January 14, 2016 • 47 mins
Caffeine is a heck of a drug - at the same time it's both good and bad for you. Learn the good, bad and ugly about this everyday stimulant in today's episode.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Attention everyone on Earth, get in your nearest plane and
fly to one of a few cities to see us
for s Y s K Live, the Live Show. Yes,
an all new live show by the way, you know. Yeah,
we are sold out in San Diego, San Francisco, in Austin, Texas,
that's right, but you can still get tickets in Dallas, Atlanta, Birmingham,
(00:22):
and New Orleans. And also I this is Chuck by
the way. I will be appearing on noon January sixteenth
in San Francisco at the Eureka Theater as part of
Sketch Fest on the Amazing JV Club podcast from the
Amazing Janet Barney. Yes, part of the Nerdest Network. Yeah,
(00:42):
and I think I'm gonna be revealing like all kinds
of childhood and teenage truths. It's gonna be all. So
if you want to know more about what I was
like as a teen, January sixteenth, at noon at the
Eureka Theater is where to do it. And you can
get those Just go to the s F Sketch Fest
site and navigate to that date and you can get
to get Sarah right on. But otherwise we will see
you on our warmer Climbs Winter Tour. Yeah, and go
(01:04):
check out s y s K live dot com for
any ticket info and all that is brought to you
by Squarespace. Welcome to you stuff you should know from
house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
(01:24):
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Cherry's over
there totally throwing us off with some new as you
focus Pocus in two thousand sixteen head stuff. What Yeah, yeah,
she's messing with it. Uh so we you guys don't
know this because, through the power of the magic of
editing and publishing and publishing, you think we've just never
(01:49):
been gone from the office. But we've been gone. I
have no idea what episodes we released. I've been so
out of it. Yeah, I took six weeks of Pattornity
leave and I did by proxy, and you did by proxy.
Uh so we've been gone from the studio for a while,
and I just wanted to say it's glad to be back, buddy. Yeah,
(02:09):
it is nice to be back, and uh, it's good
to see you again. It's a long time. What's happened
in the In the meantime, I lost another tooth. Yea,
my stupid front the toothnext to the one that came
out broke off at a Falcon's game. Oh well there
you go. God was cursing you for being at the falcons.
(02:30):
So I have another stupid flipper in another eight months
of eight months early, yeah, until I get the permanent implant.
So again I'll be out on the tour with no tooth.
You can't even see it, like you have to literally
like your lips back to your gums. Or if I
laugh a lot, which I'm trying to just lead a
more somber life. Well I plan on making you laugh
(02:51):
a lot on stage so people might see it. Then
what else? Have you got a dog? Yeah? We got
a puppy named Momo. You wanna talk about Momo? Momo
is very sweet. She's a sweet little zoo poodle next year.
How's that going. She's a little fluff ballt very good. Yes, good?
Right off the bat we um we create trained her
and at first I was like chrits or mean, put
(03:13):
a dog and create, And then I started to read
up on it, like yes, it's like her den. It's
her little room like her bedroom. In fact, when we
took away the crate from our youngest dog, Charlie because
of we needed a breakfast nook. Um. She was kind
of like, dude, he took my room away. That was
my room. Yeah. We plan to keep her crate around,
like as long as she wants it, but just she
(03:34):
won't be penned in it against her will at certain
times until until she's house broken, which I mean she's
basically there. It's just we're we're like, what are you doing,
You're about to pee? You know. Um, she doesn't actually
have accidents in the house. We're just you know, staying
on top of that. It's great. What else happened? Uh?
We had holidays, yes, good Christmas. In the New Year's
(03:57):
I guess Humi's birthday. Oh yeah, the birthday. Um, and
it was just a nice time off. Like I had
this big to do list and uh none of it
got done because I was raising replace that. Yeah, how's
your kid? Uh, Ruby's great man. And I did the
same thing. I had a big to do list and
I found myself just kind of be like, oh, could
you do this? Or I could just like play with
(04:19):
my kid, right, or watch Making a Murderer? Yeah, I
did watch all that. Stay here and like a day
we'll talk about that. We probably shouldn't talk about it.
People wanted to do a podcast on that. I don't
like a follow up. Maybe it's not as bad as
the request to do a podcast on the h the
(04:39):
case that Sereal covered, like I think Cereal cover. No,
of course not. I could maybe do a follow up
on making a murder. I think we should revisit Um
Exonerations and the Innocence Project again because when we did
that one, we had no idea what was going on,
and now it's really like it's really coming through true.
(05:00):
So yes, let's do that. I've been playing a lot
of uh I got a p S four. Oh yeah,
I've been playing Fallout for with the Dog and the Dogs. Well,
you can't have a dog companion, so of course I
chose it. But it's really awful because the dog gets
hurt a lot and like struggles around, whimpering and out
of its misery. Well, no, you can heal the dog.
(05:22):
But I went to message boards and everyone's like, don't
heal your dog, Like, just trust me, it'll heal itself.
Don't waste your medicine. Okay, yeah, I'm sure you waste
your medicine every time, don't you. Well, yeah, it's tough
to do. Yeah, and it's like, oh, okay, don't mind me.
Dog meat and that's his name. So that's a that
(05:42):
was a big time off. Just it was and that's
all that happened. Jerry, How about you? That was great, Jerry.
I'm glad you had a nice time as well. Jerry
also had a nice break with her little baby in
these through a series of blinks she did that we've
worked out over the year. Nice job, all right, So
(06:05):
sorry about the long injury, but I felt like we
needed to catch everyone up, even though you didn't know
that you needed it right, And maybe has something to
do with caffeine because we did such a good job
when we recorded those ones that were released over the
break of predicting things we would be talking about the time,
who could tell exactly. So I'm a little caffeinated right now,
believe it or not. What a shock. Um. I don't
(06:26):
drink nearly as much as coffee as I used to.
It's because I really realized, like it really does have
a detrimental effect on like my mood. Stay in the
car cars are really good example of me and caffeine.
You're a little ramped up in the car anyway, so
that probably and help. Right. Well, I'm working on that,
but part of working on that is just, you know,
(06:47):
not drinking as much coffee. Yeah. I think a good
title for this could be mixed messages because in studying caffeine,
and we did one on coffee, we dabbled in this
a little bit, but um, all research is, you know, caffeine,
it can be really good for you and help a
lot of things, and caffeine can be kind of bad
for you, and it's kind of both or can be both.
(07:09):
It sure, things like that unless we have like a
completely misunderstood UM model of addiction and um the parasympathetic
or sympathetic nervous system. Unless we don't know those things,
then yeah, coffee is both for sure. The weird thing is,
like everybody realizes that coffee, I'm sorry, caffeine. I think
(07:30):
I'm probably gonna do that a lot this episode because
they are virtually interchangeable. But it's not really but caffeine, um,
it is. It has a lot of really bad effects
on you, and a lot of people know that just
from having experienced it. It's the it's the beneficial effects
that are so surprising. They do seem to like you say, agreed,
(07:51):
So Chuck, I drink today. I've had five cups of
coffee and mountain diet mountain dew. And it is one
forty in the afternoon. What time did you get up? Seven? Yes,
I'm counting on my fingers. Six and a half hour.
You six and a half hours. You've had five cups
(08:13):
of coffee in a mountain dew. The met's cutting back, yes,
oh man, Yeah, and it's cutting back because I like
this afternoon. I won't keep going. Oh so you stop?
This is this will be my last probably really for
the day. Yeah, okay, And I'm actually I'm above average
for the United States. And I could have guessed that,
(08:34):
but the average for the United States is actually on
the worse end of the spectrum as far as like
caffeine consumption goes. Yeah. The latest information I got this
that the US was sixteenth in the world in per
capita consumption, not even or nine or any anywhere above ten.
(08:56):
If you want to know who leads the world right out,
I think it's the Netherlands, is what I found. I
found Finland from that was the most recent I saw. Well,
the most recent I saw said the Netherlands at two
point four, with Finland at one point eight. But that
is not what I saw. Yeah, where were the Netherlands
(09:17):
on your list? I don't remember. I just saw the
Finland was number one at like two point four and
um like nine point six kilograms of coffee beans per
person per year consumed. Well, I bet the top ten
is kind of interchangeable and fairly static, though, as in
the Samish countries in different orders. Yeah, because I mean
(09:38):
coffee consumption patterns. I guess they could change fairly rapidly,
but they don't change in the blink of an eye.
We'll think about how much Starbucks change coffee consumption in
this country, didn't ramp it up? Oh yeah, Like think
about how many people now swing by Starbucks are like
three pm, whereas before they may not even have drank coffee,
(09:58):
I mean Charbucks. Yeah, actually have no skin in the
game Starbucks. Yeah, I don't really well, you know, I
mean I don't drink caffeine that much. I know, very mellow. Yeah,
I don't know. I'm starting to think I should drink
more coffee though, because of the health benefits. Oh yeah,
you know. Um, we'll see, we'll get into all that.
(10:21):
But in the top ten you have Netherlands, Finland, Sweden,
in Mark, Germany, scandin Maybia loves her coffee, apparently, Slovakia, Serbia,
Czech Republic, Poland, Norway than eventually the US cold countries.
It's not bad, although Brazil loves its coffee as well.
I think they're like number ten or eleven or something
like that. Good coffee. I didn't see they weren't even
(10:42):
in my top sixteen. So we had different lists made
by two different caffeinated weirdos. Uh so, the us UM,
the FDA, and the A m A. Right now, I
think they raised it to four hundred milligerms a day
from three hundred, just in that pace of changing coffee consumption. Yeah,
(11:03):
I think it's now to four hundred milligrams a day,
as they said, should be like the upper limit of
what you should drink and what is cool to drink
for your health, right, not by being cool. You could
drink a hundred cups to day and you'd be super cool.
