Jo Craven McGinty summarizes her discussion about the ideal amount of caffeine to counteract sleep deprivation with Army medical researcher, Jaques Reifman, in What’s Your Ideal Caffeine Fix? An Algorithm Can Tell You. (Alternate link.)
In sum, many soldiers don't get enough sleep. And the research effort was directed at establishing the ideal amount of caffeine a person would need to consume to remain alert. Here's the take-away from her article:
Those who don’t get enough rest are advised by the guidelines to consume 200 milligrams of caffeine when they wake up and another 200 milligrams four hours later. Soldiers who work nights are told to consume 200 milligrams at the beginning of the shift. And those who expect to go without sleep for several days are instructed to consume 200 milligrams at midnight, 4 a.m. and 8 a.m.
It might be a challenge to measure the caffeine in coffee, and in that regard here's a link to a Caffeine Chart. As you will see, the caffeine measures diverge drastically per source. Perhaps the most accurate measure might be in caffeine pills such as NoDoz or Vivarin which the chart shows as 200mg per caplet or tablet.
For the raw research paper, click here.
Sweet dreams.
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10:22 AM 7/22/2018
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