How does caffeine affect you, and do you try to limit your caffeine intake in the evenings?

I drink 3–4 cups of coffee in the mornings, between about 7 and 9 a.m. but zero the rest of the day. Oh man…last winter I got a large Mocha one evening around 5 o’ clock on my way home at a local coffee drive through. It was a cold, stormy afternoon and it didn’t even occur to me that the caffeine would be an issue, until…I was tossing and turning all night and couldn’t fall asleep til 4 a.m.
Never. Ever. Again. haha

Generally I don’t feel the effect of caffeine much. Maybe it’s because I don’t drink enough coffee (I only drink generally ½ cup a day).

And I love drinking coffee everytime. I drink coffee in the evening too. And I sleep well.

I live in the United States and I own a kettle. I only know one other person that owns one and she uses it to make Kraft Dinner on the quick.

I just make a few cups of tea in the morning. I roll Lipton.

If I drink more than one cup/can of anything caffeinated I get anxious. So, I rarely drink anything with it.

I almost don’t drink caffeine anymore. If I do I try to keep the dosage to a reasonable amount.

It is a nice little boost when needed and in moderation. I found I was using it so much that it did nothing for me. I found it also dried me out mouth/nose.

It makes me exceedingly antsy and high strung like I’ve been eating Black Beauties.

Once I learned that caffeine is a poisonous alkaloid, highly addictive with severe withdrawal problems and a behavior modifier I cut it out of my life almost completely (except what little I get in chocolates).

I have drunk coffee all my life, from about age 12. I notice if I have coffee later than about 8:30 pm, I can’t get to sleep until after 11. Other than that, it doesn’t have any affect on my sleep cycle. I usually get up about 5:30; I don’t usually have any coffee right when I get up, but I usually have about 3–5 cups a day. Every few months I take a break, and go a few days without it.

Try to go a month without. That’s when you know you’re addicted.

I drink it any time of day. Sometimes I drink none in a day. Most days I drink about five cups spaces out from morning until evening. I can drink a cup and go to bed and sleep fine.

I can’t do caffeine after 3:00 PM. I won’t be able to sleep and become a wreck. I’m discovering that sugar has a similar effect on me.
Actually I have given up coffee and my beloved diet soda since April 1st but I still have a cup of green tea a few mornings a week.

Caffeine gives me a decent boost. I don’t limit it in the evening, however. I can drink a cup of coffee and still be able to fall asleep 30–60 minutes later with limited trouble.

I drink coffee with a friend before we workout at 7am together. I enjoy our 6:30 am chat session, and only drink coffee because she does.

I avoid caffeine in general. It jacks my ADHD up to incredibly annoying levels. When you get on your own nerves, rest assured you aren’t alone. Also, my hands shake pretty noticeably when I’ve had caffeine. I don’t feel like answering if I’m a crackhead or not, and you wouldn’t believe how many people point out that your hands shake. Thanks, I hadn’t noticed.

I generally cannot function without caffeine and nicotine. Stuttering, unable to focus, and somewhere between spacy and irritable. During the course of the day, I generally go through 5–8 cans of Pepsi, and maybe 1–2 cups of coffee. Also, if I get woken up in the middle of the morning (I’m a night-shift worker), the only thing that can touch it is more caffeine. Even Vicodin won’t work, only caffeine.

Aside from helping me focus, evening out my mood, and getting rid of my migraines, caffeine doesn’t affect me, at least not in a “get hyper” way. It doesn’t keep me up at night either, even if I have some minutes before bedtime.

I drink a ton of tea, but more often than not it is a non caffeinated tea. Lemon grass or peppermint(not technically tea). That said, caffeine doesn’t and has never really affected me. I kinda wish it did as I’m envious of those who can drink a cup of coffee or an energy drink and feel awake, but oh well, it is what it is.

When I was addicted I only felt like it affected me badly within a few hours after I missed a fix. I never drank coffee, I was a Coca Cola girl. I could drink it at night and sleep fine, but I had a very physical job, and was exhausted a lot. I usually had some caffeine by 12:00 noon. If I didn’t have it, by 2:00 the headache started, I never used it as a “morning cup” of caffeine, like I had to have my caffeine before the day started, but I did admittedly drink Coca Cola for breakfast sometimes.

If someone doesn’t drink caffeine at night, I would assume their crucial time is way before 12 noon.

I quit many years ago and cheat once in a while and I stil love it! I drink a coke and I feel great. I am not all jazzed up and buzzing around, just feel almost happier and a little more alert. Maybe sharper is a better word than alert. Even healthier in a way. If I cheat for several days in a row and then stop, I get a mild headache (keep in mind my cheats are like 4–12oz a day of coke, or a cup of tea, so not very much caffeine) and I look like crap. People will ask me, “are you ok?” Or, “is something wrong?” When I withdraw. It has always been like that. I look sick without it until it is really cleared out of my system.