That's why I drink coffee so much. And so so
what is that four d milligrams a day? That's about
(11:24):
two eight ounce cups of coffee. Yes, like high high coffee. Um,
but yeah, it's no more than maybe three. Well, and
that's caffeine though that's not coffee, So you might also
be drinking sodas, or eating chocolate or eating on a
(11:48):
cocoa nib that's packed with caffeine. Yeah. Yeah, it does
show up in all sorts of surprising places, um, including
I looked this up decaff coffee as well. We should say, yeah,
it's still got some caffeine in there, right, Yeah, So
like a cup of coffee, eight ounces of coffee can
have anywhere from like seventy five to two milligrams of
(12:11):
caffeine in it. Decaf coffee still might have like twenty milligrams.
And I mean it doesn't sound like much, but if
you're pounding decaf coffee because you love coffee but you're
trying to cut back on caffeine, stuff can adda interesting. Yeah.
I knew there was some caffeine, but maybe that's not
Is that negligible? I it's twenty itself. Just if you
(12:32):
drank one decaffe eate a couple of coffee a day, Yes,
I think on the overall effects of your health that
would be negligible, but both ways because again the coffee
giveth and the coffee take it the way the double
edged drug. Yeah, and it is. It is a drug.
And it is also in t which we'll get to
as well. Um, but yeah, it's a drug. It's it
(12:53):
naturally occurs like many drugs. But it is a stimulant
called trimethyls anthine. Chemical formulas C H uh C eight
H one zero in for O two not zero two.
I think there's a ten in there. What did I say?
(13:14):
One zero? Which you know if you're on a CB
or something, they get the point. Oh man, this is
close to CB chatter as as you can come. Um,
I quick segue here. I used to love talking on
the CB because my dad had one in his jeep.
And remember when CB culture was huge in the seventies.
(13:36):
My buddy John Pendell now is a trucker. You met
John where in at our New York shows, Tall Johnny Pendell. Uh,
he's a trucker now and I got to hang out
and get in his truck. Uh. And he does not
use a CB, and he said that he might get one,
but it's not like the standard thing anymore. Texting and
(13:58):
cell phones I mean he's said, if you really want
to be a part of that big trucker culture, you
can do the c B Still, well, you can just
be a lone wolf. He's a lone wolf right now.
He is. He needs one of those um jackets like
Lenny and Squeaky used to wear. Yeah, it was fascinating
that we need to do an episode on trucking, because
when I saw him, all I did was ask questions. Basically, Yeah,
(14:19):
it's fascinating. Does he have his own rig? No, he doesn't. Okay, anyway, well,
hey to Johnny and he listens to the podcast now,
So hey Johnny, because you don't need to see if
you listen to stuff, you should know we are your company,
all right. So anyway, caffeine, he does drink a lot
of caffeine. I think that's where I was going that. Yeah,
(14:40):
but that that really had nothing to do with it.
I brought up sebs because he said, H one zero,
why don't we take a break and get our sea
legs back? Are pe legs are a little rusty? And
um P is in podcast? Not you're in I thought you, Oh, hey,
I'll tell you some thing about this break. I learned
(15:02):
that there's something called mixturition syncope, and mixturition is a
lot of people think it means two P. No urination
is two P. Mixturition is the urge to pe. Syncope
is a fainting spell. So there's a condition out there
(15:22):
called mixturition syncope where people faint after they pee. There's
also one called defication syncope, where people faint after they
poop if they have no idea. I think Elvis had
the most severe case of that. All right, well, don't
let that happen to you during this break, and we
will be back right after this. Have we got it together?
(16:02):
That was like half a second. Are we good? Yeah?
I guess though. All right, we're gonna give it another step.
So caffeine, I think that's what we're talking about. It's
a drug, and in its pure form, chuck is a bitter,
bitter tasting crystalline powder. It's actually very closely related at
least in its effects to um opoi opioid antagonists like heroin, cocaine, caffeine. Yeah,
(16:28):
um and I will talk a little more about the brain,
the effects on the brain, but it is um It
does have these effects, and it does basically this it
uses the same mechanism as these drugs, and therefore it
can cause addictions just like these drugs as well. Yeah,
and um, Like I said, it occurs naturally. It's in
(16:48):
the coffee bean and in chocolate and t um, but
it's also added artificially and things like soda. UM and
I looked up the sodas to get the most recent
um amount. And Pepsi one right now, I think as
the most caffeine. Man, do you remember jolt and I
used to drink a ton of ault. I'm sure you did. Well.
(17:09):
I would drink one right before the podcast, remember, and
I'd just be like talking a thousand miles an hour
the good old days. Because I've settled down quite a bit,
you have, I'm happier for it. Pepsi one at fifty
seven milligrams, tab is number two at forty eight, diet
coca forty six. You will work your way down to
regular role Coca cola at thirty three milligrams per twelve
(17:30):
ounce can um and the FDA regulates how much caffeine
you can put in a soda. A soda A soda.
That's the key, that's right. If you were an energy
drink um like Red Bull or any of those other
gross tasting things. I don't like them personally, but people
love them. I just don't like the taste. But um,
(17:51):
that's the work around for the FDA. Because they're not
considered SODA's. They can put lots of caffeine and sugar
to the tune of about eight milligrams per um eight
point three ounces, which you're like the case of Red Bull,
that's a lot of caffeine. It does seem like a lot,
but some people love to take it even further. And
there's like those five hour energy shots. Oh yeah, I
(18:14):
have had those before. Those are two I have not
tried it before. I don't know why. I think I
was doing construction work and I was really tired, and
I was at the big box store and it was
right there to checkout. I was like, let me try
this thing, yeah, and it it ramped me up. I
felt like a speedhead. So in the in that little
two ounce shot, there's two milligrams of of caffeine, the
(18:36):
one like a high end amount in a coffee in
that little two ounce shot. Okay, And I think those
are the like coffee has the most of any beverage.
I think espresso ounce for ounce has the most well,
I mean from the coffee being at least espresso bean,
not like an artificial drink, is what I meant. We
(18:56):
got an espresso maker and has pronounced effects. It's crazy
how different it is from coffee. Yeah. I like an
espresso every now and then, and I like my coffee
right now and then, but just every now and then.
If you want the health benefits though, and you're like,
I don't drink that much coffee, you should just be
injecting pure caffeine chunk. Can you do that? They do
(19:19):
it to mice. Yeah, that's a good point, as we'll
see you later on. Um true, I should probably again,
it's been several weeks since we've done this. I need
to probably throw out a disclaimer there. That was a joke, right,
don't inject caffeine. And you know, if you can even
get your hands on pure caffeine, do not inject it.
(19:39):
You probably shouldn't inject anything, let alone the pure form
of anything, because even too much water can kill you.
Always remember that everybody, Even too much water can kill you.
And I did look into caffeine overdoses because I was curious,
and it doesn't happen much because you'd have to drink
so much of something that it makes it unlikely. But
there have been overdose is blamed on caffeine pills, like okay,
(20:02):
what's the milligram amount, what's the dosage amount? That I
can't remember. This one kid died in Connecticut, like a
nineteen year old that I think he had like a
dozen or two dozen caffeine pills. Um. And it's the
I think the deal with caffeine pills. It's concentrated and
it hits you all at once, So taking a lot
of it is just like overdosing on any kind of stimulant.
(20:25):
I think it's a stimulant. Yeah, that's some weird stuff
to you in killing you. And like you said, Schucker's Um.
We already talked about coffee in the coffee episode, right,
but it's just some of it bears repeating, like um,
the lighter the roast, the higher the caffeine content, typically
because the roasting process actually bakes out a lot of
(20:46):
the caffeine. I thought you were gonna make up a
clever rhyme like the light of the roast, the darker
the toast or something No, that's that doesn't make any sense.
The rhymes got it at least makes sense or else
it's just rhyming words about how about the lighter the
roast more caffeine than most About that that actually makes sense?
(21:07):
And so if you want to extract the most caffeine
out of your diet. Actually came across a website called
Bulletproof Exact. You know that bulletproof coffee thing where you
put like butter in your coffee. It's like a diet thing. Um,
I think aids and pooping and butter in your coffee. Yeah,
butter in your coffee called bulletproof. It's actually not bad.
(21:29):
If you like that, though, take it one step further
and use um coconut oil. That's even better because's got
a little it's like an almond joy creamer, but like
an oily version of it. Anyway, this Bulletproof Exact, they
had a post about maximizing your caffeine intake so you
can suck to your underlings throughout the day or whatever
(21:51):
most efficiently. Right and um, one of the things that
they said is that grapefruit you should eat more grapefruit
because grapefruit contains something called um narragant or narrow gin um.
And it actually slows the removal of caffeine from your brain,
so you enjoy its effects longer. Yeah. So a morning
(22:12):
breakfast in the nineteen fifties of coffee and the grape
half a grapefruit, that's all you needed. And then your
noon cocaine bump just to keep you going, just drinking
coca cola exactly. And um, if you also, if you
want to maximize your caffeine and take from coffee, you
should look at the beans you're drinking. So Arabica, which
is I think the most prevalent coffee um has it's
(22:35):
one point five percent caffeine, but robusta two point four
That is robust as far as I know, that's the
highest caffeine content naturally of any coffee bean. So a
light roast robusta is gonna basically with your grapefruit. Yeah
you it will be like getting kicked in the chest
by a mule. Wow. And it doesn't that sound appealing.
(22:56):
That's what every bulletproof exact want shows you how to
be more efficient, robber baron. So let's get down to
this man. Uh, how how does caffeine actually affect your brain,
because it does affect your brain. The whole point behind
taking coffee and stuff like that is as the guy
who wrote this article, oh, the three guys who wrote
(23:17):
this article, including you, Yeah, on this I forgot. Um
it's it's using caffeine. It's a form of self medication.
