Selects: The Duality of Caffeine

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Hi, everybody. It's your friendly neighborhood co-host, Charles W. Chuck Bryant. here. We're going to take you back in time to January 14th, 2016,, when we spoke at length about caffeine and the ups, literally, and the downs, literally.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there.

What?

Yeah, yeah. She's messing with it.

So we, you guys, don't know this, because through the power of the magic of editing.

And publishing.

And publishing. You think we've just never been gone from the office? Yeah. But we've been gone.

I have no idea what episodes we released. I've been so out of it.

Yeah, I took six weeks of paternity leave.

Woo, and I did by proxy.

And you did by proxy. Yeah. So we've been gone from the studio for a while. And just wanted to say it's glad to be back, buddy.

Yeah, it is nice to be back. And it's good to see you again. It's been a long time.

What's happened in the meantime? I lost another tooth.

Yeah.

My stupid front. The tooth next to the one that came out, broke off at a Falcons game.

Oh, well, there you go. God was cursing you for being at the Falcons.

So I have another stupid flipper and another eight months of.

Eight months, really?

Yeah, until I get the permanent implant. So again, I'll be out on tour with no tooth.

You can't even see it. Like you have to literally like pull your gums back or your lips back to your gums.

Or if I laugh a lot, which I'm trying to just lead a more somber life.

Well, I plan on making you laugh a lot on stage. So people might see it then.

What else? You got a dog.

Yeah, we got a puppy named Momo.

You want to talk about Momo?

Momo is very sweet. She's a sweet little Shizu poodle mixture.

How's that going?

She's a little fluff ball. Very good.

House trained or?

Sure. Yes. Good. Right off the bat. We crate trained her.

No, they're not mean.

You shouldn't put a dog in a crate. And then I started to read up on it. They love it. It's like, yes, it's like her den. It's her little room, like her bedroom.

In fact, when we took away the crate from our youngest dog, Charlie. Yeah. Because of we needed a breakfast, nook. She was kind of like, dude, you took my room away.

Yeah, that was my room. Yeah. We plan to keep her crate around like as long as she wants it. Sure. But just she won't be penned in it against her will at certain times, until.

Right, right.

She doesn't actually have accidents in the house. We're just, you know, staying on top of it.

That's great. What else happened? We had holidays.

Yes.

Good Christmas and New Year's, I guess.

Yumi's birthday.

Oh, yeah, birthday.

And it was just a nice time off. Like I had this big to do list. Yeah. And none of it got done because it was raising a puppy replaced that.

Yeah.

How's your kid?

Ruby's great, man. And I did the same thing. I had a big to do list and found myself just kind of being like, could you do this? Or I could just like play with my kid. Right.

Or watch Making a Murderer.

Yeah, I did watch all that. Did you? Sure, same here.

Yeah. In like a day.

We'll talk about that.

We probably shouldn't talk about it.

People want us to do a podcast on that. I know. Like a follow up. Maybe.

It's not as bad as the request to do a podcast on the case that Serial covered.

Like, I think Serial got that one covered. No, I'm not going to. No.

No, of course not.

I could maybe do a follow up on Making a Murderer.

I think we should revisit Exonerations and the Innocence Project again. Because when we did that one, we had no idea what was going on. And now it's really like, it's really coming through.

True.

So yes, let's do that.

Oh, I've been playing a lot of, I got a PS4.

With the dog? And their dog companion?

Well, you can have a dog companion. So of course I chose it. Okay. But it's really awful because the dog gets hurt a lot. And like struggles around, whimpering and bleeding.

Do you have to put it out of its misery ever?

Well, no, you can heal the dog. But I went to message boards and everyone's like, don't heal your dog. Like, just trust me, it'll heal itself. Don't waste your medicine.

Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm sure you waste your medicine every time, don't you?

Well, yeah, it's tough to hear the fake dog whimper.

Yeah. And it's like, I'll be okay. Yeah. Don't mind me.

Dogmeat. That's his name.

So that was a big time off. Yes. We just covered. It was.

And that's all that happened.

Jerry, how about you? That was great, Jerry. I'm glad you had a nice time as well.

Jerry also had a nice break with her little baby Inez.

She told us this through a series of blinks.

She did.

That we've worked out over the years.

Yep.

Nice job.

