– I know many people are
curious as to whether or not caffeine can improve
focus and concentration. And indeed it can. There is an immense amount
of data supporting the idea that caffeine, provided it's consumed in the appropriate dosages,
can improve mental performance and physical performance. And it largely does that
through improvements in focus and concentration. The dosage of caffeine of
course is going to depend on how caffeine-adapted you are, how much caffeine tolerance you have. And that is going to vary tremendously depending on whether or not
you ingest that caffeine with or without food,
as I mentioned earlier. But there is a kind of general range in which we can talk about
caffeine as being useful for focus and concentration. And the range is basically
from 100 milligrams to 400 milligrams.
I want to caution everybody out there. If you're somebody who
suffers from anxiety or panic attacks and you're
not used to ingesting caffeine and you run out and ingest
400 milligrams of caffeine in the form of espresso or yerba mate or an energy drink or in pill form, that is going to be very
uncomfortable for you. You're going to be sweating profusely. Your heart rate is going to increase. You're going to be quite panicked in fact or at least anxious. So be cautious with your
use and adopting of caffeine if you're not already caffeine-adapted. But most people do quite
well to ingest 100 to 200 milligrams of caffeine prior
to doing some focused work. And again, I recommend
delaying your caffeine intake to 90 to 120 minutes after
waking unless you are using that caffeine to really jolt
your system before a workout.
Caffeine can of course be
ingested in various forms, even pill form, but most
people ingest it in the form of coffee or my particular favorite way to ingest caffeine is yerba mate. It is important and I should note that you should actively
avoid the smoked versions of yerba mate as they contain a lot of carcinogenic
cancer-promoting compounds. There's some great yerba
mate brands out there. The most cost effective way to consume it would be to use the loose leaf tea and to pour water over that. There's one particular brand that I like. I don't have any affiliation
to them whatsoever but I've been using it for years.
It's Anna Park. It's an
organic brand that is sold. I buy mine on Amazon. You can find it elsewhere
on the internet as well. Again, I don't have any
affiliation to them. It's just very cost effective, very clean. It doesn't have the smoked flavor, at least the one that I buy
is not the smoked variety so none of the carcinogenic
compounds are in there, at least that I'm aware of.
And I like the way it
tastes and it provides a very even lift and
stimulant that I think certainly works for me and
that a number of people I know that I've suggested it to also enjoy. Yerba mate or caffeine also
have other additional benefits. In particular, the caffeine
in yerba mate and coffee and other sources of caffeine are known to increase the density and
efficacy, that is the number and the function of dopamine receptors. And this has been shown
in humans several times. So by ingesting caffeine pretty regularly, you're actually increasing
the ability of dopamine to have this effect of
increasing motivation and drive. I tend to ingest caffeine
only early in the day. I tend to cut off my caffeine intake somewhere around one or 2:00 PM to ensure that I can get into a good night's sleep.
But I realize that there
are people out there that ingest caffeine
as late as two or three in the afternoon and can still sleep fine. I will caution those of you that think that you can drink caffeine in the evening or nighttime and still fall asleep. All of the research points to
the fact that the architecture of your sleep and the depth
of your sleep is disrupted. Even if you're able to
fall and stay asleep, the sleep you're getting
is simply not as good as the sleep you would get
if you were to shut off your caffeine intake at least
eight hours before bedtime and ideally more like 10 or
even 12 hours before bedtime. But of course there are
practical constraints as well. Okay, so caffeine is
increasing dopamine's function by changing the number and
efficacy of dopamine receptors.
But of course it also
increases our wakefulness, our alertness, and that is largely through the neurochemical systems
related to adenosine, which is a molecule that
builds up in our brain and body the longer we are awake. It's part of the sleepiness
system, if you will, makes us feel fatigued or tired. And caffeine also operates
on the epinephrine, the adrenaline system. In fact, if we ingest too much caffeine, we'll sometimes get the jitters.
Those jitters are really the
sympathetic as it's called nervous system's bias toward movement. And our pupils will dilate.
They actually get broader. Now, somewhat paradoxically,
when our pupils get bigger, the pupils of our eyes that is, our visual world actually narrows. It becomes more tunnel-like. A lot of people don't realize this. When our pupils are really
small, that means we are relaxed. So if you ever see someone
really tiny or, you know, pin-sized pupils, they're very relaxed.
If their pupils are very
big, they're very dilated, well then, they are very amped up. They are very, very alert. Caffeine increases alertness
by increasing epinephrine, adrenaline release, both in
the brain and within the body. And so that's another
way that it facilitates focus and concentration. [upbeat music].