Of course. That's why most people drink it, I think,
to get that boost in the morning, um or in
the middle of afternoon. Yeah, and I'm sure people love
the taste and stuff. It's not like they're holding their
nose and forcing this drink down their throat. Well that's
(23:38):
what like five hour energes for. No, don't taste very good,
do they not. I've never tasted one. I've always wondered,
but I've never wanted to experience its effects so badly
that I tasted it. I mean, you know, it's like, uh,
just that synthetic fruit taste. Does it taste like medicinal
at all? Yeah? It just taste. Yeah, this is not
good in my opinion. Well, it's as two ounces. You
(24:00):
get it over with real quick, it down and like
you're done, punch a wall. Uh So how does it
work on the brain? It tricks your brain actually by
mimicking something called ADENA scene. UM, and it's it's kind
of remarkable actually because what it does is it mimics
(24:21):
a DNA scene and then does the opposite of what
a DNA scene does, which is to try and help
you sleep. It's pretty cool. Yeah, so you know you
have a sleep wake cycle, right, part of the sleep
cycle is a DNA scene UM latching onto the adenacene
receptors on your neurons. And yeah, it does make you
sleepy because it slows the the function of your neurons down.
(24:44):
It's a it's a big buzz kill. Basically, it's a
drag aDNA scene is well, it's great, it is, Yeah,
it's it's it helps make you sleepy. And what caffeine
does is it gets in there to the same receptor.
It binds to the same receptor as a DNA scene. UM.
It was because you're brain thinks it's a DNA scene.
It puts on it's a DNA sing costume pretty much,
(25:05):
which consists of like a sparkly one piece jumpsuit. It's
a onesie um. And it not only doesn't slow your
neurons down and apparently speeds them up. Yes, so your
brain starts going hey wire. That's part one of what
caffeine does your brain. It not only doesn't slow your
brain down, it prevents the thing that does slow your
(25:26):
brain down from slowing your brain down, and it actually
speeds your brain up wire. And not only that, but
a DNA scene UM usually will not usually a DNA
scene always causes your blood vessels to dilate, and caffeine
causes them to constrict, which sounds bad, but one of
the pluses, and we'll get into the benefits, but one
of them is um constricting. It can it maybe help
(25:50):
you avoid headaches and migraines. And that's why caffeine is
in things like Annison or my my old reliable BC
or Goodies headache powders that I use contain caffeine. Yeah,
that's my secret hangover helper BC powder PC or Goodies.
It acts fast. They work really well too, both together. Yeah. Yeah,
(26:15):
So caffeine is a vaso constrictor right, that's right. It
constricts your blood vessels, and like you said, that can
actually help your headaches because a lot of headaches vascular headaches,
I guess, is what they're called, or when your blood
vessels are too big, and the change and pressure in
your brain gives you this horrible headache. Right, So while
(26:36):
this is happening, your body thinks these neurons are firing.
Your pituitary gland says you must be in trouble because
you're supposed to be going to sleep. Buddy, Yeah, something,
there's clearly a bear coming at you. I don't know about.
Something's wrong, So let's send you some adrenaline. We talked
at nauseum about fight or flight, and your body thinks
that's what's going on when you drink coffee so or
(26:57):
caffeine and so it says here you need this adrenaline because,
like you said, you got a bear come in your way. Uh,
and all the hallmarks of fight or flight kick in
which man, this used to be like our yeah, and
now it's just such an accepted part of everything. Do
we even need to say the things anymore? Go ahead, okay,
(27:17):
So your pupils dilate, You're breathing um becomes more rapid,
you get more breaths um. If you're eating something, you
stop digesting it because your stomach doesn't matter at that point.
It's right superfluous um. Your blood pressure rises, your liver
releases sugar in the bloodstream, so you can get some
extra energy. You're ready to get out. Basically, it's like
(27:41):
time for some action. Yeah, and that's why you drink
that cup of coffee. You might feel tense like you
in the car, yes, or agitated. Uh, it's because your
body thinks you're about to be in a big fight
with the car next to you, which ends up it's
this weird reverse cycle. It ends up causing that fight. Yeah,
you know, I'm you'll also find if you drink a
(28:02):
lot of coffee like me, they're big not develops in
between your shoulder blades just just below your neck. Nice. Um,
it's just yet another result of your muscles tightening and
you being ready for action thanks to the fight or
flight syndrome. So your brain has been kept from getting drowsy.
It's been sent in to basically like a Lucy esque
(28:24):
assembly line of chocolates. Um, the the fight or flight
syndrome is kicked in that that describes like a significant
amount of the effects of coffee. But there's a big
one that's missing still that we haven't touched on, and
that is it's pleasurable effects. It makes you feel good,
because it's a stimulant and it's a drug, and just
like all the other illicit illegal drugs, this one is
(28:47):
just accepted. But it has the same effect. It's going
to release dopamine and that's the pleasure center activation center, right,
and it makes you want more of it and so
that dopamines flowing and your bodies like, man, this is great. Yeah,
So it doesn't actually it's like heroin and cocaine. It
doesn't actually make you overproduce dopamine, but it keeps dopamine
(29:09):
from being absorbed as quickly, so you get its effects
longer and more than you would if you weren't under
the influence of the drug, just like heroin, Just like cocaine.
Caffeine again, it uses the exact same mechanism. It's just
to a weaker degree, which is why, like again, people
aren't shooting caffeine and there's a bad idea this. Uh,
(29:30):
we should point out varies from person to person. Um
the effects of caffeine on the body because it um
metabolizes differently in everyone. So some people might be like
I don't get jittery at all, or I can go
right to sleep after coffee. Other people I'd like to
see those people on an espresso shot of robusta. Yeah, yeah,
I'll bet they wouldn't be singing the same song. Um.
(29:50):
Other folks. I used to wait tables, um, and I
would have people come in at like like lunch and
say like, no, no, no, I can't like their friend
get a cup of coffee. After they'd be like, no, no no, no,
I'll be up all night. Are you serious? What did
you say that? No? I was just always yeah, I
always think it was a little weird. But like I said,
(30:11):
it may keep them up all night. It's their own
jam because people know their bodies, So don't don't just
go with a decaf in that case. So we there
are plenty of um negative effects like keeping you up
all night, as well as positive effects with caffeine, and
we're gonna talk about those right after this. All right,
(30:50):
So you've got the one to three punch. Um, your
body is enjoying the caffeine. It's blocking that aDNA scene.
You're gonna feel alert and awake. It's got that an
adrenaline going and it's rewarding you with the dopamine. So
it's gonna make you want to drink coffee. But I
mentioned the vicious cycle. It is a bit because after
(31:11):
coffee comes the inevitable crash, like any stimulant drug, and
you want more of it um to get back up again.
So you're gonna have that fatigue and maybe even slightly
depressed feeling, and then you have a little bit more
of that caffeine and it's gonna get you going again.
And that's sort of the cycle that you find yourself in,
which will eventually, even though you might not think it is,
(31:34):
it's gonna affect your sleep patterns. Yeah. That that that
cycle kind of continues on into the next day. Right,
So coffee has a half life of six hours. Caffeine Yeah,
I told you I. Um, caffeine is a half life
of six hours. Where if you drink a cup of
coffee that has two milligrams of caffeine UM at noon,
(31:57):
at six pm, you will still have a hundred milligrams
of affine in your system. So it's like um, at
six you drank a red bull in a quarter right then, right,
not exactly what you want, and then at midnight you
would have fifty milligrams left, which is like more than
a coke. That's like a mountain dews worth of caffeine
(32:20):
and you again not really what you want. So, as
the authors of this article, including you, point out, you
may fall asleep, but that caffeine stimulation is probably going
to keep you from getting deep sleep, and deep sleep
is what you really genuinely need. And I think after
researching this reading that sentence time because I think, like
(32:41):
I basically like that that that's how I live my
life is, Um, I don't sleep deeply. Even though I
sleep deeply, I don't think I get actual deep sleep,
you know what I mean. So then you wake up
craving the caffeine again exactly, and that's where that cycle
goes on and on, where you just it's really have
to quit it. Yeah, it's very interesting. Um, if you
(33:04):
are pregnant, Uh, there are some studies that suggest and
we should say there have been a lot of caffeine studies. Yeah,
this article says like nineteen thousands since the sixties. I'm
sure there's by now. Uh, And they are somewhat conflicting,
So we always are going to say, like this study suggests,
(33:25):
because they aren't hard and fast rules. But if you're pregnant,
some studies suggests that three milligrams are more per day
could lead to low birth weight and your little bb
uh kids. I read one article like five experts talk
about caffeine and children, and they all said that's not
great for kids. No kids drink coffee these days, yes,
(33:47):
but in the form of like those like coffee drinks
that are super sweet and creamy and everything, but they
drink like if walk around them all you'll you'll see
like eight year olds with like a coffee drink just
walking around like it's nothing. I went to the mall
the other day for the first time in probably five years. Yeah,
how was it? Was awful? Was it? And I hated
every minute of it? And I'm not going back. The
mall is another place that it's another thing that puts
(34:09):
that like not just too many people in one place. Yeah,
it's no good. And with the baby stroller, it was
just like I wanted to put a spoon in my ear.
Which mall I went to Perimeter, Um, I mean there
was a we got new pillows, So I was like
I had to go to the mall to get pillows,
(34:29):
you know, because you gotta put your head on it,
even through the plastic. Yeah, no, I know, I've been
pillows shoving you know what I mean. New pillows are
great though, Oh yeah, if you get a good one. Yeah.
I've been on a bad run lately with pillows where
I've gotten, well, that's two. I got one, wasn't very
happy with it. The second one to replace it. Not
it's better, but it's still not quite happy with it.