All right. So sorry about the long intro, but I felt like we needed to catch everyone up, even though you didn't know that you needed it.

Right.

And maybe it has something to do with caffeine.

Because we did such a good job when we recorded those ones that were released over the break of predicting things we would be talking about at the time.

Yeah.

Who could tell?

Exactly.

So I'm a little caffeinated right now, believe it or not.

What a shock.

I don't drink nearly as much coffee as I used to.

Yeah.

It's because I really realized it really does have a detrimental effect on my mood.

Oh, really?

Say in the car. Car's a really good example of me and caffeine.

You're a little ramped up in the car anyway, so that probably didn't help.

Right. Well, I'm working on that. Yeah. But part of working on that is just not drinking as much coffee.

Yeah. I think a good title for this could be Mixed Messages. Because in studying caffeine, and we did one on coffee. Right. We dabbled in this a little bit.

It sure seems like that, unless we have a completely misunderstood model of addiction. Yeah. And the parasympathetic or sympathetic nervous system. Yeah. Unless we don't know those things.

Yeah.

Then, yeah, coffee is both for sure. The weird thing is, everybody realizes that coffee, or, I'm sorry, caffeine. I think I'm probably going to do that a lot this episode. Yeah. Because they are virtually interchangeable.

You're right.

It's the beneficial effects that are so surprising. Yeah. But they do seem to, like you say.

Agreed.

So Chuck, I drink, today I've had five cups of coffee and a diet Mountain Dew.

And it is 1.

Seven.

Seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.

Yes.

Oh man.

Yeah. And it's cutting back because I, like this afternoon, I won't keep going.

Oh, so you stop.

This is, this'll be my last, probably.

Really? For the day? Yeah. Oh, okay.

And I'm actually, I'm above average for the United States. And I could have guessed that.

Yeah.

But the, the average for the United States is actually on the worst end of the spectrum, as far as, like caffeine consumption goes.

Yeah. I look, the latest information I got is that the U S was 16th in the world in per capita consumption. Yeah.

Not even 10th or ninth or any, anywhere above 10th.

No, 16th. Yeah. If you want to know who leads the world right now, I think it's the Netherlands. is what I found.

I found Finland. Oh, really? From 2013.. That was the most recent I saw.

Well, the most recent I saw said the Netherlands at 2.

Really? That is not what I saw.

Really?

Yeah.

Where were the Netherlands on your list?

I don't remember. I just saw that Finland was number one at like 2.4..

Oh, wow.

And like 9.

Well, I bet the top 10 is kind of interchangeable and fairly static, though. Sure. As in the same-ish countries in different orders.

Yeah. Because I mean, coffee consumption patterns, I guess they could change fairly rapidly, but they don't change in the blink of an eye. Well, think about how much Starbucks changed coffee consumption in this country.

Did it, ramp it up?

Oh yeah. Like think about how many people now swing by Starbucks at like 3 PM, whereas before they may not even have drank coffee.

Yeah. Don't you mean Charbucks?

Yeah. Yeah.

I actually have no skin in the game.

I like Starbucks.

Yeah. I don't really... Well, you know me. I don't drink caffeine that much.

No, I know. You're very mellow.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm starting to think I should drink more coffee though.

Why?

Because of the health benefits. Oh yeah. You know? We'll see. We'll get into all that.

Cold countries.

Not bad.

Although Brazil loves its coffee as well. I think they're like number 10 or 11, or something like that.

Good coffee. I didn't see... They weren't even in my top 16..

So we had different lists made by two different caffeinated weirdos.

So the U.

Just in the face of changing coffee consumption.

Yeah. I think it's now up to 400 milligrams a day, as they said, should be like the upper limit of what you should drink and what is cool to drink for your health.

Right.

Not by being cool. You could drink a hundred cups a day and you'd be super cool.

Right. That's why I drink coffee so much. Yeah. Exactly. I want to be cool.

400 is?

Yes. Like high, high...

High octane?

Right. Coffee. But yeah, it's no more than maybe three.

Well, and that's caffeine, though. That's not coffee. Right. So you might also be drinking sodas or eating chocolate. Sure.

That's packed with caffeine. Yeah. Yeah. It does show up in all sorts of surprising places, including, I looked this up, decaf coffee as well, we should say.

Yeah. It's still got some caffeine in there, right?

