Sleepless in Midland

Department of Defense can tell you the ideal amount of coffee to drink

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.

------

10:22 AM 7/22/2018

Democrats' problem - sleepy voters, per Michelle Obama

Not a problem here at Sleepless in Midland. But apparently, sleepy voters is a problem for Democrats, at least according to Michelle Obama. See Weeklystandard.com:

In an effort to boost turnout in November, the first lady told the crowd that she runs across voters "who are like, no, I ain’t going to vote, or I couldn’t wake up."

Via Thomas Lifson at Americanthinker.com who adds:

I would say that she knows her base.

What would happen if a speaker at a tea party rally said Democrats have trouble getting up early enough to go vote? Don't answer. We all know. The race card has been played so many times you can see it coming a mile away.

Sleep factoids

The topic of sleep is an important one for the staff and crew here at Sleepless in Midland. So studies, articles, and internet factoids about it get our attention. In that regard, a neat little website called weirdnewsfiles.com produced this item titled Sleeping facts you didn’t know. Here's a sampling:

- It's now OK to wake up a sleep walker.
- Bugs in a mattress can survive up to a year without eating.
- A siesta protects your mental and spiritual health. In addition to your memory, it improves your cognitive function and mood.
- More than 100,000 car accidents happen in the U.S. every year from drowsiness. The potential for drowsiness increases by 6% when talking on cell phone. [Maybe they need more interesting friends. -- Robo-ed.]

And finally this one:

- In a six-year study of one million adults, it was shown that those who slept 6-7 hours per night had lower death rates than those who slept eight hours. [8 hours sleep will kill you? Good luck selling that one. Bumper sticker: "If you don't wake up early, you might not wake up!"-- Robo-ed.]

Just trying to be helpful. Now excuse me while I go take a siesta.

*The "staff and crew" here actually consists of one human and a robot editor named Robo-ed -- think "Mystery Science Theater 3000." [I heard that! Robo-ed.]