ for a few days or something without thinking much about it. Until the headaches.
I can't treat the headaches with OTC medications, they aren't strong enough. So I just find more caffeine ASAP.
Other than that, I don't really feel like the caffeine does much for me; sometimes, however, the drink really does perk me up or feel refreshing. Maybe that's partly due to caffeine.
If I ever quit drinking soda, I will likely quit caffeine.
I really enjoy coffee, but I know I can work just fine without it. However, I feel ill if I haven't done a form of exercise by the evening.
It didn't use to be like this before I started cycling daily many years ago. I'm torn on whether at some point in my life I became dependant on exercise, or whether I used to always feel terrible and never realised.
But there is nothing magical about being on or off coffee. You might feel a bit more calm, and no forced bowel movements if you are off it though.
Otherwise, as others wrote, it wouldn’t make a significant difference except for the week or so of withdrawal symptoms.
I notice the caffeine craving is stronger when bored at the job, otherwise, it can be ignored. Now in the latter years of the pandemic, boredom is setting-in and so caffeine craving has increased.
But still, losing it would be miserable. So I chose to drink as much decaffeinated as possible. Basically I reserve the ordinary one for days when I need to work on some difficult projects or I need to present something in a meeting (rare these days).
I’ve quit for long periods and restarted many times. It’s only slightly difficult for a few days.
But if you gradually decrease is over a week then you won’t even notice.
So yeah unless I've got money in the bank/don't have a job, I will be using it.
I don't really buy into the meme that people specifically need coffee to actually function. It's the same as kids pretending to act hyper with red cordial.
The biggest effect on my productivity is that I need fewer bathroom breaks. No danger of getting fired (except possibly from excessive HN browsing).
really the first reason you use it as a crutch at work is to help supplement a lack of the above.
then the addiction and chemical resistance kicks in and now you're dependent and in need of increasing amounts.
Now I only drink it for evil.
But caffeine, I already avoid it because I think it redundant with my medication.
I get your drift, and my heart probably wishes I would do the same... literally.
He seemed ineffective and unable to concentrate, as if he was permanently sleep deprived, and the less he did at work, the longer he stayed working, and the less sleep he got, the more stimulants he took. Eventually he wound up getting nothing done while spinning his wheels, and got fired. I think he moved closer to his next job and did fine there, but I took the lesson and decided to short-circuit those tendencies by giving up caffeine, sugar, and alcohol for a month each year.