Yeah. So like a cup of coffee, eight ounces of coffee can have anywhere from like 75 to 200-ish milligrams of caffeine in it. Okay. Decaf coffee still might have like 20 milligrams. Wow.

Interesting. I knew there was some caffeine, but maybe that's not, is that negligible?

20 itself, just if you drank one decaffeinated cup of coffee a day, yes. Okay. I think on the overall effects of your health, it would be negligible. But both ways, because again, the coffee giveth and the coffee taketh away.

Yeah, sure does.

It's a double-edged drug.

Yeah. And it is a drug, and it's also in tea, which we'll get to as well. But yeah, it's a drug. It naturally occurs like many drugs, but it is a stimulant called trimethylxanthine. Nice job.

I think there's a 10 in there.

What did I say? One zero?

Yeah. Which I mean, you know, if you're on a CB or something, they get the point. This podcast is as close to CB chatter as you can come.

Quick segue here. I used to love talking on the CB because my dad had one in his Jeep. Oh yeah? And remember when CB culture was huge in the 70s? Sure.

Where?

At our New York shows, tall Johnny Pindell. He's a trucker now.

Okay.

And I got to hang out and get in his truck. And he does not use a CB. And he said that he might get one, but it's not like the standard thing anymore.

What is now? Texting?

No, just cell phones. I mean, he said, if you really want to be a part of that big trucker culture, you can do the CB still.

Or you can just be a lone wolf.

He's a lone wolf.

Gotcha.

Right now he is.

He needs one of those jackets like Lenny and Squiggy used to wear.

Yeah. It was fascinating, though. We need to do an episode on trucking, because when I saw him, all I did was ask questions. basically. Yeah.

Does he have his own rig?

No, he doesn't own it.

That means truck.

Yeah.

Okay.

Anyway, well, hey to Johnny. And he listens to the podcast now, so.

Hey, Johnny. Because he's trucking. Yeah, you don't need a CB. if you listen to stuff, you should know.

No, we are your CB.

We'll keep you company.

All right. So anyway, caffeine. He does drink a lot of caffeine. I think that's where I was going with that.

Yeah. But that really had nothing to do with it. I brought up CBs because you said H10..

Why don't we take a break and get our C legs back. Yeah.

Our P legs. We're a little rusty.

And P as in podcast, not urine.

I thought you meant urine. Oh man. Oh, hey, I'll tell you something about this break. I learned that there's something called.

I think Elvis had the most severe case of that. All right. Well, don't let that happen to you during this break, and we will be back right after this.

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First of all, when the nail's too long, nice underwear. Really? This season, we're all leveling up our confidence, and we're on this journey together. Listen to Over Comfort Podcast with Jennica Lopez as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Tom Slick, February 14th, 1958.

We're gonna die.

Nellis, when chance arrives, act.

Have we got it together?

That was like a half a second.

Are we good?

Yeah, I guess so. All right. We're going to give it another stab here.

So caffeine, I think that's what we were talking about.

It's a drug and in its pure form, Chuck, it is a bitter tasting crystalline powder.

That's right.

It's actually very closely related, at least in its effects, to opioid antagonists like heroin.

Yeah.

Cocaine.

Yeah.

Caffeine.

Yeah.

And I will talk a little more about the brain, the effects on the brain, but it does have these effects and it uses the same mechanism as these drugs. And therefore, it can cause addictions, just like these drugs as well. Yeah.

And, like I said, it occurs naturally. It's in the coffee bean and in chocolate and tea. But it's also added artificially in things like soda. And I looked up the sodas to get the most recent amount. And Pepsi One, right now, I think, has the most caffeine.

Man, do you remember Jolt and Vault? I used to drink a ton of Vault.

I'm sure you did.

Well, I would drink one right before the podcast, remember? Yeah. And I'd just be like talking a thousand miles an hour. Yeah.

The good old days.

I've settled down quite a bit.

You have.

I'm happier for it.

Pepsi One at 57 milligrams. Tab is number two at 48. Diet Coke, 46.. You will work your way down to regular old Coca-Cola at 33 milligrams per 12 ounce can. And the FDA regulates how much caffeine you can put in a soda.

That's the key.

That's right. If you're an energy drink like Red Bull or any of those other gross tasting things. Yeah. I don't like them personally, but people love them. I just don't like the taste.

Which you're like, okay.

