Observations:
1) Coffee tastes good.
2) Done right, it makes you temporarily more awesome.
3) For most healthy adults, caffeine has a half-life of 6–7 hours.
4) Everyone needs a legal vice.
Basic math:
If caffeine has a half-life of 6–7 hours, that means that after about 3 days, you’re pretty much completely “clean.” So the first cup of tea you have after 3 days away will hit you like the golden blossoming glow of spending a winter day at a sunny 70-degree California beach after decades of snowy northeast Januarys.
Disclaimer:
I’m not a scientist. Please mentally insert any other necessary disclaimers here.
My personal hack:
I discovered caffeine regulation (along with arrays of full-spectrum lights and heavy-duty cocktails) during the course of several lightless Seattle seasonal affective winters, and can talk for hours about that.
Let’s shortcut to the routine that works for me nowadays:
Maybe I convince myself that this is actually better for my productivity. Maybe it actually is.
Either way, it’s pretty fun. And when you overdose on an extra cup of tea, you don’t get a hangover or something worse — instead, you get a sleepless night, the heartbeat of a hummingbird, or maybe even a couple extra hours of being awesome.
Enjoy!
Signed,
Monday me
