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Optimizing Your Caffeine Intake With an App
MrSeb writes "Two doctors at Penn State University have developed Caffeine Zone, a free iOS app that tells you the perfect time to take a coffee break to maintain an optimal amount of caffeine in your blood — and, perhaps more importantly, it also tells you when to stop drinking tea and coffee, so that caffeine doesn't interrupt your sleep. By reading through lots of peer-reviewed studies, doctors Frank E. Ritter and Kuo-Chuan Yeh found that a caffeine level of between 200 and 400mg in your bloodstream provides optimal mental alertness, and that you should be below 100mg when you try to sleep. Caffeine Zone plots your caffeination level after you consume caffeine, and warns you if that big afternoon coffee will keep you up at night. It also lets you change the 'optimal' and 'sleep' values if you're particularly resistant or weak to caffeine."
Than I can use an Arduino with a bluetooth shield and make it control my IV Drip Mr. Coffee machine?
Hold on, I am not thinking clearly, my iBarista seems to have crashed.
Silence is a state of mime.
Is there an Android version in the works? Or better yet, a desktop app that tells me time to get a cuppa?
that's why the heavy caffeine drinkers make sweden and switzerland near the bottom of the list of all country's life expectancies.......oh wait.
better take up the hobby, and *LIVE* boy.....
Bollocks. I find caffeine in small, steady doses to be a perfect alternative to slow-release Ritalin, since it's easier on my blood pressure and doesn't wear off all at once.
Realize I'm getting edgy and having trouble concentrating --- Stop drinking coffee.
I've had caffeine problems in the past and am now rolling back to Green Tea. Just enough of a prod. The problem with Coffee is it's a big hit and the subsequent sips provide a declining return on alertness, but an increase in fidgeting, anxiety, etc. A more modest dose from tea and I'm less likely to become accustomed to high levels of caffeine which only serve to keep me at a body-acclimated "normal".
I appreciate what they're trying to do, but really, each person has their own caffeine profile and has to find where it works and where it doesn't.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Does it come with testing hardware so that it can determine precisely how strong your coffee is, and thus more accurately calculate your intake? Does it come with measuring tools to know how much you're pouring into your mug? How about accountability for the additional influence of sugar? What about people who have become desensitized to caffeine? There are too many factors they haven't considered, not least of which being how they're going to convince me to jam a needle in my liver so they can determine how well it's working.
According to App store reviews the current version is buggy (it crashes a lot).
Still I got it because it's FREE (well the lite version is) and it will hopefully be upgraded to fix its bugs. Since I drink coffee for my health (many studies have shown it to help prevent colon, liver and prostate cancers and other diseases as well as enhance athletic performance) I'd really like to keep track of consumption.
for(;;)
{ time_to_drink_coffee(); }
Excuse me, I need another double espresso to make it to bedtime. O_o
Subject says it all. Just an FYI.
I've already optimized my intake: it's 0.
Honestly, why do people addict themselves to this crap? Stop eating McCrappers all the time, get some exercise and you might be surprised how much energy you have without caffeine. You'll feel a lot better, too, not being buzzed and strung out all the time.
Medium Coffee at 7am
App Check >> DRINK MORE COFFEE!
Medium Coffee at 8am
App Check >> DRINK MORE COFFEE!
Medium Coffee at 9am
App Check >> DRINK MORE COFFEE!
Large Coffee at 10am
App Check >> DRINK MORE COFFEE!
Take HUGE Piss
Giant Coffee at 11am
App Check >> DRINK MORE COFFEE!
Giant Coffee at 12pm
App Check >> DRINK MORE COFFEE!
Another HUGE Piss, skip lunch
Full pot of Coffee at 1pm
App CHECK >> DRINK MORE COFFEE!
Go into coffee induced mild coma at 2pm
It tastes so good, that's why i'm addicted. I'm constantly on and off coffee. I hate the caffeine but love the taste. I'm on decaf now but it tastes bad. What I don't get is people who need to add cream & sugar. Why not just drink soda at that point?
Ssssshhhutttttt uppppp, youuuu faggggottttttttt. Cofffffeeeeeeeeee isssss perrrfecccctttlyyyy saffffffeeeeee. Hhhheeeeeeelllllpppsssssss witttthhh conconconcennntrationnn and typping.
What?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
when there is too much blood in my vein.
I've never drank coffee on a regular basis. I've drank maybe under 100 cups of coffee total in my entire life. I've never had a problem with drowsiness or alertness. I get a good amount of sleep at night and decent exercise. This is all you need.