(34:52):
Do you just use one pillow, one soft pillow? Yeah,
anything else? I'm like, oh my neck, I gotta have
one under my head. I gotta have one behind my
head between my head and the headboard, and then one
tied to your faith now and then a clutch you know,
to hold on to, like to wrap up with. It's
(35:12):
the best. Yeah, that's three pillows. Yeah, you sleep with
three pillows Emily in Yeah, six total. Jerry tell us
him blinks, how many pillows you sleep with? Three? Three
as well? I think you're under pillowed. I guess so
I sleep with one third the pillows you do. Here's
a pillow tip though, if you're buying, just wait for
(35:35):
a Macy's one day sale. Oh yeah, because pillows are expensive.
Good ones are, yeah, very much. Get your hands on
a good pillow. Yeah, and Macy's does it twice a year.
I think maybe Memorial Day and Labor Day or their
pillows sale days. Well, they had one going on after
New Year's I am wrong. There, you have it all right.
So we were talking about sleep and the shopping mall
(35:58):
where kids were drinking coffee. It all comes together, it does, um.
But all five of the of the experts said your
kids shouldn't really be having too much or any caffeine.
And they didn't say like because of like the health effects,
uh like. On the basically, it was just like, just
like sugar, you don't want your kids, you know, heart
(36:18):
rate increased a lot and their blood pressure increased, and
it's just not gonna do yourself any favors as a
parent a caffeated child. But I genuinely believe that you
can go through experiences like that as a younger kid
and it'll make you a keyed up adult, a higher
strung adult. You think I do. I have come to
(36:40):
believe that experiences in childhood very prominently shape you're who
you are as an adult very much. So I've come
to I guess if you're thirteen and drink a lot
of coffee and you get anxious, you'd probably be an
anxious adult. I believe that probably keep drinking coffee, probably
to stave off the anxiety. When did you start drinking
coffee or did you always drink a lot of soda too? No,
(37:06):
I guess it was as a more of a grown
up for both. Really. Yeah, I drink a lot of
kool aid as a kid, and like the straight up
tons of sugar in the kool aid kool aid. Um.
But and I drank like some some we called it pop,
like fago and pepsi and stuff. But I mean, I
(37:29):
I think it was like as an older person twenties,
I started drinking like coffee and earnest and cokes. That's
what it should be, I think. Sure. Um, I definitely
didn't drink coffee as a kid. No, that was gross.
Added to the taste of it was just really foul,
I thought. But I really learned to love the taste
of coffee, and I enjoy a nice hot cup of
(37:51):
coffee on a camping trip or a cold day. Um.
I just never took up the regular habit, and not
for any reason other than I just, I don't know,
just never grab me up. It wasn't like a stand though,
you know, like I'm not gonna start drinking caffeine, you know,
and everybody who drinks coffee can rot. No, because my
(38:12):
brother in law and my mother in law drink more
coffee than any humans alive, more than me, and they're
both wonderful. Yeah. They're like, let's brew a pot of coffee,
not a cup of coffee. Yeah, and let's just drink
it until it's gone, then brew another pot. You know. Yeah,
but they get a lot done. Accomplished people. They sleep
(38:32):
several inches above the bed. One of them is a
general in the Marine Corps. That shows you where he is. Actually,
that's my mother in law. All right. How about some
health benefits, Uh, there are a lot, believe it or not.
They've done a lot of studies and they found everything
from helping out to not develop Parkinson's disease to dropping
(38:56):
your risk of various cancers um cirosis. How about this,
two cups a day, Supposedly we'll cause an eight drop
in the odds of developing cirrhosis. That's amazing. Yeah, that's
I drink a little bit, So maybe I should drink coffee.
I wonder if that has to do with them stimulating
(39:16):
the fight or flight syndrome where you, your liver releases
more sugar to give to give you more energy or
something like that. Maybe. But what's weird then is so
that would be more sugar in the bloodstream. Right. Too
much sugar in the bloodstream can lead to diabetes. Right. Well,
coffee actually is shown to reduce your risk of diabetes.
(39:39):
There's this Harvard study UM that involved a hundred and
twenty six thousand people over eighteen years. They followed their coffee.
Is a good study. It's a great study unless they
fudge the results. But saying they didn't. What they found
was that people who drink one to three cups of
coffee a day are nine percent less likely to contract diabetes. Right, yeah,
(40:00):
you think it ends there. It does not. So people
who drank six or more cups of coffee per day,
if you were a man, your chances of contracting diabetes
were reduced by fifty four percent. That's substantial. And for
women who drank one six or more cups a day,
there are chances of contracting diabetes, were of developing diabetes reduction.
(40:22):
I got another one four cups a day less chance
of mouth and throat cancer. Uh. And I don't know
if it was this Harvard study or another one said
it could reduce suicide risk in adults. Even kind of
makes sense, I guess in one way, but which way,
I don't know. I was thinking, I don't know. I
(40:43):
take that back. Well, maybe you like run from self harm,
even maybe like you flee or fight, or if it
just you know, maybe it could battle your depressive systems
by picking you up or something. I don't know. It's yeah,
better explanation than mind mine was stupid. Uh. They's there's
evidence that it prevents cavities actually, well yeah, which is
(41:04):
kind of surprising because, um that is if you just
if you're doing a study on coffee, Um that's if
you don't put anything in your coffee, put cream and
sugar in, Yeah, you're going to get your cavities on.
All right. You kind of do both, right, just depending
on your mood. I typically go toward black, right, but
every now and then you throw a little vanilla creamer
(41:25):
in there every once a while. Yeah, um yeah, if
I want to treat, yeah, special treat. But kathein can
hurt your teeth in that it causes teeth clenching too well,
which is one reason I'm losing teeth is I grind
my teeth at night, so maybe I shouldn't drink more coffee.
It could be, yeah, but like you said, it giveth
(41:46):
and it take it the way do I want teeth
or do you want my liver to hang in there
and no diabetes? Right? Good point Alzheimer's. The bird Alzheimer's
Institute in Tampa did some experimenting lab mice, injecting them
with caffeine like you said earlier, and not only did
it protect them against developing Alzheimer's, but it helped reduce
(42:07):
symptoms if they already had it. They haven't tried it
on humans yet, but as it goes with mice, many
times it goes with humans. Yeah, hopefully, Yeah, we could
all be injecting caffeine at some point. That to me
is also counterintuitive too, because Alzheimer's disease is potentially a
build up of plaques in your brain that's the result
of not getting enough deep sleep. Because when you sleep,
(42:30):
your glial channels expand and your brain is bathed in cerebrals.
Final fluid cleans out those plaques. Right, But it only
happens when you're sleeping very deeply. Um, But if you're
not getting very deep sleep with coffee or caffeine, then
I would think you'd be there'd be a higher risk
of Alzheimer's. It's still fund it is, And I've also
found conflicting studies on memory. Johns Hopkins says that it's
(42:54):
a memory enhancer, but I've seen other studies that say
it's the memory d answer. Yeah, So again, it's like
it's stuff to kind of get down to the brass tacks,
you know, when you have conflicting studies. Um, if you exercise,
coffee is your best friend, caffeine is. Yeah. I've heard
(43:15):
of like Olympic athletes that like we'll shoot espresso right
before a race. Yeah. Not only does it like give
you a jolt of energy and everything, but apparently it
has um ergogenic properties, which means that it delays fatigue, right,
and it helps your muscles use glycogen their energy stores
more efficiently too, so it can help you run better. Interesting. Yeah,
(43:40):
as far as cognitive abilities, um, the one study found
from Johns Hopkins Medical School said that while you think
it is increasing your cognitive abilities, what is really doing
is just taking you back to normal for a short
period that is chilling. Yeah, and then when it wears off,
you're actually below man. Yeah, I don't know. I hate
(44:02):
to think that. I don't want to quit coffee though.
Quit smoking. Yeah, it lost weight. Yeah, keep your coffee.
That's another thing though I did during this break is
put some of that back on. We'll drink coffee and
go exercise, all right. Uh, if you want to know
more about caffeine, you can type that word into the
(44:24):
search bar how stuff works, and don't forget in this
case the egoes before the eye. Since I said search bar,
it's time for listener mail. Uh. This is from Maddie
in Virginia. Hey guys, I'm a twenty two year old
college student in Virginia. I want to start out by
saying thank you for the wonderful podcast. Would like this
(44:44):
emails good you've seen this on. Let me explain, guys,
how you've helped me. I'm gonna sufferer of extreme anxiety
and depression. I've had these issues since to a varying degree,
since middle school. However, events occurred in my life throughout
the past few years that have made the much worse.
Got to the point last semester I'm not I was
not able to go to class to homework or play
on my sports team. Thankfully, my family friends in my school.
(45:07):
Uh Through with their help, I was able to work
everything out. But I'm in a much better place, very
curious person and love learning and acquiring knowledge. And this
is where you guys come in. Uh. Though I had
trouble going to class, I still had that thirst to learn. Um.
So whenever I was in a bad place mentally, I
would grow in my earbuds play stuff you should know
podcasts in the zone out during these bad days at
(45:28):
times when I would listen to you guys, or some
of the only instances where I would smile or laugh,
I really want to thank you for putting in all
the hard work and making a great show. I know
that you guys help people not only gain valuele knowledge,
but you also improve lives and put smiles on many faces.
