Kicking the caffeine-habit
Research has shown that one of the main reasons I drink coffee, it helps to concentrate or makes you more alert, is actually not true. The research can be found here: http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/npp201071a.html and some good analysis here: http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2023 . Basically its not because caffeine isn't an active pharmacological agent, because it is, its that you get used to the effect quite fast and then the caffeine just gets you back up to your baseline (which habitual use has lowered). Now you could still argue that you can control when you are alert by drinking caffeine to get back to your baseline at your choosing instead of when your body-chemistry, sleep-cycle and other factors allow you to be alert but that's not really the same thing, is it?
So as I try to live a rational life and make decisions based on science and reason I am currently typing this while my body is trying to cope without morning coffee. I'm also posting this because research also shows, surprise surprise, that people will hold a public promise more often than a private personal one. That said, after kicking the habit I will probably drink small amounts of coffee when necessary because coffee-drinking when not habitual also works, and is a social thing too. Oh, and I would be amiss to not admit that my friend Jonatan ( http://twitter.com/zch ) was way ahead of me about this when he quit coffee almost exactly a year ago, which I teased him about. Sorry :)