A big difference is that caffeine is naturally occurring in lots of plants and not a major health negative especially as far as stimulants go. On the other hand only my kids believe that there is a McNugget tree in the wild despite my best efforts to avoid that shit.
Hey! This article says caffeine, not cocaine
Which is worse: caffeine, or falling asleep at my desk every day until I get fired, run out of unemployment, and starve to death?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Don't mean to troll here but maybe decaf doesn't taste so good because as you swig, the caffeines not there to light the 'taste' up?
that's easy,
just a screen that says
DRINK COFFEE NOW
there..optimized.
the paid version adds a -beep- every three seconds to remind you to take sip
I've already optimized my intake: it's 0.
Honestly, why do people addict themselves to this crap? Stop eating McCrappers all the time, get some exercise and you might be surprised how much energy you have without caffeine. You'll feel a lot better, too, not being buzzed and strung out all the time.
You sound really irritated and snappish - a cup of coffee might help soothe your nerves.
#DeleteChrome
I could not stomach the taste of coffee for years, it would make me gag ... one day I tried some decent stuff black, and now I have no problem with it, though I still rarely drink it
I wouldn't think so - caffeine by itself has a rather bitter taste. Energy drinks add tons of other crap as much for marketing as to work around it.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Jesus people. I know it's the nerd way, but can't I get a hit of my drug, the one drug the Feds haven't tried to outlaw, without worrying if I'm doing it in the properly determined scientific manner? I know, I sound like a total artsy type right now, but with the increasing prevalence of articles telling me to worry about doing everything "optimally", even my relaxation habits, I can't help but wonder if the soma and the orgies are that far off.
with an app
Caffeine is a drug that's sadly overused to the max. Surely, the best thing must be to avoid taking caffeine at all? It's really mind boggling how our culture nurtures it to the point that they now talk about "optimum caffeine level" in your blood. Wow, just..wow.
No, it's because decaf inherently tastes bad.
Basically, when making coffee, the idea is to extract some chemicals from the coffee beans using hot water. Those chemicals are volatile organic compounds, for the most part. If you leave a coffee bean exposed to the air for a while (or a ground coffee bean exposed to the air for an hour), most of those chemicals will evaporate. The resulting coffee would taste terrible - much of what makes it taste like coffee would have evaporated.
Something similar happens with decaf. You have to try to extract the caffeine, without extracting the other compounds that make it taste like coffee. That's really difficult, because any process you might use to extract caffeine will extract other chemicals as well. Much of what makes it taste like coffee would be lost - you can take some decent coffee, decaffeinate it, and it'll end up tasting bad.
You can work around that by using much higher quality coffee beans - you take coffee that would taste really good, and it'd end up tasting OK. The problem with that is economics.
It turns out that people aren't willing to pay any extra for decaf compared to regular coffee. Since the decaffeination process itself adds cost, the only way to sell decaf for the same price as regular coffee is to use lower quality (cheaper) coffee beans. So now you're taking bad coffee, and making it worse. Aside from which, if you're producing coffee beans, why would you take the best you have and ruin it, when you could sell it as-is for a much higher price?
It is possible to have decaf coffee that doesn't taste like crap. It's just difficult.
I love America. It's full of Americans that sell shit I choose to buy. So much better than the alternatives...
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
It's actually in the roasting and processes used to make decaf. For one thing, it's almost universally roasted so dark that it's basically burnt, and becomes extremely bitter. The lighter and medium roasts that have the more mellow flavours actually have the highest caffeine content.
Have you heard of the word effeciency, and unconventional!
Swedish watches:
http://www.arlanch.se/
http://www.sjoosandstrom.se/
http://mutewatch.com/
http://www.watcheroo.com/swedish-watches.php
Swiss cars
http://www.smart.com/
Boing! That coffee hit me hard!
If that's the case then you obviously have a drug addiction and might want to consider getting it under control. Your body gets quickly accustomed to the caffeine, so you'll need more and more just to get to a "normal" level. If you can't stay awake without it then using your holidays for a detox might be one of the best things you've done for yourself in a long time. Trust me, I've been there!
You could just have a glass of wine at night if you want to take the edge off the caffeine.
Caffeine is naturally occurring in lots of plants as an insecticide.
Half life clearance of Caffeine from the body can vary from 1.5 to 9.5 hours and is influenced by things like what medication you are on, the health of your liver, if you smoke, are on the pill... and so on.
No, I mark this idea "wrong." Go back to med class!
The purpose of existence is to make money.