In the case of Red Bull. That's a lot of caffeine.

It does seem like a lot, but some people love to take it even further. And there's like those five hour energy shots.

Oh, yeah. I have had those before.

Those are two. I have not tried it before.

I don't know why. I think I was doing construction work and I was really tired. And I was at the big box store and it was right there at checkout. I was like, let me try this thing. Yeah.

So in that little two ounce shot, there's 200 milligrams of caffeine. No wonder. Like a high end amount in a coffee. in that little two ounce shot. Okay.

And I think those are the.

I think espresso ounce for ounce has the most.

Well, I mean, from the coffee bean at least, or espresso bean. Oh, yeah. Not like an artificial drink is what I meant. Yeah.

We got an espresso maker and it has some pronounced effects. It's crazy how different it is from coffee.

Yeah. I like an espresso every now and then. Sure. And I like my coffee every now and then. Yeah.

If you want the health benefits, though, and you're like, I don't drink that much coffee. You should just be injecting pure caffeine, Chuck.

Can you do that?

They do it to mice.

Yeah. That's a good point.

As we'll see later on.

True.

I should probably, again, it's been several weeks since we've done this. I need to probably throw out a disclaimer there. That was a joke.

Right. Don't inject caffeine into your bloodstream.

If you can even get your hands on pure caffeine, do not inject it. You probably shouldn't inject anything, let alone the pure form of anything. Because even too much water can kill you. Always remember that everybody, even too much water, can kill you.

And I did look into caffeine overdoses because I was curious. And it doesn't happen much, because you'd have to drink so much of something. Yeah. That it makes it unlikely. But there have been overdoses blamed on caffeine pills.

Like, okay, what's the milligram amount? What's the dosage amount that it got?

Oh, I can't remember. This. one kid died in Connecticut, like a 19 year old that, I think he had like a dozen or two dozen caffeine pills. Um, and it's the, I think the deal with caffeine pills, it's concentrated and it hits you all at once. Yeah.

It's a stimulant.

Yeah.

It does some weird stuff to you.

Including killing you.

And like you said, Chuggers, um, we already talked about coffee in the coffee episode, right? Yes. But some of it bears repeating. Like, um, the lighter the roast, the higher the caffeine content, typically, because the roasting process actually bakes out a lot of the caffeine.

I thought you were going to make up a clever rhyme, like the lighter the roast, the darker the toast or something.

No, that's, that doesn't make any sense. The rhymes gotta at least make sense, or else it's just rhyming words. How about, how about, uh, the lighter the roast, more caffeine than most.

That's great.

That actually makes sense. And so, if you want to extract the most caffeine out of your diet, I actually came across a website called Bulletproof Exec. You know, that Bulletproof coffee thing, where you put like butter in your coffee? No. It's like a diet thing.

Oh, okay.

That's even better. Because it's got a little, it's like an Almond Joy creamer. Ooh, wow. But like an oily version of it. Yeah.

So a morning breakfast in the 1950s of coffee and a great half a grapefruit. Yeah. That's all you needed.

Yeah.

And then your noon cocaine bump. Right. Just to keep you going.

Just from drinking Coca-Cola. Yeah, exactly. And, um, if you also, if you want to maximize your caffeine intake from coffee, you should look at the beans you're drinking. So, Arabica, which is, I think, the most prevalent coffee, um, has, it's 1.5% caffeine, but Robusta.

Ooh.

2.

That is Robusta.

As far as I know, that's the highest caffeine content, naturally, of any coffee bean. So a light roast Robusta is going to basically.

With your grapefruit.

Yeah. You, it'll be like getting kicked in the chest by a mule. Wow.

And is, doesn't that sound appealing?

That's what every bulletproof exec wants.

Wow. Shows you how to be a more efficient robber baron.

So let's get down to this, man. How, how does caffeine actually affect your brain? Because it does affect your brain. The whole point behind taking coffee and stuff like that is, as the guy who wrote this article. Oh, the three guys who wrote this article, including you.

I did a little update on this. I forgot.

Um, it's, it's using caffeine. It's a form of self-medication.

Of course. That's why most people drink it. I think, to get that boost in the morning. Sure.

Um, or in the middle of the afternoon.

Yeah. And I'm sure people love the taste and stuff. It's not like they're holding their nose and forcing this drink down their throat.