I don't think you'll read this on the air, Psych,
and I don't even know if you all will even
receive this email double Psych. But if you do, and
(45:51):
it's right on the podcast, I just want everyone listening
to know if you're going through a tough time and
you're struggling, things will get better. There are always people
who care about you. And who will help you? Nice
worms are couckles, my friend, and hanging in there what
a wonderful message? Does sound like trite things to say,
you know, like yeah, unless you're going through some time,
heals wounds and it's darkest before the dawn. But they're
(46:15):
trite and true for a reason, because they are trite
and true. I think you just tried and true. Yeah,
but I think you just improved the phrase, did I Yeah,
But they're not trite, they're true things. Hang in there, people,
that's right. That's one message. If you want to get
in touch with us, you can send us an email
to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com. You
(46:37):
can tweak to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com and has
always joined us at our home on the web, the
Luxurious Stuff You Should Know dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff
Works dot com
Attention everyone on Earth, get in your nearest plane and
fly to one of a few cities to see us
for s Y s K Live, the Live Show. Yes,
an all new live show by the way, you know. Yeah,
we are sold out in San Diego, San Francisco, in Austin, Texas,
that's right, but you can still get tickets in Dallas, Atlanta, Birmingham,
(00:22):
and New Orleans. And also I this is Chuck by
the way. I will be appearing on noon January sixteenth
in San Francisco at the Eureka Theater as part of
Sketch Fest on the Amazing JV Club podcast from the
Amazing Janet Barney. Yes, part of the Nerdest Network. Yeah,
(00:42):
and I think I'm gonna be revealing like all kinds
of childhood and teenage truths. It's gonna be all. So
if you want to know more about what I was
like as a teen, January sixteenth, at noon at the
Eureka Theater is where to do it. And you can
get those Just go to the s F Sketch Fest
site and navigate to that date and you can get
to get Sarah right on. But otherwise we will see
you on our warmer Climbs Winter Tour. Yeah, and go
(01:04):
check out s y s K live dot com for
any ticket info and all that is brought to you
by Squarespace. Welcome to you stuff you should know from
house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
(01:24):
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Cherry's over
there totally throwing us off with some new as you
focus Pocus in two thousand sixteen head stuff. What Yeah, yeah,
she's messing with it. Uh so we you guys don't
know this because, through the power of the magic of
editing and publishing and publishing, you think we've just never
(01:49):
been gone from the office. But we've been gone. I
have no idea what episodes we released. I've been so
out of it. Yeah, I took six weeks of Pattornity
leave and I did by proxy, and you did by proxy.
Uh so we've been gone from the studio for a while,
and I just wanted to say it's glad to be back, buddy. Yeah,
(02:09):
it is nice to be back, and uh, it's good
to see you again. It's a long time. What's happened
in the In the meantime, I lost another tooth. Yea,
my stupid front the toothnext to the one that came
out broke off at a Falcon's game. Oh well there
you go. God was cursing you for being at the falcons.
(02:30):
So I have another stupid flipper in another eight months
of eight months early, yeah, until I get the permanent implant.
So again I'll be out on the tour with no tooth.
You can't even see it, like you have to literally
like your lips back to your gums. Or if I
laugh a lot, which I'm trying to just lead a
more somber life. Well I plan on making you laugh
(02:51):
a lot on stage so people might see it. Then
what else? Have you got a dog? Yeah? We got
a puppy named Momo. You wanna talk about Momo? Momo
is very sweet. She's a sweet little zoo poodle next year.
How's that going. She's a little fluff ballt very good. Yes, good?
Right off the bat we um we create trained her
and at first I was like chrits or mean, put
(03:13):
a dog and create, And then I started to read
up on it, like yes, it's like her den. It's
her little room like her bedroom. In fact, when we
took away the crate from our youngest dog, Charlie because
of we needed a breakfast nook. Um. She was kind
of like, dude, he took my room away. That was
my room. Yeah. We plan to keep her crate around,
like as long as she wants it, but just she
(03:34):
won't be penned in it against her will at certain
times until until she's house broken, which I mean she's
basically there. It's just we're we're like, what are you doing,
You're about to pee? You know. Um, she doesn't actually
have accidents in the house. We're just you know, staying
on top of that. It's great. What else happened? Uh?
We had holidays, yes, good Christmas. In the New Year's
(03:57):
I guess Humi's birthday. Oh yeah, the birthday. Um, and
it was just a nice time off. Like I had
this big to do list and uh none of it
got done because I was raising replace that. Yeah, how's
your kid? Uh, Ruby's great man. And I did the
same thing. I had a big to do list and
I found myself just kind of be like, oh, could
you do this? Or I could just like play with
(04:19):
my kid, right, or watch Making a Murderer? Yeah, I
did watch all that. Stay here and like a day
we'll talk about that. We probably shouldn't talk about it.
People wanted to do a podcast on that. I don't
like a follow up. Maybe it's not as bad as
the request to do a podcast on the h the
(04:39):
case that Sereal covered, like I think Cereal cover. No,
of course not. I could maybe do a follow up
on making a murder. I think we should revisit Um
Exonerations and the Innocence Project again because when we did
that one, we had no idea what was going on,
and now it's really like it's really coming through true.
(05:00):
So yes, let's do that. I've been playing a lot
of uh I got a p S four. Oh yeah,
I've been playing Fallout for with the Dog and the Dogs. Well,
you can't have a dog companion, so of course I
chose it. But it's really awful because the dog gets
hurt a lot and like struggles around, whimpering and out
of its misery. Well, no, you can heal the dog.
(05:22):
But I went to message boards and everyone's like, don't
heal your dog, Like, just trust me, it'll heal itself.
Don't waste your medicine. Okay, yeah, I'm sure you waste
your medicine every time, don't you. Well, yeah, it's tough
to do. Yeah, and it's like, oh, okay, don't mind me.
Dog meat and that's his name. So that's a that
(05:42):
was a big time off. Just it was and that's
all that happened. Jerry, How about you? That was great, Jerry.
I'm glad you had a nice time as well. Jerry
also had a nice break with her little baby in
these through a series of blinks she did that we've
worked out over the year. Nice job, all right, So
(06:05):
sorry about the long injury, but I felt like we
needed to catch everyone up, even though you didn't know
that you needed it right, And maybe has something to
do with caffeine because we did such a good job
when we recorded those ones that were released over the
break of predicting things we would be talking about the time,
who could tell exactly. So I'm a little caffeinated right now,
believe it or not. What a shock. Um. I don't
(06:26):
drink nearly as much as coffee as I used to.
It's because I really realized, like it really does have
a detrimental effect on like my mood. Stay in the
car cars are really good example of me and caffeine.
You're a little ramped up in the car anyway, so
that probably and help. Right. Well, I'm working on that,
but part of working on that is just, you know,
(06:47):
not drinking as much coffee. Yeah. I think a good
title for this could be mixed messages because in studying caffeine,
and we did one on coffee, we dabbled in this
a little bit, but um, all research is, you know, caffeine,
it can be really good for you and help a
lot of things, and caffeine can be kind of bad
for you, and it's kind of both or can be both.
(07:09):
It sure, things like that unless we have like a
completely misunderstood UM model of addiction and um the parasympathetic
or sympathetic nervous system. Unless we don't know those things,
then yeah, coffee is both for sure. The weird thing is,
like everybody realizes that coffee, I'm sorry, caffeine. I think
(07:30):
I'm probably gonna do that a lot this episode because
they are virtually interchangeable. But it's not really but caffeine, um,
it is. It has a lot of really bad effects
on you, and a lot of people know that just
from having experienced it. It's the it's the beneficial effects
that are so surprising. They do seem to like you say, agreed,
(07:51):
So Chuck, I drink today. I've had five cups of
coffee and mountain diet mountain dew. And it is one
forty in the afternoon. What time did you get up? Seven? Yes,
I'm counting on my fingers. Six and a half hour.
You six and a half hours. You've had five cups
(08:13):
of coffee in a mountain dew. The met's cutting back, yes,
oh man, Yeah, and it's cutting back because I like
this afternoon. I won't keep going. Oh so you stop?
This is this will be my last probably really for
the day. Yeah, okay, And I'm actually I'm above average
for the United States. And I could have guessed that,
(08:34):
but the average for the United States is actually on
the worse end of the spectrum as far as like
caffeine consumption goes. Yeah. The latest information I got this
that the US was sixteenth in the world in per
capita consumption, not even or nine or any anywhere above ten.
(08:56):
If you want to know who leads the world right out,
I think it's the Netherlands, is what I found. I
found Finland from that was the most recent I saw. Well,
the most recent I saw said the Netherlands at two
point four, with Finland at one point eight. But that
is not what I saw. Yeah, where were the Netherlands
(09:17):
on your list? I don't remember. I just saw the
Finland was number one at like two point four and
um like nine point six kilograms of coffee beans per
person per year consumed. Well, I bet the top ten
is kind of interchangeable and fairly static, though, as in
the Samish countries in different orders. Yeah, because I mean
(09:38):
coffee consumption patterns. I guess they could change fairly rapidly,
but they don't change in the blink of an eye.
We'll think about how much Starbucks change coffee consumption in
this country, didn't ramp it up? Oh yeah, Like think
about how many people now swing by Starbucks are like
three pm, whereas before they may not even have drank coffee,
(09:58):
I mean Charbucks. Yeah, actually have no skin in the
game Starbucks. Yeah, I don't really well, you know, I
mean I don't drink caffeine that much. I know, very mellow. Yeah,
I don't know. I'm starting to think I should drink
more coffee though, because of the health benefits. Oh yeah,
you know. Um, we'll see, we'll get into all that.
(10:21):
But in the top ten you have Netherlands, Finland, Sweden,
in Mark, Germany, scandin Maybia loves her coffee, apparently, Slovakia, Serbia,
Czech Republic, Poland, Norway than eventually the US cold countries.
It's not bad, although Brazil loves its coffee as well.
I think they're like number ten or eleven or something
like that. Good coffee. I didn't see they weren't even
(10:42):
in my top sixteen. So we had different lists made
by two different caffeinated weirdos. Uh so, the us UM,
the FDA, and the A m A. Right now, I
think they raised it to four hundred milligerms a day
from three hundred, just in that pace of changing coffee consumption. Yeah,
(11:03):
I think it's now to four hundred milligrams a day,
as they said, should be like the upper limit of
what you should drink and what is cool to drink
for your health, right, not by being cool. You could
drink a hundred cups to day and you'd be super cool.
