21

Story time!

Like I mentioned in a previous rant, I’m (or was) a coca-cola addict. Coca-cola has caffeine, right?

This happened a tuesday. I forgot my mug at home (I wanted to draw it a batπŸ¦‡) so I bought a jumbo coffee at a store near my office. I drank it, and then, all my partners went to the kitchen for coffee. I went with them and I refilled my cup.

I was working on my code, and suddenly I felt a strange sensation on my chest (I don’t think I could describe it, it feels like when you have intestinal problems and gases, but in the chest). I didn’t give it importance. One hour later I started trembling. I googled my symptoms and I found I had a coffee overdose 😱 But how? I drank a lot of caffeine in soda, but this only happened to me with coffee. This lasted 5 hours πŸ˜“

You, specially the most experienced devs and coffee addicts, how can I drink more than 1 cup of coffe per day without trembling? Btw, I have no heart or pressure problems, so I don’t know... this happened because I don’t drink much coffee?

Comments
  • 10
    You probably need to stop and start mainly drinking water to kinda reboot your body
  • 6
    When I noticed I sometimes had headaches in the weekend and I longed for caffeine, I started drinking espresso instead of coffee. Contrary to popular belief, espresso doesn't contain nearly as much caffeine as a regular coffee, due to the volume difference. With 4 or 5 espressos per day I'm perfectly happy.

    Try to slowly wind down from the caffeine and sugar, you'll start feeling better.
  • 8
    Been there, done that, and it's an awful feeling. There was, and may still be, a Cafe in Berlin called Cafe Muggel, and they had a quad-esspresso that was a heart-stopper. A friend and I had one very early one morning after an all night pub crawl, so we were eight sheets to the wind at the time. I was so glad when it finally wore off. That was before the Wall came down and Berlin (West) was still a cool place to be.
  • 2
    @irene I know, but the volume difference with coffee is usually so large that it is a large difference. The concentration doesn't matter, it's the total amount that we all should consume with moderation.
  • 4
    I never had chest pains, but I was once so caffeinated that I couldn't think straight anymore and my eye sight was a little shaky. You need to eat something and drink some water if it happens, you will feel better soon.
  • 4
    Try to wind it down. Caffeine is a stimulant and keeping yourself hitched to stimulants is an absolutely horrible idea in the long run.

    Over 4 years I went from a LOT of coffee a day to just one cup of black coffee in the morning and it feels so much better.
  • 5
    You're body slowly builds up a tolerance to caffein (I found that out last year πŸ˜… ). 1Coffee = 6Soda
    And you might have been sleep-deprived and dehydrated in addition.

    If you want to drink less caffeine you might set yourself a rule like "if I drink something caffeinated I will drink double the amount of something caffeine-free".
  • 3
    Been there, done that, multiple times, then chose to abandon coffee. No more of the black stuff for me :(
  • 3
    @irene @eeee
    actually the caffeine is released in the coffee depending on the time the infusion lasts, so an espresso contains less caffeine than a regular coffee for the same volume, and the same type of coffee.
  • 2
    @drtokky @irene if you just chug it down, it's the same

    Edit: also done that
  • 3
    @irene that's (somewhat) a double negation: won't compile in my brain!
  • 2
    @irene
    that's real tho, I was surprised when I first learned about that yeeeears ago :)
    but it's a fact tho, should be easy to check
  • 2
    @irene
    learning Russian is more difficult than learning programming, so double negation on top of that.. πŸ€” 😁
  • 3
    Why do you want to drink more ?

    I mean coffee is a tool that can help extend static focus at slight price of creativity.

    In general I don't drink it before planning or such creativity based activities, and after I prepared all my task cards, and my focus is trembling it is reasonable to drink a coffee.

    Joke on this topic with legal drugs, but a slight amount of alcohol can increase creative thinking, but I don't recommend this other than hackathons.
  • 3
    You should take vitamin suplements with magnesium. Coffee likes to flush them out. Lack of them can cause trembling.
  • 1
    Yeah, just don't
  • 2
    I really like the taste of it and I always had max 2 a day. Lately I started to feel a strange sensation when I go to bed every night, could not have any chill. I reduced things to 1 coffee / 2 days now and it's espresso in work from an el cheapo espresso machine.

    but it just feels so good after a good lunch, whats wrong with me
  • 1
    @eeee except a double espresso is used to make a whole cup of regular Americano...
    The benefit with espresso will be that you're completely separating coffee from thirst.
  • 3
    btw, eat something and drink a lot of water, its like hot/cold water, if you touch hot water it burns you but if you mix it with cold water you get the temperature thats fine for you. I think its the same for coffee, if it goes to an empty stomach it burns you, but if you drink and eat other stuff it should be fine
  • 2
    I drink a lot of coffee, about 5-6 a day - usually one espresso in the morning, and several "americanos" later during the day. I had similar symptoms a few times before - the best way is to eat something and drink a lot of water to "rinse" your organizm - colloquially speaking to force yourself to pee πŸ˜€, it really helps. At least it helps me πŸ˜‰
  • 1
    Tea is the answer
  • 0
    @irene Tea: 11mg of cafeine aprox
    Coffee: 40mg
  • 0
    Green tea also has caffeine, as much as 50mg per cup.
    Rooibos doesn't though, and the taste is kind of similar to regular English tea.
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