Well, that's what, like five-hour, energy is for.

Those don't taste very good.

Do they not? I've never tasted one. I've always wondered, but I've never wanted to experience this effect so badly that I tasted it.

Yeah. I mean, you know, it's like, uh, just that synthetic fruit taste.

Does it taste like medicinal at all?

Yeah. It just tastes, yeah. It's just not good. Huh. In my opinion.

Well, it's just two ounces. You get it over with real quick, right? Yeah.

You just sock it down and like you're done.

Punch a wall.

So how does it work on the brain? It tricks your brain actually, uh, by mimicking something called adenosine. Um, and it's, it's kind of remarkable actually, because what it does is it mimics adenosine and then does the opposite of what adenosine does, which is to try and help you sleep. It's pretty cool. Yeah.

So you have a sleep wake cycle, right? Part of the sleep cycle is adenosine, um, latching onto the adenosine receptors on your neurons. Makes you sleepy. Yeah. It does make you sleepy because it slows the, the, the function of your neurons down.

Well, it's great.

It is. Yeah, it is. It, it helps make you sleepy. And what caffeine does is it gets in there, into the same receptor. It binds to the same receptor as adenosine.

It puts on its adenosine costume, basically.

Pretty much. Which consists of like a sparkly one piece jumpsuit.

It's a onesie.

Um, and it, it not only doesn't slow your neurons down, it apparently speeds them up.

Yes.

So your brain starts going haywire. That's part one of what caffeine does to your brain. It not only doesn't slow your brain down. It prevents the thing that does slow your brain down from slowing your brain down. And it actually speeds your brain up.

And not only that, but adenosine, um, usually, well, not usually, adenosine always causes your blood vessels to dilate and caffeine causes them to constrict, uh, which sounds bad, but one of the pluses and we'll get into the benefits, but one of them is, um, constricting, it can maybe help you avoid headaches and migraines. And that's why caffeine is in things like Anacin or, uh, uh, my, my old reliable BC or goodies headache powders that I use. Yeah. Uh, contain caffeine. Yeah.

BC powder.

BC or goodies. It just acts fast.

They work really well too.

Both together. A little.

Yeah. I gotcha.

No.

Yeah. So caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, right?

That's right.

It, it, it constricts your blood vessels. And, like you said, that can actually help your headaches, because a lot of headaches, vascular headaches, I guess, is what they're called. Or when your blood vessels are too big and the change in pressure in your brain gives you this horrible headache.

Right. So while this is happening, your body thinks these neurons are firing. Your pituitary gland says you must be in trouble because you're supposed to be going to sleep, buddy. Yeah.

Something, there's clearly a bear coming at you that I don't know about. Something's wrong.

So let's send you some adrenaline. Uh, we've talked ad nauseum about fight or flight, and your body thinks that's what's going on when you drink coffee. So, or caffeine. So it says here, you need this adrenaline because, like you said, you got a bear coming your way. Right.

Which, man, this used to be like our.

Go-to. Yeah. Yeah.

And now it's just such an accepted part of everything. That's right. Do we even need to say the things anymore? Yeah, go ahead.

Okay.

So your pupils dilate.

Yeah.

Your breathing, um, uh, becomes more rapid. You get more breaths. Um, if you're eating something, you stop digesting it because your stomach doesn't matter. at that point. That's right.

Yeah. And that's why you drink that cup of coffee. You might feel tense like you in the car.

Yes.

Or agitated. Right. It's because your body thinks you're about to be in a big fight with the car next to you. Yeah. Which ends up, it's this weird reverse cycle.

You'll also find, if you drink a lot of coffee like me, a big knot develops in between your shoulder blades, just below your neck.

Nice.

It's just yet another result of your muscles tightening and you being ready for action thanks to the fight or flight syndrome. So your brain has been kept from getting drowsy.

Yeah.

It's been sent to, basically like a Lucy-esque assembly line of chocolates.

Yeah.

The fight or flight syndrome has kicked in. That describes like a significant amount of the effects of coffee, but there's a big one that's missing still that we haven't touched on. And that is it's pleasurable effects. It makes you feel good.

Yeah. Because it's a stimulant and it's a drug. And, just like all the other illicit, illegal drugs, this one is just accepted, but it has the same effect. It's going to release dopamine, and that's the pleasure center activation center.