That's why I drink coffee so much. And so so
what is that four d milligrams a day? That's about
(11:24):
two eight ounce cups of coffee. Yes, like high high coffee. Um,
but yeah, it's no more than maybe three. Well, and
that's caffeine though that's not coffee, So you might also
be drinking sodas, or eating chocolate or eating on a
(11:48):
cocoa nib that's packed with caffeine. Yeah. Yeah, it does
show up in all sorts of surprising places, um, including
I looked this up decaff coffee as well. We should say, yeah,
it's still got some caffeine in there, right, Yeah, So
like a cup of coffee, eight ounces of coffee can
have anywhere from like seventy five to two milligrams of
(12:11):
caffeine in it. Decaf coffee still might have like twenty milligrams.
And I mean it doesn't sound like much, but if
you're pounding decaf coffee because you love coffee but you're
trying to cut back on caffeine, stuff can adda interesting. Yeah.
I knew there was some caffeine, but maybe that's not
Is that negligible? I it's twenty itself. Just if you
(12:32):
drank one decaffe eate a couple of coffee a day, Yes,
I think on the overall effects of your health that
would be negligible, but both ways because again the coffee
giveth and the coffee take it the way the double
edged drug. Yeah, and it is. It is a drug.
And it is also in t which we'll get to
as well. Um, but yeah, it's a drug. It's it
(12:53):
naturally occurs like many drugs. But it is a stimulant
called trimethyls anthine. Chemical formulas C H uh C eight
H one zero in for O two not zero two.
I think there's a ten in there. What did I say?
(13:14):
One zero? Which you know if you're on a CB
or something, they get the point. Oh man, this is
close to CB chatter as as you can come. Um,
I quick segue here. I used to love talking on
the CB because my dad had one in his jeep.
And remember when CB culture was huge in the seventies.
(13:36):
My buddy John Pendell now is a trucker. You met
John where in at our New York shows, Tall Johnny Pendell. Uh,
he's a trucker now and I got to hang out
and get in his truck. Uh. And he does not
use a CB, and he said that he might get one,
but it's not like the standard thing anymore. Texting and
(13:58):
cell phones I mean he's said, if you really want
to be a part of that big trucker culture, you
can do the c B Still, well, you can just
be a lone wolf. He's a lone wolf right now.
He is. He needs one of those um jackets like
Lenny and Squeaky used to wear. Yeah, it was fascinating
that we need to do an episode on trucking, because
when I saw him, all I did was ask questions. Basically, Yeah,
(14:19):
it's fascinating. Does he have his own rig? No, he doesn't. Okay, anyway, well,
hey to Johnny and he listens to the podcast now,
So hey Johnny, because you don't need to see if
you listen to stuff, you should know we are your company,
all right. So anyway, caffeine, he does drink a lot
of caffeine. I think that's where I was going that. Yeah,
(14:40):
but that that really had nothing to do with it.
I brought up sebs because he said, H one zero,
why don't we take a break and get our sea
legs back? Are pe legs are a little rusty? And
um P is in podcast? Not you're in I thought you, Oh, hey,
I'll tell you some thing about this break. I learned
(15:02):
that there's something called mixturition syncope, and mixturition is a
lot of people think it means two P. No urination
is two P. Mixturition is the urge to pe. Syncope
is a fainting spell. So there's a condition out there
(15:22):
called mixturition syncope where people faint after they pee. There's
also one called defication syncope, where people faint after they
poop if they have no idea. I think Elvis had
the most severe case of that. All right, well, don't
let that happen to you during this break, and we
will be back right after this. Have we got it together?
(16:02):
That was like half a second. Are we good? Yeah?
I guess though. All right, we're gonna give it another step.
So caffeine, I think that's what we're talking about. It's
a drug, and in its pure form, chuck is a bitter,
bitter tasting crystalline powder. It's actually very closely related at
least in its effects to um opoi opioid antagonists like heroin, cocaine, caffeine. Yeah,
(16:28):
um and I will talk a little more about the brain,
the effects on the brain, but it is um It
does have these effects, and it does basically this it
uses the same mechanism as these drugs, and therefore it
can cause addictions just like these drugs as well. Yeah,
and um, Like I said, it occurs naturally. It's in
(16:48):
the coffee bean and in chocolate and t um, but
it's also added artificially and things like soda. UM and
I looked up the sodas to get the most recent
um amount. And Pepsi one right now, I think as
the most caffeine. Man, do you remember jolt and I
used to drink a ton of ault. I'm sure you did. Well.
(17:09):
I would drink one right before the podcast, remember, and
I'd just be like talking a thousand miles an hour
the good old days. Because I've settled down quite a bit,
you have, I'm happier for it. Pepsi one at fifty
seven milligrams, tab is number two at forty eight, diet
coca forty six. You will work your way down to
regular role Coca cola at thirty three milligrams per twelve
(17:30):
ounce can um and the FDA regulates how much caffeine
you can put in a soda. A soda A soda.
That's the key, that's right. If you were an energy
drink um like Red Bull or any of those other
gross tasting things. I don't like them personally, but people
love them. I just don't like the taste. But um,
(17:51):
that's the work around for the FDA. Because they're not
considered SODA's. They can put lots of caffeine and sugar
to the tune of about eight milligrams per um eight
point three ounces, which you're like the case of Red Bull,
that's a lot of caffeine. It does seem like a lot,
but some people love to take it even further. And
there's like those five hour energy shots. Oh yeah, I
(18:14):
have had those before. Those are two I have not
tried it before. I don't know why. I think I
was doing construction work and I was really tired, and
I was at the big box store and it was
right there to checkout. I was like, let me try
this thing, yeah, and it it ramped me up. I
felt like a speedhead. So in the in that little
two ounce shot, there's two milligrams of of caffeine, the
(18:36):
one like a high end amount in a coffee in
that little two ounce shot. Okay, And I think those
are the like coffee has the most of any beverage.
I think espresso ounce for ounce has the most well,
I mean from the coffee being at least espresso bean,
not like an artificial drink, is what I meant. We
(18:56):
got an espresso maker and has pronounced effects. It's crazy
how different it is from coffee. Yeah. I like an
espresso every now and then, and I like my coffee
right now and then, but just every now and then.
If you want the health benefits though, and you're like,
I don't drink that much coffee, you should just be
injecting pure caffeine chunk. Can you do that? They do
(19:19):
it to mice. Yeah, that's a good point, as we'll
see you later on. Um true, I should probably again,
it's been several weeks since we've done this. I need
to probably throw out a disclaimer there. That was a joke, right,
don't inject caffeine. And you know, if you can even
get your hands on pure caffeine, do not inject it.
(19:39):
You probably shouldn't inject anything, let alone the pure form
of anything, because even too much water can kill you.
Always remember that everybody, Even too much water can kill you.
And I did look into caffeine overdoses because I was curious,
and it doesn't happen much because you'd have to drink
so much of something that it makes it unlikely. But
there have been overdose is blamed on caffeine pills, like okay,
(20:02):
what's the milligram amount, what's the dosage amount? That I
can't remember. This one kid died in Connecticut, like a
nineteen year old that I think he had like a
dozen or two dozen caffeine pills. Um. And it's the
I think the deal with caffeine pills. It's concentrated and
it hits you all at once, So taking a lot
of it is just like overdosing on any kind of stimulant.
(20:25):
I think it's a stimulant. Yeah, that's some weird stuff
to you in killing you. And like you said, Schucker's Um.
We already talked about coffee in the coffee episode, right,
but it's just some of it bears repeating, like um,
the lighter the roast, the higher the caffeine content, typically
because the roasting process actually bakes out a lot of
(20:46):
the caffeine. I thought you were gonna make up a
clever rhyme like the light of the roast, the darker
the toast or something No, that's that doesn't make any sense.
The rhymes got it at least makes sense or else
it's just rhyming words about how about the lighter the
roast more caffeine than most About that that actually makes sense?
(21:07):
And so if you want to extract the most caffeine
out of your diet. Actually came across a website called
Bulletproof Exact. You know that bulletproof coffee thing where you
put like butter in your coffee. It's like a diet thing. Um,
I think aids and pooping and butter in your coffee. Yeah,
butter in your coffee called bulletproof. It's actually not bad.
(21:29):
If you like that, though, take it one step further
and use um coconut oil. That's even better because's got
a little it's like an almond joy creamer, but like
an oily version of it. Anyway, this Bulletproof Exact, they
had a post about maximizing your caffeine intake so you
can suck to your underlings throughout the day or whatever
(21:51):
most efficiently. Right and um, one of the things that
they said is that grapefruit you should eat more grapefruit
because grapefruit contains something called um narragant or narrow gin um.
And it actually slows the removal of caffeine from your brain,
so you enjoy its effects longer. Yeah. So a morning
(22:12):
breakfast in the nineteen fifties of coffee and the grape
half a grapefruit, that's all you needed. And then your
noon cocaine bump just to keep you going, just drinking
coca cola exactly. And um, if you also, if you
want to maximize your caffeine and take from coffee, you
should look at the beans you're drinking. So Arabica, which
is I think the most prevalent coffee um has it's
(22:35):
one point five percent caffeine, but robusta two point four
That is robust as far as I know, that's the
highest caffeine content naturally of any coffee bean. So a
light roast robusta is gonna basically with your grapefruit. Yeah
you it will be like getting kicked in the chest
by a mule. Wow. And it doesn't that sound appealing.
(22:56):
That's what every bulletproof exact want shows you how to
be more efficient, robber baron. So let's get down to
this man. Uh, how how does caffeine actually affect your brain,
because it does affect your brain. The whole point behind
taking coffee and stuff like that is as the guy
who wrote this article, oh, the three guys who wrote
(23:17):
this article, including you, Yeah, on this I forgot. Um
it's it's using caffeine. It's a form of self medication.