I think that there might be a link for me between caffeine and increased chances of my having shingles outbreaks, so I have even more incentive to stay clean. Maybe if I was drinking it constantly again I would be less affected if I am right about the connection. I can’t be sure if it is connected or not.

I am not preachy about caffeine addiction, even though I personally am glad I quit. What I do say is pay attention to it, and don’t constantly miss a caffeine fix, either keep a steady dose going in your system or give it up. I don’t think it is good for the body to go through withdrawal all the time.

My husband finally began to buy into the importance of him not missing his caffeine fix. He also could wake up in the morning and skip it, but he would pay in the late afternoon if he didn’t get it in sometime reasonable before noon. Now he thinks about it in a more serious way (not that it is really that serious) and makes sure he gets enough for the day.

It makes me nervous and jittery. It makes working with a mouse really uncomfortable.
But I need it to stay awake.

The effects of caffeine stay with me for most of the day and are cumulative so I have given up regular coffee drinking. I occasionally have a cup before a long drive or a long session at work but I don’t like to take it as it interferes with my sleep.

Caffeine has absolutely no effect on me. I’ve never tried drinking more than two big travel cups of coffee in one morning, but that amount never did anything for me. It doesn’t wake me up, make me jittery, make me more alert, make me perky, etc. There’s no crash because there’s no peak. I drink water pretty much all day on weekdays except for my morning beverage and my protein shake, but I sleep just fine on weekends when I’m chugging diet coke all day.

I drank coffee mostly because I enjoyed the warmth and the flavor. I got sick of it recently and tried hot tea, which I discovered is not my thing unless it’s filled with sugar, which is sort of counter-productive to my plans to not be 300 lbs. Next I tried iced coffee that I made myself – blech. So this week I picked up some ID Light Vanilla Iced Coffee and I’m enjoying that quite a bit. Not sure if it’s worth the carb content, though. We’ll see. I may just stick with water after all.

I drink massive amounts of water during the day, so my few cups of coffee get flushed out of my system pretty quickly.
Here, here…..having my morning coffee now. :-)

A mug or two of freshly-brewed tea at breakfast. That’s it.

I generally prefer to get my caffeine in Carbonated, sweetened form, but will drink coffee when need arises. When I was in college we used to keep 747’s on hand to push through cram sessions and they would make my scalp tingle a little bit. I am down to about 2 cokes a day now that I am in my dotage.

I have to have a cup of coffee in the morning. If I drink more than one, I get jittery. I have a cup of tea at about 9 or 10. I could have more if I wanted – tea doesn’t give me the jitters. I have had a whole pot before. But I have to stop with the caffeinated drinks in early afternoon or I won’t be able to sleep that night. Chocolate does it, too. I don’t drink pop, so for cold drinks, I drink Arizona Green Tea w/Ginseng. I can drink that clear up until bedtime with no problem, so it must not have much, if any, caffeine.

I only drank tea until my late 20s, when hazelnut coffee came into vogue. Back then, if I had 2 mugs (~22–24 fl.oz.) I’d get jittery. Now I drink that much just to get moving, and twice as much on some mornings. I try to have no caffeine after noon – 2pm at the very latest – unless I can sleep in the next morning.

I don’t usually drink caffeine. Even on the rare occasions that is do, it has no effect on me. I don’t get jittery or hyper.

Caffeine doesn’t affect me at all. I love the taste of coffee and I drink a lot of it. One of my friends accused me of being addicted and desensitised to it so I quit, just like that. Totally cut all caffeine for a whole month. No withdrawal, no side effects, no difference. Then, by way of experiment, I went back on it just as suddenly, in the same quantities as previously. And again, no effect, no difference.

So now I figure if I can’t tell the difference I may as well stick with the decaff, as it’s better for me.

The down-side is, if I’m tired I can’t do what everyone else does and just have a coffee to perk me up.

@downtide You must be young. Just wait . . .

@Skaggfacemutt nope, I’m 47, and I was 45 when I switched to decaff.

Oh, if you are drinking decaf, that would explain it. Caffeine didn’t start keeping me awake at night until I was about 55.

Decaff keeps you awake? Even caffeinated coffee was never able to do that for me. Not even the first time I ever had it.

Not decaf – caffeine.

And water makes me drunk.

No affect, never even think about it.

I am a coffee freak and can drink it as late as 7PM without it bothering my sleep. I am pretty sure that one develops a tolerance to it, after time. I do know that if I don’t have some coffee in the afternoon, I get a headache and become extremely irritable because I am addicted to the caffeine, no doubt. Oh well, I am still going to drink it because I like it.