Hey night owls! (I know some of y'all are up doing work right this minute, and will be for a while.) How much do you depend on caffeine to stay awake? What is your preferred form of caffeine? Or do you have another method of keeping yourself awake? Anyone out there got any good caffeine abuse stories? And is it possible to overdose on caffeine? I didn't think so until last night, when I literally made myself sick on coffee... not pretty...
I drink lots of water....good for your body, though it does tend to make you have to use the bathroom a lot. That and sleep all day .
Think water makes you run to the bathroom a lot? Try coffee... it will actually dehydrate you in large amounts. It goes straight through you and takes a lot of the water in your system with it. So, aside from making you sick , abuse of coffee is counterproductive. How much work are you doing when you keep having to go back and forth to the bathroom? (assuming you don't just give up and take the work in the bathroom with you ) *i hate dissertations...*
Waking up at 11, 12 , 1 is what does it for me. If I have to wake up early, then I'll take a two hour nap. There are many days where I get tired at 7 or 8 clock and end up dosing for 20-25 minutes in my bed. I think that dosing period is the biggest reason I stay up late. That, and that the morning SUCKS!
I tend to make long, incoherent rants on Internet message boards to keep me awake. This is not one of them, however.
I usually go to sleep around 1:00 - 2:00 am and wake up at 5:00 am on workdays. I used to drink about 3-4 cups of coffee every morning at work. I gave up caffeinated products (except iced tea at restaurants...arrrgg...my weakness). I feel more awake now than I did when drank 3-4 cups of coffee. I still sleep the same hours, but I just feel better in the mornings.
I have ONE or TWO cups of coffee on most weekdays. I rarely drink caffeinated drinks other than that. I usually get caffeine free coke, etc. I don't really rely on it to wake me up, I just enjoy the coffee in the morning.
When I wake up (on an empty stomach) I take 500 mg of tyrosine or a blend of free-form amino acids. Then my caffeine. That keeps me going.
I usually drink about 300 mL of dihydrogen monoxide in the morning, not counting what I take in peridically during the night. During the day, I usually have 12 oz. of fructose enriched carbonic acid solution.
