HealthyGamerGG - The Problem with Caffeine

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Have you ever wondered about the hidden downsides of caffeine? Join us in today's video as we delve into the fascinating world of caffeine and its effects on our lives. Check out HG Coaching: https://bit.ly/47wQ86Z Or, take the quiz to see which Coaching types is right for you: https://bit.ly/3FjiHcd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Learn more at firstcitizens.com slash ambition. And this is the problem of caffeine, is that it doesn't allow us to fall asleep. And we're tired because we didn't sleep enough. And then we are groggy. And when we are tired and groggy, what do we drink first thing in the morning? We drink caffeine. What's the effect of caffeine on the brain in the long term? How safe is the consumption of caffeine to one's health?

So this is a great question. We talk about alcohol. We talk about nowadays marijuana. And there are lots of people who are super, super pro-marijuana. And people are also exploring things like psychedelics. But there are some substances that have generally speaking been legal all over the world have never been criminalized, have never been considered drugs of abuse, and are still very psychoactive. And caffeine is number one on the list.

I think 90% of people in America, I think use caffeine of some kind on a daily basis, 90% of adults. So it's staggeringly widespread. And a lot of people wonder, okay, what are the impacts of caffeine? Because we do develop a tolerance to it. Hey, y'all, I want to take a second to talk about a. And y'all may be wondering, oh my God, brah, like, I don't want to talk about coaching. I just want to watch YouTube videos because there's a part of your brain that recognizes that you need to do better in life.

But you don't actually want to invest the time and energy. You just want to sit there and watch another YouTube video, which is exactly why I developed a coaching program. Because I realize the problem that we have today is not that we don't know what to do. It's that we don't really understand how we work and how to get ourselves to actually do things. And the reason I developed a coaching program is so that 12 weeks from now, you can actually have made progress. We've shown that people improve in their sense of life purpose by about 58% and a 25% to 45% reduction in depression and anxiety. The reason we made a coaching program

isn't because you can't DIY it. It's because if you want to have made significant progress three months from now, you're going to need help doing it. So if you're interested, check out the link in the description below. And if you're still not ready yet, totally fine. That's why we literally 800 YouTube videos. So there are a couple of things to understand. The first is that the data on caffeine is mixed. There are a lot of studies that show that caffeine has health benefits, can do things like reduce the risk of dementia, can increase like all kinds of cardiovascular kind of outcomes. There's good evidence that shows that a moderate amount of caffeine on a daily basis is somewhat healthy for our longevity and mental health. But we also know that caffeine can

be damaging for especially developing brains. And this is where I'd say if you're trying to figure out, okay, what should I do about my caffeine intake? Number one thing to understand is that the earlier you start using caffeine in brain development, the greater the chance is that you will have some kind of harmful effect. So our brain develops until we're about the age of 27, 28. For those of y'all who started at the age of 16, G-G. No, I'm kidding. It's not that bad. Let's understand, okay? But if you want to, if you're trying to figure out what is the healthiest way to use caffeine, would say start after the age of 28. Because what we know about caffeine is that it tends to protect against neurodegeneration that happens later in life. Okay. But what we know about caffeine is that

when you take it very early, so for example, if we look at studies of prenatal caffeine exposure, so fetuses that are in the uterous uteri of pregnant women who get a large exposure to caffeine have certain changes to their brain. So a couple of the things that we see are decreased kind of efficacy of the frontal lobes. So these are babies that will sometimes have difficulty with self-regulation. So we know that caffeine and prenatal exposure sort of tamperes with our frontal lobes. We also know that it tamperes with our reward circuitry. So people, the most interesting thing is that early caffeine exposure, the most clear danger that we see to that or excessive caffeine exposure during the developing brain actually has to do with your weight, your sugar metabolism, and your

binge eating behaviors. So we know that caffeine is an appetite suppressant. And so when you have an appetite suppressant in the brain, in the developing brain, like a fetus, or even a young child, it tamperes with our sugar metabolism. So like when we start suppressing appetite, we feel less hungry. As we feel less hungry, we eat less food. As we eat less food, our energy balance starts to dip. As our energy balance dips, a compensatory action happens in the body. Our body is like, hey, we've run out of energy. We need to eat more calorie-dense foods. We need to eat foods that give us a lot of energy really quickly

because the caffeine has caused us to fall behind on our food, on our caloric intake for the day. So what we actually see is that the more caffeine that you ingest prenatally, the more likely your child is to develop obesity, the more likely your child is to have problems with their blood sugar. And what we see sort of cognitively is an, increased susceptibility to cravings for food. So what's really interesting is that if you are trying to figure out, like if you're trying to think about, okay, what problems does caffeine cause?

Most of the problems that we actually see have to do around diet and sugar. So paradoxically, one thing you can really think about is if you're having trouble eating a healthy diet and are vulnerable to highly processed foods with a very high nutrient density, there is a chance that cutting back on your caffeine will help you with that. I am your host Stasi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the official podcast. What's the most unhinged thing of season three? Stephen, because he's so evil.

I do think he is misunderstood. You see everyone base consequences. It's intoxicating. The writers just know how to trick you. There's always a twist in this show. Tell Me Lies, the official podcast, January 6th, and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies, January 13, on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. On the flip side, we also know that for people who are intermittent fasting, for example,

they will recommend caffeine intake early on in the morning or even into the afternoon to make it easier to tolerate that sort of fasting window. Right? So if you're doing something like 186 and you're awake for like 8, 10 hours a day without eating, caffeine can really be a useful appetite stimulant in that way. But I'd say that the primary problem that caffeine causes has to do with like making it difficult for us to regulate our blood sugar, our sense of hunger, and our cravings. The other big thing that we see with caffeine is that it interferes with sleep. So the second main problem with caffeine has nothing to do with necessarily brain development.

