# Sleep and Dreams > Sleep and Health >  >  No Caffeine, Now What?

## asher

One of the first things to go when I&#39;m transitioning to more than 2 sleep periods in a day is caffeine. I simply can&#39;t drink any caffeinated beverage and still nap more than once per day. But this is kind of a problem. I&#39;m not a hardcore addict, but there are definitely times when I feel like I need a little pick up, an extra mental boost. 

Anyone have suggestions for non-caffeinated alternatives for giving yourself a little kick which lasts for just a few hours at most?

TIA

-asher

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## Moonbeam

How about green tea?  I know it&#39;s still caffeine but not nearly as stong.  Also, there is Yerba mate, a south american plant that a tea is made from.  It has a form of caffeine that is different than coffee or tea, which is supposed to be much milder, and I find that to be true.  Hot chocolate would have a very tiny amount, that would probably wear off pretty quickly.  Maybe a cigarette? (just kidding.)

That may not help if you want to avoid caffeine entirely.  Being an addict myself, I can&#39;t imagine life without tea and coffee, but I&#39;ve messed up my own night-time sleep with it, so I can imagine it would interfere big-time with polyphasic.

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## Seeker

Life without caffiene?   :Eek: 

Sugar is always good for a quick rush.  Of course, that has it&#39;s own problems.  Maybe you could go half caffiene on your coffee?

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## asher

> How about green tea?  I know it&#39;s still caffeine but not nearly as stong.  Also, there is Yerba mate, a south american plant that a tea is made from.  It has a form of caffeine that is different than coffee or tea, which is supposed to be much milder, and I find that to be true.[/b]








> Life without caffiene?  
> 
> Sugar is always good for a quick rush.  Of course, that has it&#39;s own problems.  Maybe you could go half caffiene on your coffee?[/b]



I&#39;ve tried Yerba Mate. Hate the taste. Can&#39;t do sugar since I it makes me crash and feel like crap not long afterwards. 

Speaking of S.A. plants, what would be really nice is if I could get coca leaf tea here in the US. For those who haven&#39;t tired it, you get a very nice, calm push that&#39;s isn&#39;t too harsh. Maybe I could try small amounts of green tea though. Seems like even decaf coffee messes up my sleep schedule  :Sad:

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## laconix

Caffeine has a near opposite effect on me, it makes me sleepy.  ::content:: 
Tea makes me sleepy but also helps me concentrate.

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## decojones

Theres a soda called Materva which has that yerba mate in it. Have you tried that? I love the taste but, supposedly it drops your sperm count. I&#39;m not so sure of it being a "non-caffeinated alternative" but it sure gives me a little kick. A thing that always seems to get me on a "few hour high" is grouper soup. However, when i do go to sleep it&#39;ll be for a while..

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## asher

> Theres a soda called Materva which has that yerba mate in it. Have you tried that? I love the taste but, supposedly it drops your sperm count. I&#39;m not so sure of it being a "non-caffeinated alternative" but it sure gives me a little kick. A thing that always seems to get me on a "few hour high" is grouper soup. However, when i do go to sleep it&#39;ll be for a while..[/b]



OK. I&#39;ll see if they have Materva next time I&#39;m at the hispanic grocery store. Do you mean grouper soup as in the fish or is this some special code word I&#39;m missing?   :Eek:

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## Tsen

I&#39;d go with just plain chocolate.  Chocolate contains Theobromine, a chemical related to, but not synonymous with caffeine.
It differs in that it stimulates the nervous system less, but the heart more, so it shouldn&#39;t keep you up nearly as much as caffeine.
A good bar of dark chocolate contains quite a bit of theobromine, but not a lot of caffeine, so it shouldn&#39;t have quite as big of an impact.

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## decojones

Yea I mean the fish grouper, you should really try it&#33;  :smiley:

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## asher

OK. It&#39;s almost 7am here. Didn&#39;t follow my schedule as well as I should of last night, and I&#39;m dogging it this morning. Going to try a little sushi bar mild green tea. 

If that fails I&#39;ll force down some Yerba mate (we have some in the house), pop a couple chocolate chips, try to hunt down a can of Materva and visit my local fish monger for some grouper and soup recipes.  :wink2:

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## pj

Ginseng.

If you haven&#39;t used it, go easy at first and note how it affects you.  

Note that not all ginseng is equal.

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## Gwendolyn

I&#39;ve heard that Ginsing and Guarana. I actually think that Guarana is a source of caffine, but it is a bit different.

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## asher

> Ginseng.
> 
> If you haven&#39;t used it, go easy at first and note how it affects you.  
> 
> Note that not all ginseng is equal.[/b]



pj how do you recommend taking ginseng? In capsules? In tea?

