I Want Coffee And Data Now!
It’s 7am, I need to get to work, and stayed up too late last night, again. I need coffee. Or more precisely, I need caffeine. What’s the fastest way to get it in my system ASAP? So I looked at the research:
Well, the fastest way would be by intravenous injection. That would work almost instantly, but TBH I’m terrified of needles.
So it looks like my second best bet is a caffeinated chewing gum or toothpaste. I’ll start to feel it in just a few minutes, and it’ll reach a peak within as little as 22 minutes. The caffeine gets into our bloodstreams faster by going straight through the gums. The downside is I’ll need a little more caffeine to do the trick (because absorption is lower, around 70% vs. 100% for coffee), and the rush might fade quicker. It’s also pretty tough to figure out how much caffeine I’d be getting from the toothpaste, since they don’t list a dosage.
If I’ve got a long commute or I’m really tired, then a morning cup of coffee might still be the best bet. It takes around 8 minutes longer than gum to start working, but I can reach maximum alertness within about half an hour, and the effects will last longer. A typical cup has about 80 mg of caffeine, which is just the right amount for me. Bonus: I get that awesome coffee flavor.
And unless I want to try to snooze for another hour, then wake up ready to bolt out the door, it looks like caffeine pills just aren’t a good option. They taste terrible, take around an hour and a half to reach full efficacy, and can make me feel really jittery. That’s probably because each pill is 200 mg, equal to two and a half cups of coffee all at once. No thanks, I’ve been down that road before.
So, how do you like to get your early-morning fix?
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