Mean Muggin' Part II
Getting the best bang for your bean.
In Mean Muggin’ Part I, we discussed what caffeine is all about, including its main mechanisms and the common health concerns regarding coffee consumption; however, we did not dive into what we can actually do with that information to leverage our caffeine and coffee consumption for performance. In this post we will do just that: we will discuss how to theoretically maximize caffeine benefits and minimize its drawbacks. In particular, we will look at how you can get the most Bang per cup by combining coffee timing, sleep, and light.
Sip 1: Delay coffee 90-120 minutes after waking.
In the last post, we discussed how adenosine build-up in your brain creates sleep pressure, but we did not address the second force dictating your sleep-wake cycle: your circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm encompasses the timing of a roughly 24-hour cycle of hormone release, neurotransmitter release, and gene expression, all of which function to induce either wakefulness or sleepiness. 1 2 If you have ever experienced the post-lunch crash, then you are familiar with the power of your circadian rhythm on your sleep-wake cycle, as your circadian rhythm exhibits a drop off in alertness towards the middle of the day, followed by a final rise before the ultimate drop in the evening. 3 From a hormonal point of view, cortisol and melatonin play large roles in dictating this cycle, the former of which induces wakefulness in the morning, and the latter of which induces sleepiness in the evening.
Understanding how these types of chemicals affect your net sleep drive throughout the day allows you to leverage your caffeine intake to synchronize both adenosine sleep pressure and your circadian rhythm to your liking. In terms of melatonin and cortisol, you can theoretically accomplish this synchrony by delaying your caffeine consumption until 90-120 minutes after you wake up, as this period roughly marks the time that your waking burst of cortisol drops; furthermore, by consuming caffeine around this time, you will align the caffeine quarter-life — the point at which you have metabolized 75% of the caffeine you consumed — within a couple of hours of your bedtime. (1,4, 5) In this way, you will maximize your period of wakefulness by boosting your alertness when your cortisol levels drop in the mid to late morning, while also minimizing your alertness with a caffeine drop-off that aligns with rising melatonin levels in the evening. This dual-action protocol can help you push past the mid-day head bobs and pull your way into a calm and cool state when your head hits your pillow at the end of the day.
Sip 2: Cease coffee consumption 10-14 hours before bed.
Building off of Step 1, as much as you could theoretically leverage caffeine consumption to optimize your sleep-wake cycle, consuming caffeine at the wrong time of day, in theory, can just as easily disrupt your sleep-wake cycle. In particular, it is intuitive that consuming caffeine too late in the day and especially in the evening can disrupt your sleep by impairing your ability to fall asleep or interrupting your brain activity during sleep. As I mentioned in Part I, each of us metabolizes and experiences the effects of caffeine at different levels, depending on our adenosine, dopamine, catecholamine, and CYP1A2 genetics, which enables those of us who are so-called, ”fast metabolizers,” to get away with consuming caffeine later in the day than those of us that are caffeine sensitive. That said, according to neuroscientists, such as Matthew Walker, with the average caffeine half-life sitting around 5 hours, ceasing caffeine consumption somewhere around 10-14 hours before your bedtime might be ideal for most people. 6
Sip 3: The Midday Snooze
Thus far, we covered when to toss back your java, but we have yet to discuss the best way to do so. Of course, if you are on the caffeine-sensitive side, then you probably don’t have to do much more than sip on your caramel macchiato to feel alert and focused; however, if you are like me and sit on the more impervious side of the caffeine sensitivity spectrum, then you may want some tricks to amplify the effects of your daily brew without upping your caffeine intake. In addition, even if you are caffeine sensitive, the following protocol may help you further limit your caffeine intake. After all, as Tim Ferriss espouses in his book The 4-Hour Body, it might be a wise strategy to aim for the minimum effective dose when it comes to optimizing performance and minimizing negative side effects.
As I mentioned above, our circadian rhythms typically dip in the middle of the day, which is evidenced by the post-lunch haze that some of us are all too familiar with. For this reason, I find that this portion of the day offers the greatest window for improvement with regards to energy levels; interestingly, this portion of the day also rests on the end of the timeline I described above, in that consuming caffeine past this period will theoretically put you at a higher risk of disturbing your sleep.