Right.

And it makes you want more of it. And so that dopamine is flowing and your body's like, man, this is great. Yeah.

So it doesn't. actually, it's like heroin and cocaine. It doesn't actually make you overproduce dopamine, but it keeps dopamine from being absorbed as quickly. Right. So you get its effects longer and more than you would if you weren't under the influence of the drug, just like heroin, just like cocaine.

Right.

And this is a bad idea.

This, we should point out, varies from person to person, the effects of caffeine on the body, because it metabolizes differently in everyone. So some people might be like, I don't get jittery at all. Or I can go right to sleep after coffee. Yeah. Other people.

I'd like to see those people on an espresso shot of Robusta.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'll bet they wouldn't be singing the same song.

Other folks, I used to wait tables and I would have people come in at like, like lunch and say like, no, no, no, I can't. Like their friend would get a cup of coffee after. He'd be like, no, no, no, I'll be up all night. Yeah. I'd be like, are you serious?

Did you say that too?

No, I would just always. Yeah. I always think it was a little weird, but, like I said, it may keep them up all night. Yeah. That's their own jam.

Those people know their bodies.

So don't, don't just go with the decaf in that case.

So we, there are plenty of negative effects, like keeping you up all night, as well as positive effects for with caffeine. And we're going to talk about those right after this.

Tom Slick, February 14th, 1958.

That's why I'm here.

We're gonna die. Nellis, when chance arrives, act.

So don't wait!

Head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today.

Sis, are you feeling overwhelmed? You're not alone. I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, licensed psychologist and host of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. And I'm bringing candid mental health conversations straight to your podcast feed.

All right. So you've got the one, two, three punch. Your body is enjoying the caffeine. It's blocking that adenosine. You're going to feel alert and awake.

Right.

It's got that adrenaline going, and it's rewarding you with the dopamine. So it's going to make you want to drink coffee. But I mentioned the vicious cycle. It is a bit, because after coffee comes the inevitable crash. Right.

Yeah. That cycle kind of continues on into the next day, right? Yeah. So coffee has a half-life of six hours.

Caffeine.

Caffeine. Yeah. I told you. I predicted this, Chuck. That's all right.

That's right.

So it's like at six, you drank a Red Bull and a quarter right. then, right? Not exactly what you want. Then, at midnight, you would have 50 milligrams left, which is like more than a Coke. That's like a Mountain Dew's worth of caffeine in you.

Right. So then you wake up craving the caffeine again.

Exactly. And that's where that cycle goes on and on, where it's really tough to quit it. Yeah.

Yeah. It's very interesting. If you are pregnant, there are some studies that suggest, and we should say there have been a lot of caffeine studies.

Yeah. This article says like 19,000 since the 60s.

I'm sure there's, it's 20,000 by now.

Easily.

And they are somewhat conflicting. So we always are going to say this study suggests, because there aren't hard and fast rules. Right. But if you're pregnant, some studies suggest that 300 milligrams or more per day could lead to low birth weight in your little baby. Kids, I read one article, five experts talk about caffeine in children, and they all said, that's not great for kids.

No, kids drink coffee these days. Do they? Yes. But in the form of those coffee drinks that are super sweet and creamy and everything. But they drink, like walk around the mall, you'll see like eight year olds with like a coffee drink, just walking around like it's nothing.

I went to the mall the other day for the first time in probably five years. Yeah.

How was it?

It was awful. Was it? And I hated every minute of it and I'm not going back.

The mall's another place, that it's another thing. that puts that like knot in my back. Just too many people in one place.

Yeah. It's no good. And with a baby stroller, it's just like, I wanted to put a spoon in my ear.

Which mall?

I went to Perimeter.

Oh yeah. No, I know. I've been pillow shopping.

You know what I mean? Yep. New pillows are great though.

Oh yeah. If you get a good one.

Yeah.

I've been on a bad run lately with pillows where I've gotten, well, that's two. I've got one, wasn't very happy with it. Got a second one to replace it. It's better, but still not quite happy with it.

You just use one pillow?

Really? One soft pillow.

Wow.

Yeah. Anything else? I'm like, oh my neck.

I got to have one under my head. I got to have one behind my head, between my head and the headboard.

And then one tied to your face?

No. And then a clutch, you know, to hold on, to, like to wrap up with.

Wow.