Of course. That's why most people drink it, I think,
to get that boost in the morning, um or in
the middle of afternoon. Yeah, and I'm sure people love
the taste and stuff. It's not like they're holding their
nose and forcing this drink down their throat. Well that's
(23:38):
what like five hour energes for. No, don't taste very good,
do they not. I've never tasted one. I've always wondered,
but I've never wanted to experience its effects so badly
that I tasted it. I mean, you know, it's like, uh,
just that synthetic fruit taste. Does it taste like medicinal
at all? Yeah? It just taste. Yeah, this is not
good in my opinion. Well, it's as two ounces. You
(24:00):
get it over with real quick, it down and like
you're done, punch a wall. Uh So how does it
work on the brain? It tricks your brain actually by
mimicking something called ADENA scene. UM, and it's it's kind
of remarkable actually because what it does is it mimics
(24:21):
a DNA scene and then does the opposite of what
a DNA scene does, which is to try and help
you sleep. It's pretty cool. Yeah, so you know you
have a sleep wake cycle, right, part of the sleep
cycle is a DNA scene UM latching onto the adenacene
receptors on your neurons. And yeah, it does make you
sleepy because it slows the the function of your neurons down.
(24:44):
It's a it's a big buzz kill. Basically, it's a
drag aDNA scene is well, it's great, it is, Yeah,
it's it's it helps make you sleepy. And what caffeine
does is it gets in there to the same receptor.
It binds to the same receptor as a DNA scene. UM.
It was because you're brain thinks it's a DNA scene.
It puts on it's a DNA sing costume pretty much,
(25:05):
which consists of like a sparkly one piece jumpsuit. It's
a onesie um. And it not only doesn't slow your
neurons down and apparently speeds them up. Yes, so your
brain starts going hey wire. That's part one of what
caffeine does your brain. It not only doesn't slow your
brain down, it prevents the thing that does slow your
(25:26):
brain down from slowing your brain down, and it actually
speeds your brain up wire. And not only that, but
a DNA scene UM usually will not usually a DNA
scene always causes your blood vessels to dilate, and caffeine
causes them to constrict, which sounds bad, but one of
the pluses, and we'll get into the benefits, but one
of them is um constricting. It can it maybe help
(25:50):
you avoid headaches and migraines. And that's why caffeine is
in things like Annison or my my old reliable BC
or Goodies headache powders that I use contain caffeine. Yeah,
that's my secret hangover helper BC powder PC or Goodies.
It acts fast. They work really well too, both together. Yeah. Yeah,
(26:15):
So caffeine is a vaso constrictor right, that's right. It
constricts your blood vessels, and like you said, that can
actually help your headaches because a lot of headaches vascular headaches,
I guess, is what they're called, or when your blood
vessels are too big, and the change and pressure in
your brain gives you this horrible headache. Right, So while
(26:36):
this is happening, your body thinks these neurons are firing.
Your pituitary gland says you must be in trouble because
you're supposed to be going to sleep. Buddy, Yeah, something,
there's clearly a bear coming at you. I don't know about.
Something's wrong, So let's send you some adrenaline. We talked
at nauseum about fight or flight, and your body thinks
that's what's going on when you drink coffee so or
(26:57):
caffeine and so it says here you need this adrenaline because,
like you said, you got a bear come in your way. Uh,
and all the hallmarks of fight or flight kick in
which man, this used to be like our yeah, and
now it's just such an accepted part of everything. Do
we even need to say the things anymore? Go ahead, okay,
(27:17):
So your pupils dilate, You're breathing um becomes more rapid,
you get more breaths um. If you're eating something, you
stop digesting it because your stomach doesn't matter at that point.
It's right superfluous um. Your blood pressure rises, your liver
releases sugar in the bloodstream, so you can get some
extra energy. You're ready to get out. Basically, it's like
(27:41):
time for some action. Yeah, and that's why you drink
that cup of coffee. You might feel tense like you
in the car, yes, or agitated. Uh, it's because your
body thinks you're about to be in a big fight
with the car next to you, which ends up it's
this weird reverse cycle. It ends up causing that fight. Yeah,
you know, I'm you'll also find if you drink a
(28:02):
lot of coffee like me, they're big not develops in
between your shoulder blades just just below your neck. Nice. Um,
it's just yet another result of your muscles tightening and
you being ready for action thanks to the fight or
flight syndrome. So your brain has been kept from getting drowsy.
It's been sent in to basically like a Lucy esque
(28:24):
assembly line of chocolates. Um, the the fight or flight
syndrome is kicked in that that describes like a significant
amount of the effects of coffee. But there's a big
one that's missing still that we haven't touched on, and
that is it's pleasurable effects. It makes you feel good,
because it's a stimulant and it's a drug, and just
like all the other illicit illegal drugs, this one is
(28:47):
just accepted. But it has the same effect. It's going
to release dopamine and that's the pleasure center activation center, right,
and it makes you want more of it and so
that dopamines flowing and your bodies like, man, this is great. Yeah,
So it doesn't actually it's like heroin and cocaine. It
doesn't actually make you overproduce dopamine, but it keeps dopamine
(29:09):
from being absorbed as quickly, so you get its effects
longer and more than you would if you weren't under
the influence of the drug, just like heroin, Just like cocaine.
Caffeine again, it uses the exact same mechanism. It's just
to a weaker degree, which is why, like again, people
aren't shooting caffeine and there's a bad idea this. Uh,
(29:30):
we should point out varies from person to person. Um
the effects of caffeine on the body because it um
metabolizes differently in everyone. So some people might be like
I don't get jittery at all, or I can go
right to sleep after coffee. Other people I'd like to
see those people on an espresso shot of robusta. Yeah, yeah,
I'll bet they wouldn't be singing the same song. Um.
(29:50):
Other folks. I used to wait tables, um, and I
would have people come in at like like lunch and
say like, no, no, no, I can't like their friend
get a cup of coffee. After they'd be like, no, no no, no,
I'll be up all night. Are you serious? What did
you say that? No? I was just always yeah, I
always think it was a little weird. But like I said,
(30:11):
it may keep them up all night. It's their own
jam because people know their bodies, So don't don't just
go with a decaf in that case. So we there
are plenty of um negative effects like keeping you up
all night, as well as positive effects with caffeine, and
we're gonna talk about those right after this. All right,
(30:50):
So you've got the one to three punch. Um, your
body is enjoying the caffeine. It's blocking that aDNA scene.
You're gonna feel alert and awake. It's got that an
adrenaline going and it's rewarding you with the dopamine. So
it's gonna make you want to drink coffee. But I
mentioned the vicious cycle. It is a bit because after
(31:11):
coffee comes the inevitable crash, like any stimulant drug, and
you want more of it um to get back up again.
So you're gonna have that fatigue and maybe even slightly
depressed feeling, and then you have a little bit more
of that caffeine and it's gonna get you going again.
And that's sort of the cycle that you find yourself in,
which will eventually, even though you might not think it is,
(31:34):
it's gonna affect your sleep patterns. Yeah. That that that
cycle kind of continues on into the next day. Right,
So coffee has a half life of six hours. Caffeine Yeah,
I told you I. Um, caffeine is a half life
of six hours. Where if you drink a cup of
coffee that has two milligrams of caffeine UM at noon,
(31:57):
at six pm, you will still have a hundred milligrams
of affine in your system. So it's like um, at
six you drank a red bull in a quarter right then, right,
not exactly what you want, and then at midnight you
would have fifty milligrams left, which is like more than
a coke. That's like a mountain dews worth of caffeine
(32:20):
and you again not really what you want. So, as
the authors of this article, including you, point out, you
may fall asleep, but that caffeine stimulation is probably going
to keep you from getting deep sleep, and deep sleep
is what you really genuinely need. And I think after
researching this reading that sentence time because I think, like
(32:41):
I basically like that that that's how I live my
life is, Um, I don't sleep deeply. Even though I
sleep deeply, I don't think I get actual deep sleep,
you know what I mean. So then you wake up
craving the caffeine again exactly, and that's where that cycle
goes on and on, where you just it's really have
to quit it. Yeah, it's very interesting. Um, if you
(33:04):
are pregnant, Uh, there are some studies that suggest and
we should say there have been a lot of caffeine studies. Yeah,
this article says like nineteen thousands since the sixties. I'm
sure there's by now. Uh, And they are somewhat conflicting,
So we always are going to say, like this study suggests,
(33:25):
because they aren't hard and fast rules. But if you're pregnant,
some studies suggests that three milligrams are more per day
could lead to low birth weight and your little bb
uh kids. I read one article like five experts talk
about caffeine and children, and they all said that's not
great for kids. No kids drink coffee these days, yes,
(33:47):
but in the form of like those like coffee drinks
that are super sweet and creamy and everything, but they
drink like if walk around them all you'll you'll see
like eight year olds with like a coffee drink just
walking around like it's nothing. I went to the mall
the other day for the first time in probably five years. Yeah,
how was it? Was awful? Was it? And I hated
every minute of it? And I'm not going back. The
mall is another place that it's another thing that puts
(34:09):
that like not just too many people in one place. Yeah,
it's no good. And with the baby stroller, it was
just like I wanted to put a spoon in my ear.
Which mall I went to Perimeter, Um, I mean there
was a we got new pillows, So I was like
I had to go to the mall to get pillows,
(34:29):
you know, because you gotta put your head on it,
even through the plastic. Yeah, no, I know, I've been
pillows shoving you know what I mean. New pillows are
great though, Oh yeah, if you get a good one. Yeah.
I've been on a bad run lately with pillows where
I've gotten, well, that's two. I got one, wasn't very
happy with it. The second one to replace it. Not
it's better, but it's still not quite happy with it.
(34:52):
Do you just use one pillow, one soft pillow? Yeah,
anything else? I'm like, oh my neck, I gotta have
one under my head. I gotta have one behind my
head between my head and the headboard, and then one
tied to your faith now and then a clutch you know,
to hold on to, like to wrap up with. It's
(35:12):
the best. Yeah, that's three pillows. Yeah, you sleep with
three pillows Emily in Yeah, six total. Jerry tell us
him blinks, how many pillows you sleep with? Three? Three
as well? I think you're under pillowed. I guess so
I sleep with one third the pillows you do. Here's
a pillow tip though, if you're buying, just wait for
(35:35):
a Macy's one day sale. Oh yeah, because pillows are expensive.
