Despite the fact that I pound two to three cups of coffee every day, I’ve never really thought about caffeine as a performance enhancing drug beyond the fact the fact that it makes me less tired. But there’s evidence that, like steroids and other drugs, caffeine works better when it’s used in a deliberate fashion.
Over at ScienceBlogs, Chris Chatham pours through recent caffeine research and finds that the best way to take advantage of caffeine’s effects is to take in somewhere between 20-200 mg per hour—in other words, drink a small cup of coffee every hour rather than swigging a huge mug all at once.
He also notes that caffeine doesn’t exactly replace sleep; it makes you better at some tasks than normally rested people and worse at others. When you’re making it through on a coffee high alone, stick to grunt work (like morning email) and save the real thinking work for once you’ve actually woken up.
