Conquering Caffeine
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You, human, are a battery.
You know this, at some level.
It’s an awareness so deep it’s woven inextricably into your core mode of being. You may, like me, have been entertainingly reminded of this by the smugly enigmatic Morpheus, as he cheerfully lances Neo’s fragile little reality-bubble with trademark elan.
Or maybe you’re a more learned creature, patently aware of our body’s inherent chemical nature, cut from the same cloth as the billowing Electric Universe. Thrumming with peculiar magic that devours light, heat, kale and Mars bars, then turns their sodium and potassium into ions for our cellular mitochondria so we can keep doing more awesome stuff.
Monkey-Wizards
Yep. We industrious little meat machines take in energy, and we extrude civilisation. Go us! Nations, romance novels, skyscrapers, jewellery, stock markets, lamborghinis and philosophy. We’re not batteries — we’re goddamn monkey-wizards with a side job as power plants.
The thing is, though, most power plants don’t have tastebuds.
Magic Go-Go Juice
This is where ol’ mate coffee comes in.
Or black tea, yerba mate or matcha. Even Coke, if that floats your sugary boat (though I must kindly ask you to return your biohacking badge, as you clearly haven’t earnt it yet). The point is, if we’re Santa, then they’re our little caffeinated elves, ready and willing to serve.
So let us say you go ahead and down a delicious macchiato. If it’s well-made and the machine is clean, it slides down your cake-hole — impossibly rich, slightly bitter yet sweet and silken — tableclothing itself over your yearning tastebuds with an ephemeral but enveloping grace. Or maybe that’s just me. Either way, it sinks its army of liquid messengers into your guts with precise biological intent, and that pervasive neuronal fire begins to build as you:
- Increase your body’s metabolic rate
- Increase fat oxidisation
- Boost levels of dopamine, serotonin and acetylcholine
- Send more blood to your muscles and sugar to your hungry brain
- Supercharge your concentration, mood, motivation and energy.
Score.
Dark Magic
The problem is, though, that we monkey-wizards lack proper knowledge of our own spells: What coffee and other caffeinated beverages do is give us the appearance of energy through pinging our adenosine receptors into shutting down our shutdown centres, so coffee time and energy = borrowed time and energy. It’s just like our fractional reserve system of money. We’re maxing out our biological credit cards, and soon enough The Bank comes calling. Every damn time.
But worse than that, there’s all this potential fine print we didn’t bother to read:
- Anxiety
- Jitters
- High blood pressure
- Rapid heartbeat
- Dehydration
- Insomnia
- Headaches
- Lack of concentration
Some people deal with caffeine well. Others, not so much. Variations of the CYP1A2 gene determine how fast our bodies metabolise caffeine, and the slowpokes (i.e. me) suffer, as more than a single weak latte plunges them into the Unholy Land of all of the above, plus a terrified, jerky hyper vigilance and a sympathetic nervous system that feels like it’s plugged into the mains power of the seventh circle of Hell.
Not anymore.
White Magic
Enter l-theanine. A Glinda-the-Good-Witch-of-the-South kinda substance to soften Oz’s spiky, glittering edifice of caffeine. L-theanine will still allow you the good bits of caffeine, but will at the same time take away almost all the bad bits.
Too good to be true? Welcome to the wonderful world of biohacking, Dorothy.
L-Theanine is an amino acid extracted from green tea that is scientifically proven to make coffee work harder, longer and smarter for you by acting synergistically with it to amplify its good effects and mostly ameliorate those least desirable by:
- Boosting the immune system
- Improving mental focus and delicious ol’ clarity (did I tell you how much I love clarity?)
- Increasing alertness, but in a calm and measured way.
- Increasing creativity
- Reduce stress and mental fatigue
- Amplifying alpha brain waves
- Prolonging the feel good effects of caffeine
Long story short, coffee, matcha or whatever, plus l-theanine, puts then keeps you on that hallowed ground we refer to in reverential whispers as ‘the zone’. It puts a leash on caffeine and makes it behave, so that you can freely create. It’s flow state in liquid form.
The best part of all this: l-theanine has been shown to have next to no levels of toxicity whatsoever. Furthermore, it’s an endogenous amino acid your body deals with incredibly well, so dependency or tolerance vanish as potential concerns. Which means large doses everyday, with very likely no real side effects. Sign me up, Scotty. (Your milage may, of course, vary, you unique bag of swirling atoms, you. So start small, just in case).
I’ve been l-theanining my matcha, chai, and occasional coffee for a solid year now, and as a writer it’s helped to gift me one and a half books, multiple published poems, endless articles, and more. As an entrepreneur and graphic designer it’s built me websites, designed endless saleable products, and as an ego-seeking human (theanine, sadly, doesn’t really help there), it’s given me a surfeit of hilarious, incisive and fascinating ideas for blog posts, status updates and charming conversations. In short, it creates my happy place for gestating, then bringing into reality the very best of ideas.
Dosage
The recommended ratio of caffeine to theanine is generally 1:2 (so, say, 100 mg of caffeine would be ideally accompanied by 200 mg of l-theanine).
Personally, I dunk a third to a half of a flat teaspoon of the powder into a small glass of water, stir until blended, then swallow it at least 10 mins before consuming caffeine. That’s what works for me, but your own metabolism, gene expression, and which side of the bed you chose to emerge from that morning, afternoon or evening, let alone your intended caffeine intake or other medication you might be on could all be contributing factors here. Start small. Use common sense. See how you go.
See what civilisation you can now extrude out of your upgraded magical cup o’ joe.
Godspeed, fellow monkey-wizard.
Go create some civilisation. ❤