I was a twice daily autodrip coffee drinker, cup in the morning, cup or 2 in the afternoon when one tends to the the dowsies at a dull day job. 2 years ago I made an effort to stop drinking coffee. I didn't think myself a heavy coffee drinker, but it was that afternoon problem of getting drowsy... it was getting worse and I'd need more and stronger coffee. I was successful without much effort. I quit, and ate fruit instead, and the drowsy afternoon problem went away; I found myself alert in the afternoons. A few months later, after having no coffee whatsoever, I was given a coffee gift card... and within a few visits became addicted to esspresso... and since have spent a depressing amount on coffee. And I have tried to quit... and its really difficult. I need 6 or so shots a day just to hold it together.
Fair, but chocolate is toxic to dogs. Yet to me it is yummy as hell, and some argue has positive health properties in moderation. Humans and insects are quite different by most measures.
making-love-in-a-canoe coffee.
Hey, I thought that comment ("fucking close to water") applied to our beer, not our coffee. :P
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
...that can keep me at the Ballmer peak? Now THAT would be useful.
I drank my last one then and haven't touched it since. I know some people it's ok for, however like most drugs they affect people in different ways.
Some drinkers get merry, happy and have a good time, others want to beat people up.
Coffee makes me an addict, takes my energy away, wrecks my sleeping patterns and is generally not a good thing to go near.
I have weak jasmine tea now, awesome drink, much better - can sip at it all day from a thermos as if I'm in a Vietnamese resteraunt.
Yes, you're absolutely right - there is no possibility that this app can/should be taken seriously. That it's being promoted as developed by 2 doctors is a more worrying issue (or would be, if I cared), as the more credulous members of society, with no self-control, will make the basic error of believing what it tells them.
In practice it's just a bit of silliness for people who feel the need to justify the amount of coffee they drink. Hopefully the next version will link coffee intake with biorhythms - so we can see exactly how much credibility to give it.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I don't know where the GP is from but I could make a wild guess that it's one of the Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, etc.) because of this list of countries by coffee consumption per capita.
I keep hearing that American beer is too light and I have no reason to doubt that but let me assure you that Nordic beer is also crap. The local term is "Poronkusi", which translates to something like "Reindeer piss". (Of course, some microbreweries are exception but I'd guess that there are quite decent microbreweries in USA too).
But Swiss watches are functional, and Swedish cars are boring.
What's going on?!
Awful stuff.
Tastes good, though.
Don't drink it regularly... (note that I did not say "don't drink it EVER... it will kill ya... coffee's bad" etc. etc.)
It's not witchcraft, people: coffee is a drug (a reasonably mild one at that), like many drugs your body builds a tolerance to it real fast. The more you drink it, the less effective it is, up until the point where your hourly cup barely keeps you at baseline wakefulness (kinda like crack, really, but much cheaper). I could quote you a gazilion studies on that, but I'm pretty sure you already have that one coworker whose 12 cups/day diet does not make particularly on edge (but who gets the shake if they go without caffeine for a couple days).
Restrain yourself, only drink coffee (in small dosage) when you particularly need the alertness or wakefulness, and you will be making optimal use of it (at minimal cost on your kidneys).
And if 24/7 "optimal mental alertness" is what you are really after, then why do half-measure: just skip to amphetamines directly.
interesting informative and the first truly useful discovery since teflon!
Yeah, Koenigsegg Automotive AB makes really boring cars.
And for everyones information coffee contains a lot of antioxidats and other good stuff.
Keep in mind that Europeans drink stronger coffee than Americans.
Believe me, you just can't group Europeans like that. I'm Italian. I simply cannot drink what they call coffee in any northern country. Spaniards, Greeks and Turkish have interesting ways of preparing coffee too. Northern countries are very similar to Americans in their coffee habits.
Check out my cross-platform apps
If you are falling asleep then you should try to cure the reason and not treat the Symptoms.
Caffeine is great for a temporary boost but its not a cure for being tired if you only sleep two Hours a day.
I stopped consuming Caffeeine products two weeks ago and on average I feel more awake now then when I was emptying Energy Drink like there is no tomorrow!
Especially getting out of Bed got a lot easier!
Mitt? Is that you?!?
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
The good thing about antioxidants is that they reduce the free radicals in your system, which have been hypothesized to be linked to cellular damage. Although, after almost twenty years of research, there is still no clear evidence of this.
The bad thing about antioxidants is that they reduce the free radicals in your system, which have been repeatedly shown to be critical for fighting off bacterial disease.
But somehow reduction of caffeine seems to severely lower the ability of many people to spot a joke. Even when it's striding towards them in a pink motorbike suit yodeling a novel esperanto interpretation of the national anthem of Kazakhstan.
listed as $1.