-asher

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## pj

I like getting prepared ginseng and just eating it.  It comes in foil packets with a slice in each.  I drink ginseng tea a bit in the winter, but for the "kick" there&#39;s nothing like just eating it.  Never tried the capsules.

Head to an Asian shop and ask; they&#39;ll lay out the options for you, and explain the different types.

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## Tornado Joe

> I&#39;ve tried Yerba Mate. Hate the taste. Can&#39;t do sugar since I it makes me crash and feel like crap not long afterwards.[/b]



Heh, I drink that stuff all the time (being of Argentinian descent). The taste is something you acquire after some time. I gotta have it with sugar, myself. However, what I think really makes it taste good is dropping in a couple chunks of orange rinds - that really enhances the flavor quite a bit (kind of neutralizes the bitter with some tang). Lemon rind works as well.

Using honey instead of regular sugar might help as well. But really, even though mate is not scientifically caffiene, it&#39;s only like one molecule away from it, and you might as well be drinking coffee if you want it for that "pick me up" quality. Only difference is that mate is a good diuretic and actually has some health benefits compared to coffee.

I drink it mainly as a habit, something to do when watching TV or working on a painting or project. I&#39;ve noticed if I have it anytime after 9pm, though, I&#39;ll likely have issues falling asleep.

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## asher

> Heh, I drink that stuff all the time (being of Argentinian descent). The taste is something you acquire after some time. I gotta have it with sugar, myself. However, what I think really makes it taste good is dropping in a couple chunks of orange rinds - that really enhances the flavor quite a bit (kind of neutralizes the bitter with some tang). Lemon rind works as well.
> 
> Using honey instead of regular sugar might help as well. But really, even though mate is not scientifically caffiene, it&#39;s only like one molecule away from it, and you might as well be drinking coffee if you want it for that "pick me up" quality. Only difference is that mate is a good diuretic and actually has some health benefits compared to coffee.
> 
> I drink it mainly as a habit, something to do when watching TV or working on a painting or project. I&#39;ve noticed if I have it anytime after 9pm, though, I&#39;ll likely have issues falling asleep.[/b]



Seems like Yerba Mate is as much ritual as drug for a lot of people in Argentina and Uruguay, no? I once heard it described as tasting like like soggy ashes. Yummmm....   ::?:  

OK. Don&#39;t mean to be harsh. To each his own taste. Maybe if I mix the Mate up with some Ginseng, Grouper and Honey I&#39;ll get a real nice taste and kick  :smiley:

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## Jess

Have you tried these?

*Areca catechu* - Betel Nut
(Palmae) The nuts of this tropical palm tree form the basis of a stimulant betel chew which has a reputation as a panacea.  As well as a stimulant Betel is also used in Ayurvedic medecine for headaches, stomach pains, venereal disease, fever, rheumatism and a number of other complaints.  Theophrastus made references to the betel nut which also appears in early Sanskrit texts under then name &#39;guvka&#39; or &#39;pinlang&#39;.  In India it has also been integrated within the social and religious system, the gods are said to lack betel in heaven and that humans should offer them betel to keep them in a beneficial mood.  Also used as a magical charm and amulet thought to protect against the evil eye and ward off demons.  In Indian cultures the knowledge of traditional preparation methods for betel nut is considered nigh on a high art and special variations of recipes are often passed on through generations as revered knowledge.

*Cola nitida* - Kola Nut

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## Merck

Any bronchodilator with ephedrine sulfate will give you a bit more energy.

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## G0MPgomp

Serotonin..

[Get out in the sun more&#33; (?) ... ]

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## Placebo

Go for a jog around the block - 1 minute run, 1 minute walk. Make sure you sweat.
That should help.

And the reason caffiene is a problem is that it has a 4 hours HALF life. i.e. 4 hours of strong effect, 4 hours of lesser effect.
So if you&#39;re trying to do uberman, you only have 3.5 hours between naps. 4 hours is a problem. 
And you can&#39;t have coffee after 2 consecutive naps, otherwise the half-life is gonna nail you even more.
This is one reason why I took an easier schedule that had 6 hours between the morning, midday and evening nap - You can get away with a morning coffee.

They also say that an apple is quite effective at waking you up. Try eating more apples, or drinking apple juice.
If nothing else, the fructose will wake you somewhat, and it&#39;s less extreme than refined sugar as in chocolate.
Chocolate is gonna give you the rocky effect of high/low.

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## Tomdub

Dark Chocolate
it wakes you up with sugar and other substances. You also said that you crash if you use sugar, well...then eat some more&#33;   ::cookiemonster::

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## Placebo

That leads to a bumpy ride of highs and lows. And if you constantly spike your sugar levels like that, you&#39;ll slowly develop insulin resistance and eventually type 2 diabetes  :wink2:

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## asher

Well, I seem to have picked up a Diet Coke habit (if two days in a row can be called a habit). Both times I had the drink in the morning or late morning, and it didn&#39;t seem to effect my napping. I&#39;ll try to substitute something else soon though as we all know what a marvelous thing Coke is for your health.   ::shock::  

It does give me the little mental boost I seem to be needing. I&#39;ll try experimenting with some more of the items mentioned here when I get back home.

