Pablo_Stafforini comments on Post ridiculous munchkin ideas! - Less Wrong

55 Post author: D_Malik 15 May 2013 10:27PM

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Comment author: Pablo_Stafforini 11 May 2013 03:04:09PM *  13 points [-]

An alternative, courtesy of Anders Sandberg (via Kaj Sotala), is to set your alarm to ring two hours before your desired wake-up time, take one or two 50mg caffeine pills when it rings, and go back to sleep immediately thereafter. When you wake two hours later, getting out of bed shouldn't be a problem. Details here.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 16 June 2014 09:38:10AM *  1 point [-]

Coffeine doesn't work for ~10% of the population (like me).

ADDED:

I don't know exactly what's different and to what extent the effect exists but caffein doesn't have significant waking or alerting effects on me. At least not a 200mg pill (corresp. 2 liter coke or 2-5 cups of coffee). These I take to treat migraine where the caffeine does have a very notable effect on me.

"Caffeine has a tremendously wide variation in action," Regestein admits. "The people who say 'I can drink a cup of coffee right before I go to bed and go right to sleep' aren't lying." Hard biochemical research confirms the fact. Carney describes "one common strain of laboratory mouse, Jackson's Lab's SWR strain, inbred since the 1920s, who is just totally immune to the effect of caffeine: there's no dose that will excite him--not 100 milligrams per kilogram, which would be equivalent to 100 cups of coffee in a human.

And the opposite:

Carney points out that if some individuals are not much affected by caffeine, others--some 5 to 10 percent of the population--are hypersensitive to its effects. These individuals are the most likely to succumb to a serious coffee habit, exhibit the greatest physical and personality effects from it, and have the greatest difficulty in finally kicking the habit.

From Health: Does Coffee Make You Sleepy? Researchers now understand how caffeine works on the nervous system. For some, it may cause the opposite of its intended effect. By Roger Downey

See also http://flipper.diff.org/app/items/5455 for migraine and caffeine.

Comment author: ChristianKl 16 June 2014 10:37:06AM 0 points [-]

What do you mean with "doesn't work". Your A1 receptors are formed in a way where caffeine doesn't connect to them?

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 16 June 2014 11:42:55AM 2 points [-]

Answered above

Comment author: gwern 22 December 2013 09:00:07PM 0 points [-]

Does that work for you?

Comment author: Pablo_Stafforini 02 January 2014 05:36:24PM 0 points [-]

I tried it only a few times and didn't notice any clear effects. So as far as I can tell, no, it doesn't work for me.

Have you tested this intervention on yourself more systematically?

Comment author: gwern 02 January 2014 09:58:20PM *  0 points [-]

I'm currently trying it out on a loose alternating-day basis; if it seems to be working, I may upgrade to blinding & randomization.

EDIT: it does correlate with earlier wake up, so I've upgraded to randomization; the blinding didn't work out because the caffeine pills have too detectible a flavor.

Comment author: amitpamin 12 May 2013 08:07:31PM 0 points [-]

I set my alarm 5 minutes before I actually want to wake up. When it rings the first time, I consume a large glass of fake lemonade (the kind with lots and lots of sugar). Perhaps not healthy, but it works - among other things, the presence of sugar in the mouth immediately releases dopamine. On the few occasions the energy isn't enough, the urge to use the bathroom is ;)

I tried the coffee thing, for me, sugar works more reliably.

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