It's the best.

Yeah. Yeah. That's three pillows.

Yeah.

You sleep with three pillows?

Well, Emily, and yeah, six total.

Jerry, tell us in blinks how many pillows you sleep with.

Three?

Three as well.

I think you're under pillowed.

I guess so. I sleep with one third the pillows you do.

Here's a pillow tip, though. If you're buying, just wait for a Macy's one day sale.

Oh yeah.

Because pillows are expensive, good ones. Yes, they are. And 50% off. But worth it. Goes a long, yeah, very much.

Get your hands on a good pillow. Yeah. And Macy's does it twice a year, I think. Maybe Memorial Day and Labor Day are their pillow sale days.

Oh, they had one going on after New Year's.

I am wrong. There you have it.

All right. So we were talking about sleep and the shopping mall where kids were drinking coffee.

It all comes together.

It does. But all five of the experts said your kids shouldn't really be having too much or any caffeine. Right. And they didn't say because of the health effects.

But I genuinely believe that you can go through experiences like that as a younger kid. And it'll make you a keyed up adult, a higher strung adult.

Oh, you think?

I do. I have come to believe that. Yeah. Experiences in childhood very prominently shape who you are as an adult. Very much so.

I guess, if you're 13 and drink a lot of coffee and you get anxious. Yeah. You'd probably be an anxious adult.

I believe that.

Probably keep drinking coffee.

Probably to stave off the anxiety.

When did you start drinking coffee? Or did you always drink a lot of soda, too?

No, I guess it was as a more of a grown up.

Yeah.

For both.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I drank a lot of Kool-Aid as a kid. Yeah. And like the straight up, tons of sugar in the Kool-Aid. Yeah. But, and I drank like some, we called it pop.

Oh, yeah.

Like Faygo and Pepsi and stuff up in Toledo.

That's how it should be, I think.

Sure. I definitely didn't drink coffee as a kid.

No.

That was gross.

Yeah. I did, too. The taste of it was just really foul, I thought. But I really learned to love the taste of coffee. Yeah.

Never took it up?

Yeah. It wasn't like a stand, though, you know? Right. Like, I'm not going to start drinking caffeine. Yeah.

And everybody who drinks coffee can rot.

No, because my brother-in-law and my mother-in-law drink more coffee than any humans alive.

More than me?

They're both wonderful. Yeah. They're like, let's brew a pot of coffee, not a cup of coffee.

Yeah.

And let's just drink it until it's gone, then brew another pot, you know? Yeah, I know. But they get a lot done. They're very accomplished people.

They sleep several inches above the bed.

One of them's a general in the Marine Corps. That shows you where he is. Yeah. Actually, that's my mother-in-law.

Right.

There are a lot, believe it or not. They've done a lot of studies and they found everything from helping out to not develop Parkinson's disease to dropping your risk of various cancers, cirrhosis. How about this? Two cups a day supposedly will cause an 80% drop in the odds of developing cirrhosis. That's amazing.

I wonder if that has to do with stimulating the fight or flight syndrome, where your liver releases more sugar to give you more energy, or something like that.

Maybe.

But what's weird, then, is so that would be more sugar in the bloodstream, right?

Yeah.

Too much sugar in the bloodstream can lead to diabetes, right?

Right.

Well, coffee actually is shown to reduce your risk of diabetes. Yeah. There was this Harvard study that involved 126,000 people over 18 years. They followed their coffee.

That is a good study.

It's a great study, unless they fudged the results. But saying they didn't, what they found was that people who drink one to three cups of coffee a day are 9% less likely to contract diabetes, right?

Yeah.

You think it ends there?

No.

It does not. So people who drank six or more cups of coffee per day, if you were a man, your chances of contracting diabetes were reduced by 54%.

That's substantial.

And for women who drank six or more cups a day, their chances of contracting diabetes were 30% of developing diabetes, 30% reduction.

I got another one. Four cups a day, 50% less chance of mouth and throat cancer. And I don't know if it was this Harvard study or another one said it could reduce suicide risk in adults even.

Huh.

Kind of makes sense, I guess, in one way.

But which way?

I don't know. I was thinking, I don't know. I take that back.

Well, maybe you like run from self-harm even.

Maybe.

Like you, flee or fight.

Or if it just, you know, maybe it could battle your depressive systems by picking you up, or something. I don't know.

