Quote:
Originally posted by KappaKittyCat
Three sips of Dr. Pepper and I'm ready to go. Any more than that and I start shaking.
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I let KappaKittyCat drink half a can of Dr. Pepper once. The results were alarming. It's a wonder she managed to stay on the road on her way home.
I also tend to react to caffeine more strongly than others do, but the effect has dampened in the last few years. One of my fraternity brothers, who was my roommate for nearly two years after college, is more than a little caffeine-dependent. I began to accompany him on some of his journeys out for caffeinated sustenance -- I would get something less potent than his choices, but still caffeinated.
Then, I went to law school. Oh, my. For most of my first year there, I was living on fewer than six hours of sleep a night -- while living with someone who during the winter had a six-coffee-a-day-or-more habit. I still wasn't much of a coffee drinker, but I was consuming something on the order of 100 to 120 ounces of Coke and Dr. Pepper a day. Driving long distances, as I did from time to time in the spring, meant that I stopped almost every hour -- caffeine makes the kidneys a little hyperactive as well as the brain -- and then buy more caffeine.
All of this caffeine intake kept me awake, yes, but it made me very jittery and it made it harder for me to deal with the rest of the world. I detoxed myself after the academic year ended in May. It felt very strange and rather uncomfortable at first, but after about two weeks I felt very at ease. It didn't hurt that I was finally getting enough sleep, but the caffeine-triggered jitteriness also wasn't getting in the way of my ability to relax and process the world around me.
I still drink caffeine, but I will never drink that much again.
Oh-- and the daze and the difficulty putting sentences together -- I had that too. Or at least it felt like it. There's nothing like spending most of the first year at law school feeling like you can't put a sentence together. Ugh.