BTW I am now pretty much insisting that others deal with the fact that I nap. And you know what? A lot of family/friends are napping when I do. It&#39;s like there is some taboo here in the US about it not being manly or polite or whatever to just take a siesta when you want/need too. But if you show people it&#39;s ok they often will follow your lead.

#asher

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## Tomdub

Interesting with the napping aspect, but both my parents are over 50 and they nap all the time. Of course I don&#39;t follow there lead because when they are sleeping, I can do what I want  ::evil::  

But on the Sugar spiking technique, is it actually dangerous to do that stuff. I mean hypothetically speaking if someone sugar spiked the whole day would that be bad. should I stop...should this hypothetical person stop.

Just bringing this up again but getting exercise is a great way to wake up. Go out and run the dog or mow the lawn while jogging, or after you mowed the lawn five times in one week, you could just jog to be healthy. Kinda just repeating what Placebo said.

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## nrg

I used to take Ginseng capsules. It gave me very nice 'kick' not to big but I was feeling very energised :wink2:  There was a problem though, after some time taking it I had problems with sleeping. Maybe i tooked too much..? ::roll::  My advise is not to take big amounts in the first week, after that time if you wont feel any difference you may increse the dose.

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## Shamrox

You could always just snort a little cocaine that should hit you pretty hard!  :tongue2:  

I can sleep, 13 or 14 hours a night easily. In fact i did last night. My REM period doesnt even seem to start until after 10 hours of sleep. I have been to doctors. I have tried vitamins, i exercise regularly and eat very healthy. I do not consume any type of drugs including caffeine. I have had the lifestyle described for over a year and yet no change. Does anyone have any advice on how to be able to function on 8 hours of sleep every night like a normal human being?

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## TempleGuard

Just sleep less, and try to get used to tihs, since you do the other stuff, shouldnt be that problem. And btw are you more than like 20 years, because if you are under that age it is usually normal to sleep more, and when you grow a little older you could become normal. Other suggestion would be polyphasic sleep schedule.

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## Shamrox

Im not a fan of saying my age on the internet, however i can say that i know with quiete some certainty its not my age. It seems to come and go in cycles. Sometimes, 8 hours is enough for a while. Other times i need 14 every night. Explain to me what polyphasic is please.

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## TempleGuard

> Im not a fan of saying my age on the internet, however i can say that i know with quiete some certainty its not my age. It seems to come and go in cycles. Sometimes, 8 hours is enough for a while. Other times i need 14 every night. Explain to me what polyphasic is please.



Alternitive sleep schedule in which you sleep less - like 4 hours a day. Check it on the internet, or in the other topics here. The most succsesfull schedules are "everymen sleep schedule" and "uberman sleep schedule", if they are cool whit your lifestyle you can give em a try.

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## asher

I'm back to a schedule of full-on polyphasic sleep. About 2 weeks in to the new schedule. Got off to a good start as I began by first increasing my number of naps from the usual 1 to 2 then 3 and 4. Within a week I was at about 3:30 hrs core sleep at night and 4 thirty-minute naps, close to my goal of 2:30 at night plus 4 short naps. Early on I had an extremely nice nap, woke up feeling euphoric. Not just happy, or relaxed, but completely warm and content. Like there couldn't possibly be any worries in the world. Very nice. Also, very high ratio of lucid dreams in those early days. Much more of a feeling of "putting myself to sleep", over and over. Sometimes I just barely would drift off then wake up, so instead of napping 30 minutes it could be as little as 10.

More recently I got off track. Wasn't feeling well, ended up not setting an alarm or shutting one off without resetting and slept 6 hrs at night. Getting back on track has taken a few days. 

As before I'm not consuming any caffeine. Only the slightest amount, a few sips of tea. Haven't felt that tired, except for the couple days where I got off track. I find the hardest part isn't waking up from my core sleep at 2am or so, it's waking up after my 5:30am nap. Could get harder as the darkness of winter rolls in. Feel like poly-sleep is both something I want to do and *have* to do right now, given my current level of commitments. If I want to do any writing at all, it's going to have to be right now, in the dead of night.

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## slash112

Banned for necro posting.


Kidding. Hi asher man.

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## asher

> Banned for necro posting.
> 
> 
> Kidding. Hi asher man.



Necro posting from a zombie admin.  :smiley: 

Up at 2:10 this morning from core sleep. Strange feeling to be walking to work while everyone else is stumbling drunk out of the bars, headed home to sleep. Like swimming upstream. No matter though, just need to follow my own rhythm.