The no-brainer solution to daytime sleepiness is obvious: sleep; however, due to a concept known as sleep inertia, sometimes taking a nap can leave you more tired than you were when you first snuggled up on the couch. 7Essentially, if you take a nap past 15-20 minutes, you run the risk of entering into deeper phases of sleep, and awakening from those phases prior to completion of their cycle can leave you entering your 2:00 PM meeting looking and feeling like you popped a few Benadryl’s.
In one study, researchers investigated this issue and tested how pre-nap caffeine consumption, post-nap face-washing with cold water, and post-nap bright light exposure affect subjects’ subsequent levels of sleepiness compared to only napping or not napping at all. Their results demonstrate that a 20-minute nap alone suppressed sleepiness overall but produced a decrease in alertness directly following the nap (i.e. sleep inertia); whereas, they found that consuming 200mg of caffeine prior to the nap, face-washing with cold water following the nap, and viewing 2,000 lux of light for one minute following the nap all produced greater sleep reduction than the nap alone. 8 In particular, the caffeine consumption produced the greatest and longest-lasting decrease in sleepiness and improvement in performance on memory and reaction time tests, the face-washing produced the greatest decrease in sleepiness in the 15 minutes directly following the nap, and the light exposure produced a moderate but long-lasting reduction in sleepiness compared to only napping.(8) These results are supported by another study, in which researchers found a protocol of consuming 150mg of caffeine 5 minutes before a 15-minute nap outperformed placebo, consuming 200mg of caffeine alone, and nap alone in terms of subjective sleepiness and sleep-related incidents in a driving simulation. 9
Although subjects’ from the first study above consumed 200 mg of caffeine — the equivalent of ~2.5 cups of coffee or 1.5 Monster energy drinks — they only viewed 2,000 lux of light for one minute, which is substantially less light exposure than you would get from a 10-minute walk in daylight. For reference, most sources estimate that an overcast day, ambient daylight, and direct sunlight provide 1,000 lux, 10,000-25,000 lux, and 32,000-100,000 lux respectively; therefore, in theory, you could amplify the effects of light exposure on daytime sleepiness with a short walk outdoors and receive the same, if not better, results while reducing the amount of caffeine you consumed. Also, in theory, you could amplify the effects of face-washing by taking a cold shower or completing a cold plunge for a handful of minutes. With all of that in mind, I give you my Midday Supercharge Snooze Protocol:
1. Drink some coffee in 5-10 minutes.
2. Take a 15-20 minute nap following your coffee.
3. Upon waking, expose yourself to some type of cold water, whether it be face-washing, cold-showering, or cold-plunging.
4. Go for a 10-15 minute walk outside, without sunglasses if possible (wear sunglasses if it is painful without them).
5. Bonus tip: Conduct some type of learning or skills session prior to the nap to benefit from the rapid neural replay and consequential increased neuroplasticity from the nap, both of which Andrew Huberman describes here.
Additional Caffeine Resources
Walker, M. (2017). Why we sleep. Scribner.
Huberman, A., & Walker, M. (2021, January 11). Master your sleep & be more alert when awake: Huberman lab podcast #2. YouTube. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from
Walker, M. (2021, August 26). #03 circadian rhythms. Spotify. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from
Huberman, A. (2021). Maximizing Productivity, Physical & Mental Health With Daily Tools. YouTube. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from
Oster, H., Challet, E., Ott, V., Arvat, E., de Kloet, E. R., Dijk, D.-J., Lightman, S., Vgontzas, A., & Van Cauter, E. (2016). The functional and clinical significance of the 24-hour rhythm of circulating glucocorticoids. Endocrine Reviews, 38(1), 3–45. https://doi.org/10.1210/er.2015-1080
Huberman, A. (2021). Coffee & Sleep: How Does Caffeine Work & It's Effects on Sleep. YouTube. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from
Walker, M. (2021, October 25). #07: Naps. Spotify. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from
Hayashi, M., Masuda, A., & Hori, T. (2003). The alerting effects of caffeine, bright light and face washing after a short daytime nap. Clinical Neurophysiology, 114(12), 2268–2278. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1388-2457(03)00255-4
Reyner, L. A., & Horne, J. A. (1997). Suppression of sleepiness in drivers: Combination of caffeine with a short nap. Psychophysiology, 34(6), 721–725. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1997.tb02148.x