Elon Muscular

The libraryFocus

Caffeine

Coffee inside 8.8 hours of bed costs you sleep, a pre-workout scoop inside 13.2.

Also called 1,3,7-Trimethylxanthine, Trimethylxanthine, Guaranine, Methyltheobromine, Theine, Anhydrous Caffeine

Sold as a dietary supplement

Who it's forAny man on coffee or pre-workout who sleeps badly and blames stress.

The item

Three squares: proven in human trials. Two: a strong signal. One: early human data. Striped: the trials disagree.

Start today

  1. Set a phone alarm 8.8 hours before your bedtime and make it your last-coffee bell.
  2. The studies used 400 mg a day, with no side effects found in healthy adults.

How you'll know it's working

Track
Total sleep time. Caffeine cut 45 minutes off the night and added 9 minutes to falling asleep.
When to judge
The same night.

Why it works

It does not supply energy. It blocks the signal for tiredness. Adenosine builds up across waking hours and causes drowsiness by docking at its receptors. Caffeine is close enough in shape to sit in those sites without switching them on. So the calming signal never lands, and nerve firing rises. Its other actions need doses well above normal intake and add little to what people actually feel.

The doses the studies used

Study / ContextRouteDoseDuration
Healthy adults - intake with no side effects found (review of the trials)OralUp to 400 mg a dayDaily intake

What people say

Here is what doctors, influencers and men online say about Caffeine, word for word.

Experts

Clinicians, authorities

  • “Caffeine can be part of a healthy diet for most people, but too much caffeine may pose a danger to your health.”

    U.S. Food and Drug Administration

  • “Even if you don’t experience an overdose, regularly having unsafe levels of caffeine can damage your heart and central nervous system”

    Cleveland Clinic

  • “There is consistent evidence from epidemiologic studies that higher consumption of caffeine is associated with lower risk of developing PD.”

    Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, The Nutrition Source

Gurus

Podcasts, channels, influencers

  • “We found that caffeine significantly improved vertical jump power (ES = 0.17) and 1RM strength (ES = 0.20).”

    evidence-based lifting site article

  • “people who regularly ingest caffeine in the appropriate dosages do seem to enjoy an antidepressive effect overall”

    podcast episode transcript

  • “If used properly, caffeine can help you muster the motivation to never miss a workout, energize your routine, and kick-start your metabolism.”

    fitness blog article

Regular people

Forums, reviews, comments

  • “has an average rating of 6.6 out of 10 from a total of 41 reviews on Drugs.com. 56% of reviewers reported a positive experience,”

    Drugs.com user reviews, 6.6/10 from 41 reviews

  • “I love coffee, but I feel so much better without it I’ll never go back.”

    Hacker News thread on the case against caffeine

  • “At least personally, I've found that starting to drink coffee has had a pretty dramatic positive impact on my depression.”

    Hacker News thread on the case against caffeine

The studies

Every study behind this page.

Words on this page

PMID
A study's ID number in PubMed, the public index of medical research.

Make your last coffee 8.8 hours before bed, the pre-workout scoop 13.2.

Emergency: call 911.

I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice. This is self-education. Talk to a physician who has your history before you change anything.