That's a much better explanation than mine. Mine was stupid. There's evidence that it prevents cavities, actually.

Oh, really?

Yeah, which is kind of surprising, because that is if you, just, if you're doing a study on coffee, that's if you don't put anything in your coffee.

Yeah.

Put cream and sugar in. Yeah, you're going to get your cavities on, right?

You kind of do both, right? Just depending on your mood.

I typically go toward black.

Right. But every now and then you'll throw a little vanilla creamer in there.

Every once in a while, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Special treat.

Right. But caffeine can hurt your teeth in that it causes teeth clenching, too.

Well, which is one reason I'm losing teeth, is I grind my teeth at night. Yeah. So maybe I shouldn't drink more coffee.

It could be, yeah.

But, like you said, it giveth and it taketh away. Do I want teeth or do I want my liver to hang in there?

And no diabetes.

Right. Yeah. Good point. Alzheimer's, the Bird Alzheimer's Institute in Tampa did some experimenting on lab mice, injecting them with caffeine, like you said earlier. And not only did it protect them against developing Alzheimer's, but it helped reduce symptoms if they already had it.

We could all be injecting caffeine at some point. That to me is also counterintuitive, too, because Alzheimer's disease is potentially a buildup of plaques in your brain.

Right.

That's the result of not getting enough deep sleep. Because when you sleep, your glial channels expand and your brain is bathed in cerebral.

spinal fluid. That makes sense.

Cleans out those plaques, right? But it only happens when you're sleeping very deeply. But if you're not getting very deep sleep with coffee or caffeine, then I would think you'd be, there'd be a higher risk of Alzheimer's. It's befuddling.

It is. And I've also found conflicting studies on memory. Johns Hopkins says that it's a memory enhancer, but I've seen other studies that say it's...

It's a memory dehancer?

Yeah. Or opposite. Again, it's like, it's tough to kind of get down to the brass tacks, you know? Yeah. When you have conflicting studies.

If you exercise, coffee is your best friend. Caffeine is.

Yeah. I've heard of Olympic athletes that will shoot espresso right before a race. Yeah.

Not only does it give you a jolt of energy and everything, but apparently it has ergogenic properties, which means that it delays fatigue, right?

Yeah.

And it helps your muscles use glycogen, their energy stores, more efficiently too. So it can help you run better.

Interesting.

Yeah.

As far as cognitive abilities, the one study I found from Johns Hopkins medical school said that while you think it is increasing your cognitive abilities, what it's really doing is just taking you back to normal for a short period.

That is chilling.

Yeah. And then, when it wears off, you're actually below.

Man.

Yeah. I don't know.

I hate to think that. I don't want to quit coffee, though. That sucks.

You've quit smoking.

Yeah.

You lost weight. Yeah. Keep your coffee.

That's another thing, though I did during this break is put some of that back on.

Well, drink coffee and go exercise.

All right. If you want to know more about caffeine, you can type that word into the search bar at HowStuffWorks. And don't forget, in this case, the E goes before the I. Since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.

This is from Maddie in Virginia. Hey, guys. I'm a 22-year-old college student in Virginia. I want to start out by saying thank you for the wonderful podcast. It's helped me.

I like this email. Is it good? You see this?

Let me explain, guys, how you've helped me. I'm a sufferer of extreme anxiety and depression. I've had these issues to a varying degree since middle school. However, events occurred in my life throughout the past few years that have made them much worse. Got to the point last semester where I was not able to go to class, do homework, or play on my sports team.

What a wonderful message.

Those sound like trite things to say. You know, like...

Yeah, unless you're going through some rough times.

Time heals wounds and it's darkest before the dawn. But they're trite and true for a reason. Because they are... What?

Trite, and true? I think you just...

Tried and true.

Yeah, but I think you just improved the phrase. Did I? Yeah.

But they're not trite. They're true things. Hang in there, people.

Right.

That's my message.

If you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to stuffpodcasts at howstuffworks.

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Wild.

Listen to Miss Spelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Want to know how to leverage culture to build a successful business? Then Butternomics is the podcast for you. I'm your host, Brandon Butler, founder and CEO of Butter ATL. And on Butternomics, we go deep with today's most influential entrepreneurs, innovators, and business leaders to peel back the layers on how they use culture as a driving force in their business.