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## asher

Up at 1:10am this morning, so right on schedule in that way.... But yesterday my 5am nap started at 4am and lasted nearly until 7am, so *way* too long. This first nap of the day is just going to get harder as it gets light later, though I'm pretending the season hasn't changed by wearing shorts still. 

I feel decent at the moment. Awake at the edges, maybe a little tired below the surface. Even though I've got my office way lit-up with a dozen hanging lights, I can still tell that it's dark out there in the world beyond. I can feel it. It's loud out there, too. Another partying night at the bars. No matter. Headphones on. Band of Horses on the playlist. No worries.

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## Zelgius

I can't believe no one has mentioned this -- apples. A single apple has more energy than a cup of coffee. Or you could drink apple juice.

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## asher

Woke up at 6:30 this morning. I had set a couple alarms set but I must have turned them off without even thinking. Bad news. I think I need some kind of secondary thing to get me up. Maybe something good that I want to eat or drink (I doubt an apple would work but tks for the suggestion Zelgius!). I have one of those outlet timers, maybe I can hook up a lamp that shines brightly in my face at 1am, but that seems a little too harsh. At any rate I'll try to keep napping throughout the day even though I way overslept and maybe I can get right back on track tomorrow. I don't even fell more rested for having slept all night. Sigh.

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## asher

Was even more off track yesterday. Some stresses in my personal life had me sleeping even more; suppose there are worse reactions to stress than oversleeping but its hard enough to adapt to this schedule when feeling relaxed. At any rate I'm back to getting up on time, up at 1:10am this morning. Walk in to office I felt fine, just a hint of tiredness. Funny thing is I somehow feel more tired coming off polyphasic than I do while on it. City relatively quiet this morning. Thoughts seem extra loud at this time of night. Anyone seen The Informant? Mostly forgettable movie, but the main character, Matt Demon, has this interior monologue going that gets played from time to time. Just random, everyday stuff. Fairly dumb stuff. Felt like I was having that kind of train of thought this morning, and so loud that it might as well have been broadcast. Hum.... Maybe that's what's happening right now. Am I writing this or just thinking it.....?

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## asher

Well at this point I don't really have a schedule. I'm not sleeping at night in any regular way. Was up this morning just after 2am. Didn't feel great but managed to stay awake. Not even sure it was an alarm that woke me. Basically my sleep schedule is broken. That may not be totally bad. I'm still napping at least twice during the day, and I haven't had any major issues with getting to sleep. The hardest part is getting my body to accept my decision to wake up as final. Once it does that, even if I'm a still a little tired, I feel much more relaxed.

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## asher

Schedule still is no schedule. Napping whenever I can, sleeping at night sometimes 6 full hours, sometimes just naps straight through. Looks like that will be the case tonight.

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## asher

I'm getting used to the new flow of life. With regular sleep there are days. They begin and they end. You start fresh every day, are tired by the end. Even with a single, refresher nap this is basically true. Now my days have no beginning, they have no end. They just kind of..... flow.

Right now I feel like I'm in my own grove, somewhat apart from the world. I intersect with the world in the usual way, friends, coworkers, fellow students, but then I'm also on my own wave. Up when no one else I know is up, sleeping when everyone I know is awake.

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## asher

Wake times after core sleep the last 3 days: 2am, 5am, 3am. Not setting any alarms. Napping at least twice per day, but sometimes only twice. May be that I am moving very slowly and erratically towards more naps and less core sleep, but without any rigid system or path.

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## ClouD

Fascinating. I'm very interested in altering my sleeping schedule to see how it affects awareness.

I feel like I have to experience what you've written.

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## asher

Hey ClouD it's I'd say its definitely worth trying to go poly  :smiley: , though if you have any insomnia issues I would be really careful. Fortunately that's never been a big issue for me. 

I still have no real established pattern to my sleeping. I've been down to as few as just one nap lately, though today I suspect I'll take at least two. I'm noticing that the more I try to hack my sleep the more I seem to "understand" how my body works, and in particular the tricks it plays. I often wake up at 3am or so, and even though I feel rested, I end up going back to sleep anyway. Even though I am almost always happier if I get up, like I did today, and even though I *know* this, and can tell myself it, somehow I don't seem to know it in that moment. I'm more aware too of my body's cycles, and how I have windows of opportunity to nap and if I miss those I tend to wake back up, even without a nap, though not feeling as good as when I nap. Also, I tend to "slump" at about once a day, usually in the early evening. This is different from being sleepy, it's like a heavy wave of tiredness that lasts for about 5 to 10 minutes. I can never actually nap during this time: it's like a whole nother thing. 

Dreams have been more integrated with my life, or at least I'm noticing that more. I can be thinking about a problem just before sleeping and be pretty sure that it will figure into my dreams somehow.

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