Good ones are, yeah, very much. Get your hands on
a good pillow. Yeah, and Macy's does it twice a year.
I think maybe Memorial Day and Labor Day or their
pillows sale days. Well, they had one going on after
New Year's I am wrong. There, you have it all right.
So we were talking about sleep and the shopping mall
(35:58):
where kids were drinking coffee. It all comes together, it does, um.
But all five of the of the experts said your
kids shouldn't really be having too much or any caffeine.
And they didn't say like because of like the health effects,
uh like. On the basically, it was just like, just
like sugar, you don't want your kids, you know, heart
(36:18):
rate increased a lot and their blood pressure increased, and
it's just not gonna do yourself any favors as a
parent a caffeated child. But I genuinely believe that you
can go through experiences like that as a younger kid
and it'll make you a keyed up adult, a higher
strung adult. You think I do. I have come to
(36:40):
believe that experiences in childhood very prominently shape you're who
you are as an adult very much. So I've come
to I guess if you're thirteen and drink a lot
of coffee and you get anxious, you'd probably be an
anxious adult. I believe that probably keep drinking coffee, probably
to stave off the anxiety. When did you start drinking
coffee or did you always drink a lot of soda too? No,
(37:06):
I guess it was as a more of a grown
up for both. Really. Yeah, I drink a lot of
kool aid as a kid, and like the straight up
tons of sugar in the kool aid kool aid. Um.
But and I drank like some some we called it pop,
like fago and pepsi and stuff. But I mean, I
(37:29):
I think it was like as an older person twenties,
I started drinking like coffee and earnest and cokes. That's
what it should be, I think. Sure. Um, I definitely
didn't drink coffee as a kid. No, that was gross.
Added to the taste of it was just really foul,
I thought. But I really learned to love the taste
of coffee, and I enjoy a nice hot cup of
(37:51):
coffee on a camping trip or a cold day. Um.
I just never took up the regular habit, and not
for any reason other than I just, I don't know,
just never grab me up. It wasn't like a stand though,
you know, like I'm not gonna start drinking caffeine, you know,
and everybody who drinks coffee can rot. No, because my
(38:12):
brother in law and my mother in law drink more
coffee than any humans alive, more than me, and they're
both wonderful. Yeah. They're like, let's brew a pot of coffee,
not a cup of coffee. Yeah, and let's just drink
it until it's gone, then brew another pot. You know. Yeah,
but they get a lot done. Accomplished people. They sleep
(38:32):
several inches above the bed. One of them is a
general in the Marine Corps. That shows you where he is. Actually,
that's my mother in law. All right. How about some
health benefits, Uh, there are a lot, believe it or not.
They've done a lot of studies and they found everything
from helping out to not develop Parkinson's disease to dropping
(38:56):
your risk of various cancers um cirosis. How about this,
two cups a day, Supposedly we'll cause an eight drop
in the odds of developing cirrhosis. That's amazing. Yeah, that's
I drink a little bit, So maybe I should drink coffee.
I wonder if that has to do with them stimulating
(39:16):
the fight or flight syndrome where you, your liver releases
more sugar to give to give you more energy or
something like that. Maybe. But what's weird then is so
that would be more sugar in the bloodstream. Right. Too
much sugar in the bloodstream can lead to diabetes. Right. Well,
coffee actually is shown to reduce your risk of diabetes.
(39:39):
There's this Harvard study UM that involved a hundred and
twenty six thousand people over eighteen years. They followed their coffee.
Is a good study. It's a great study unless they
fudge the results. But saying they didn't. What they found
was that people who drink one to three cups of
coffee a day are nine percent less likely to contract diabetes. Right, yeah,
(40:00):
you think it ends there. It does not. So people
who drank six or more cups of coffee per day,
if you were a man, your chances of contracting diabetes
were reduced by fifty four percent. That's substantial. And for
women who drank one six or more cups a day,
there are chances of contracting diabetes, were of developing diabetes reduction.
(40:22):
I got another one four cups a day less chance
of mouth and throat cancer. Uh. And I don't know
if it was this Harvard study or another one said
it could reduce suicide risk in adults. Even kind of
makes sense, I guess in one way, but which way,
I don't know. I was thinking, I don't know. I
(40:43):
take that back. Well, maybe you like run from self harm,
even maybe like you flee or fight, or if it
just you know, maybe it could battle your depressive systems
by picking you up or something. I don't know. It's yeah,
better explanation than mind mine was stupid. Uh. They's there's
evidence that it prevents cavities actually, well yeah, which is
(41:04):
kind of surprising because, um that is if you just
if you're doing a study on coffee, Um that's if
you don't put anything in your coffee, put cream and
sugar in, Yeah, you're going to get your cavities on.
All right. You kind of do both, right, just depending
on your mood. I typically go toward black, right, but
every now and then you throw a little vanilla creamer
(41:25):
in there every once a while. Yeah, um yeah, if
I want to treat, yeah, special treat. But kathein can
hurt your teeth in that it causes teeth clenching too well,
which is one reason I'm losing teeth is I grind
my teeth at night, so maybe I shouldn't drink more coffee.
It could be, yeah, but like you said, it giveth
(41:46):
and it take it the way do I want teeth
or do you want my liver to hang in there
and no diabetes? Right? Good point Alzheimer's. The bird Alzheimer's
Institute in Tampa did some experimenting lab mice, injecting them
with caffeine like you said earlier, and not only did
it protect them against developing Alzheimer's, but it helped reduce
(42:07):
symptoms if they already had it. They haven't tried it
on humans yet, but as it goes with mice, many
times it goes with humans. Yeah, hopefully, Yeah, we could
all be injecting caffeine at some point. That to me
is also counterintuitive too, because Alzheimer's disease is potentially a
build up of plaques in your brain that's the result
of not getting enough deep sleep. Because when you sleep,
(42:30):
your glial channels expand and your brain is bathed in cerebrals.
Final fluid cleans out those plaques. Right, But it only
happens when you're sleeping very deeply. Um, But if you're
not getting very deep sleep with coffee or caffeine, then
I would think you'd be there'd be a higher risk
of Alzheimer's. It's still fund it is, And I've also
found conflicting studies on memory. Johns Hopkins says that it's
(42:54):
a memory enhancer, but I've seen other studies that say
it's the memory d answer. Yeah, So again, it's like
it's stuff to kind of get down to the brass tacks,
you know, when you have conflicting studies. Um, if you exercise,
coffee is your best friend, caffeine is. Yeah. I've heard
(43:15):
of like Olympic athletes that like we'll shoot espresso right
before a race. Yeah. Not only does it like give
you a jolt of energy and everything, but apparently it
has um ergogenic properties, which means that it delays fatigue, right,
and it helps your muscles use glycogen their energy stores
more efficiently too, so it can help you run better. Interesting. Yeah,
(43:40):
as far as cognitive abilities, um, the one study found
from Johns Hopkins Medical School said that while you think
it is increasing your cognitive abilities, what is really doing
is just taking you back to normal for a short
period that is chilling. Yeah, and then when it wears off,
you're actually below man. Yeah, I don't know. I hate
(44:02):
to think that. I don't want to quit coffee though.
Quit smoking. Yeah, it lost weight. Yeah, keep your coffee.
That's another thing though I did during this break is
put some of that back on. We'll drink coffee and
go exercise, all right. Uh, if you want to know
more about caffeine, you can type that word into the
(44:24):
search bar how stuff works, and don't forget in this
case the egoes before the eye. Since I said search bar,
it's time for listener mail. Uh. This is from Maddie
in Virginia. Hey guys, I'm a twenty two year old
college student in Virginia. I want to start out by
saying thank you for the wonderful podcast. Would like this
(44:44):
emails good you've seen this on. Let me explain, guys,
how you've helped me. I'm gonna sufferer of extreme anxiety
and depression. I've had these issues since to a varying degree,
since middle school. However, events occurred in my life throughout
the past few years that have made the much worse.
Got to the point last semester I'm not I was
not able to go to class to homework or play
on my sports team. Thankfully, my family friends in my school.
(45:07):
Uh Through with their help, I was able to work
everything out. But I'm in a much better place, very
curious person and love learning and acquiring knowledge. And this
is where you guys come in. Uh. Though I had
trouble going to class, I still had that thirst to learn. Um.
So whenever I was in a bad place mentally, I
would grow in my earbuds play stuff you should know
podcasts in the zone out during these bad days at
(45:28):
times when I would listen to you guys, or some
of the only instances where I would smile or laugh,
I really want to thank you for putting in all
the hard work and making a great show. I know
that you guys help people not only gain valuele knowledge,
but you also improve lives and put smiles on many faces.
I don't think you'll read this on the air, Psych,
and I don't even know if you all will even
receive this email double Psych. But if you do, and
(45:51):
it's right on the podcast, I just want everyone listening
to know if you're going through a tough time and
you're struggling, things will get better. There are always people
who care about you. And who will help you? Nice
worms are couckles, my friend, and hanging in there what
a wonderful message? Does sound like trite things to say,
you know, like yeah, unless you're going through some time,
heals wounds and it's darkest before the dawn. But they're
(46:15):
trite and true for a reason, because they are trite
and true. I think you just tried and true. Yeah,
but I think you just improved the phrase, did I Yeah,
But they're not trite, they're true things. Hang in there, people,
that's right. That's one message. If you want to get
in touch with us, you can send us an email
to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com. You
(46:37):
can tweak to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com and has
always joined us at our home on the web, the
Luxurious Stuff You Should Know dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff
Works dot com
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!