But a lot of the problems that we see with caffeine have to do with the way that it interferes with sleep. And this isn't just falling asleep. This is also what it does to our sleep architecture while we sleep. So people who have higher levels of caffeine are more likely to have less restful sleep. We don't really have great data on what exactly it does or what the chances are, but this is just kind of my observation is that even having caffeine like caffeine first thing in the morning for some people will affect the restfulness of their sleep at night. So we can also get into this really interesting problem where caffeine keeps us kind of artificially awake, which means that our brain is fatigued from excessive use, but we have so much artificial stimulation from the caffeine that we are not able to fall asleep. And what this creates is what I would call the zombie window.

So the zombie window is when you are too caffeinated to go to sleep, but you are too mentally exhausted to make good decisions. And what this kind of results in is a period of time usually between two and four hours, between like 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. Somewhere in there is usually what we're talking about. Maybe 10 o'clock, maybe 2 a.m., 3 a.m., somewhere in that 11 to 1 window is really where the major part of it is. where you're too tired to actually do anything productive. And since your brain is disinhibited and you've run out of willpower for the day,

you end up doing stupid shit like being on your phone or whatever, or like playing video games or ordering things online or like buying stocks, right? And this is kind of interesting. So there was a major trader that was just betting against everyone who did stock trades like at 2 in the morning. So a major trader realized that all these like retains. trader so people are downloading these apps like Robin Hood. And they realize that people make stupid decisions like after midnight. So there's a major clearinghouse that was like any noob who is using an app who purchases anything after midnight. We're just going to take the opposite

end of the bet. Whatever they want to buy, we're willing to sell it. And they made a ton of money because they were correct that people make stupid decisions when they're mentally fatigued. And this is the problem of caffeine, is that it doesn't allow us to fall asleep, but extends this window of kind of bad behavior. So then what happens is we wake up the next day and we're tired because we didn't sleep enough because the caffeine was floating around in our brain. And then we are groggy. And when we are tired and groggy, what do we drink first thing in the morning? We drink caffeine. And so this is also important to understand. The way that caffeine boosts our energy is not by boosting our energy. The way that caffeine makes us feel more energized is by blocking adenos.

receptors. So adenosine is the waste product from something called ATP, which is a general energy molecule in our body. It's like the most basic form of energy that we have. So really what you're doing is you're not actually improving your energy, you're just blocking the fatigue signal. So when you get dependent on caffeine, what happens is that you are functionally impaired because you're fatigued. You're like not at 100% by any means. But your brain tricks you into thinking you've got energy, which is how we enter the zombie state of like, I can't fall asleep and I don't really feel like doing anything, but I don't actually have a functioning brain that is like able to enter the flow state. So these are the problems that I tend to see with caffeine.

Number one is it messes with our sugar balance and our hunger and our cravings and our ability to binge eat and things like that. It really tempers with that. Second thing that we tend to see is this weird stuff around falling to sleep and not being able to fall asleep and like messing with our REM sleep so we're tired the next day. And then we also develop caffeine dependence. So in the absence of caffeine, we feel very groggy and tired. And so those are the problem.

Now, like I said, there's a fair amount of evidence that shows that caffeine is also neuroprotective against dementia. Moderate amounts, usually one cup of coffee a day or tea or something like that, is probably on balance, healthy for you, is my guess. But we also have to remember that when you drink coffee or tea, you are getting way more than caffeine. You're also getting antioxidants. You're getting all kinds of bitter stuff.

And, you know, you've got different stuff in like green tea that is, helpful, like theophilin, I think is in green tea as well. And theophilin can even, is even a medication that we use for people who have asthma used to that will like open up their airways. So there are all kinds of interesting benefits around cardiovascular health, respiratory health, but you got to watch out. Friend of me is asking, is it caffeine or coffee that's protective? Can I take a caffeine pill and get the same benefits? Chances are coffee is far more protective than a caffeine pill. So there's also something else to understand about most psychoactive natural compounds. So if you look at the difference between a caffeine pill and something like coffee, coffee has antioxidants,

may have other compounds that are stimulants. Like theophilin is a good example. I don't know if theophilin's in coffee, but it's definitely in green tea. So you'll have a variety of different psychoactive compounds in a natural plant-based form. The interesting thing is that most plants that are psychoactive actually have compounds that do both. So in the case of, for example, marijuana, we know that there are compounds that can, in psychosis or even a sensation of anxiety. And there are compounds that can decrease psychosis and a sensation of anxiety. And in baseline marijuana, we have both. So what tends to happen when we create

artificial marijuana. So we had a bad outbreak of this in Boston back in like 2010, 2012. I don't know if it's still a problem up there, but of something called K2, which is artificial marijuana. And boy, did people get fucking psychotic off of K2 like all the time. Like every day I was in the emergency room, someone is like, floridly psychotic. So one thing that tends to happen is anytime we purify something and remove it from its plant compound, we exasper, we really escalate the, biological effect. And frequently, we'll tip it out of balance. Now, we use this therapeutically when we're using drugs, like aspirin and cholesterol medications and things like that. But generally speaking, when you remove caffeine out of something, I think it's going to be more likely to be

harmful than balanced. Thank you.