You must not be American ... we don't get extended holidays to wean ourselves from caffeine. My longest work break in 12+ years of IT has been 12 days that I spent between London and Paris. Getting 8 straight vacation days took quite a bit of negotiation.
This is the exact reason I've heard from many different sources. If you were willing to pay 50% extra for decaf, then you could have primo beans, no caffeine and good-tasting coffee. Most people won't pay the extra, thus most decaf tastes like crap.
Cute french animation regarding the subject of the article: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sILvmyNGAI
Yay, kidney stones!
I'm actually inclined to agree with the anonymous "troll". My beloved is a counselor, and simply taking people off of caffeine for 8 weeks is enough to eliminate many cases of: severe anxiety & panic disorders, psychotic episodes, memory problems, some cases of depression, and sometimes even symptoms that mimic personality disorders. High caffeine intake also tends to make chronic pain worse as the user feels tense, stressed out, and high doses often lower the ability to cope with stress.
The character "Tweak" from South Park isn't too far from the truth in a great many cases. Caffeine does not do kind things to the brain, or for your blood pressure with high dose chronic use.
I still love having a couple cups of tea, but since I started abstaining from coffee I am a ton less stressed out than when I was consuming 1-2 16oz QuikTrip coffees a day. The little bit of lift caffeine gives tends to largely disappear with chronic use, but the negative aspects of high caffeine intake remain.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
Okay, panic
My point was that "[it's] naturally occurring in lots of plants" is completely irrelevant to how safe or beneficial something is. Caffeine is toxic to humans, we just don't normally approach potentially fatal doses. Theobromine, the caffeine relative in chocolate, is also toxic. Caffeine, for example, is about 1/3 as toxic as antifreeze, and about half as toxic as the organophosphate pesticide diazinon.
It's tough to kill yourself drinking coffee, but you certainly can with more concentrated caffeine sources (and people have). People have also died from eating too much chocolate.
Not that drinking coffee in moderation is necessarily bad for you (I drink it), but the "it's natural!" thing is annoying. You're drinking pesticide.
Whoops, caffeine is 3 times more toxic than antifreeze, not 1/3 as toxic.
Asians figured this out centuries ago.
The drink green tea, getting a health boost with their caffeine, instead of the bone rotting chemicals in soda.
The drink it hot so they don't guzzle it and get swamped in caffiene and they drink it out of tiny tea cups through out the day giving themselves a steady burn without a crash.
I am not addicted. I can stop whenever I want.
So say we all
ridiculous...several studies have shown a neuroprotective role for caffeine against parkinson's and multiple sclerosis.
Any amount of caffeine is bad for you. Stop trying to defend your addiction, you silly people.
Could you please back this up with a citation?
Every end has half a stick.
I gave up caffeine purely on a whim about a month ago, and I cannot express how much BETTER my life is. I'm less nervous, I fidget less, I fall asleep earlier and wake up earlier. My appetite is more regular.
Do you have any idea how awesome it feels to fall asleep because you're sleepy (not because you know you have to), and to wake up because you've slept enough and not have to immediately start pouring more caffeine into the bloodstream just in order to function? It was a fucking miracle.
I looked up info on caffeine. Takes about one hour to go into your system and it has about a 5 hour half life. I put this into spreadsheet and found that a simple rule is drink x amount of coffee to start the day then 1/2 x in three hours and another 1/2 x in three more hours. This will keep your caffeine level pretty constant and it will decay to about 15% of x by the time you go to sleep. There is quite a bit of variation with different people so this is only a starting point.
thanks! needed the non iOS one. and yeah dont know why this was posted on Slash dot anyways. good idea to sell to geeks, but they made it free. so i am betting a better version will be out on the iOS with in a month.
Does anyone know where did they get their parameters? From which studies / white papers exactly? I for one would be thrilled to port this to some other platforms if anyone could give me some pointers to relevant studies.
I am pretty sensitive to caffeine, but love all kinda of loose leaf tea. I can't even drink as much green tea as I want without overstimulating myself. I just sip at it constantly until I realize that my hands are starting to sweat, this app may be useful for me to drink as much as possible, but not get too much caffeine. Decaffeinated tea is not an option, it is simply bad tea that has had the caffeine 'washed' out along with most of the good flavor.
advice to the app makers:
allow checkboxes for Single Nucleotide Polymorphism results for - fast metabolizer - slow metabolizer.
disclaimer: I have not seen the app or read the other comments here.
- Nazgul
Fair, but chocolate is toxic to dogs.
Because it contains theobromine, which is very closely related to caffeine...