Everything You Need To Know About Caffeine

Hey guys, it's Afeera Intuencia from the Girls' Bathroom podcast and this message is brought to you by L'Oreal Paris. Now, we like to think we're the experts, to be honest, on green and red flags and dating, but really it comes down to the basics. Someone who's reliable and who actually shows up when you need them most. So why aren't we expecting the same from our makeup? With 46 shades and skin matching technology, true match foundation is the one. And to lock it in, the L'Oreal Paris infallible 3 second setting mist. It commits in three seconds and locks in your makeup for 36 hours. No stickiness or transfer, just total unfiltered loyalty. Shop, true match foundation and infallible setting mist, the ultimate duo online or in store. Hi, it's Jessie and Lenny from Table Manners and our podcast is sponsored by Innocent Orange Juice, which they reckon can help you get a better start to your day. I'll be honest, Mum, when I heard that I thought it sounded very unrealistic. It's not like you can stop your kids getting jam all over that nice, clean shirt or your keys disappearing from the exact place where you definitely left them. But they're not saying some juice can stop the chaos. It just helps you get some good stuff into your family whatever the morning's doing. Each 900 milliliter bottle contains 13 squeezed oranges and nothing else. So even on the messiest of starts, you can shrug and say, well, at least we've had some fruit, no chopping, no blenders, no worries. Well, apart from where you left your keys, which have actually been in your hand the whole time, Innocent Orange Juice is a source of vitamin C, which contributes to the normal function of the immune system, enjoys part of a healthy lifestyle and balanced diet. I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half bowl kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, challenges, their stories are funny and my candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half bowl. Search Glass Half Bowl with Craig Melvin from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Rog from Joby Johnson, head of identity content at HuffPost. And I'm Noah Michelson, the head of HuffPost personal. Welcome to Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right. Hi, Rog. Hi. Okay. I have a fun question to ask you. Are you doing caffeine wrong? So my answer to that is no, but instead of yes and because I'm not a person. I don't do it at all anymore because about 10 years ago, I would go every day at 3pm to a coffee shop and get myself an iced coffee. I was like, that's my little treat. Like I made it through most of the day. I'm going to treat myself and I would get back to my desk and by 330 I was having a panic attack. Oh no. And I had no idea why it was freaking me out. I would have jitters. I would feel like the world was ending. And someone was like, you idiot, you're drinking like cold brew. Yeah. And it's the caffeine. So I stopped doing that and then I weaned myself off of everything else because caffeine really affects me and I hate the feeling. It's like I have spiders under my skin that are just crawling all over me. So yeah, I'm doing it wrong. My body's doing it wrong. Yeah, I'm glad you no longer have the spiders. You're not. You love it, right? I love it. I will consume your share of coffee. Yeah, you can have it. I think I'm doing it right because I don't put too much crap in my coffee. Yeah. And I love the way it makes me feel. I do have a lot of questions about how much I should be consuming because I feel like sometimes I just want to like stick an IV right in my vein of cold brew. So yeah, I need some help. Well, we've got help for you. We have Dr. Marilyn Cornelis. She is an associate professor at Northwestern. And this is so cool. She specializes in the genetics of coffee consumption and also caffeine metabolism, which who even knew that was a job? I know. I love that. Let's go. Marilyn, thank you so much for being here today. You're welcome. I am all caffeinated. So let's. And I have no caffeine. So we'll see how this goes. This is going to be a good balance. And my caffeine ran out. So. We need to doordash her some caffeine immediately. Let's start at the very basics. What is caffeine exactly? And what is its base function? Well, caffeine is an alkaloid. It's a natural stimulant found in coffee, tea, and it's stimulating effects are obviously what most of us kind of equate with caffeine. You know, if you get caffeine from coffee or tea, a natural source versus like an energy drink or a soda, is that caffeine different? Or is all caffeine the same? The physiological effects of caffeine will be the same regardless of where you get it from. The caffeine that's added to sodas and energy drinks, that's a chemically synthesized caffeine. It's not naturally occurring. That's why you see it on the ingredient list for those products. If you consume it through coffee and tea, it's naturally present. So you would never see caffeine on the ingredient list of your coffee because it's natural. That's what makes it quite different. So interesting because I once asked my brother who's a physician, like, what's better if I just have one a day like a soda or a coffee? And he was like, oh my God, coffee, like totally different night and day. So that makes sense. Can you tell us a little bit about how it gives us energy? It blocks the actions of adenosine at these receptors in our brain and also express throughout the body. They're called the adenosine receptors and there are a number of isoforms. And each of these isoforms have a number of effects. So one of the key isoforms that give rise to the psychostelement effects are the adenosine 2A receptors. So basically caffeine blocks the action of the natural ligand for these adenosine receptors, which is adenosine. And that actually gives rise to the opposite effects of adenosine. Adenosine is typically related to relaxation and even some sleepy effects. Caffeine would have the opposite effects because it blocks the actions of adenosine. I mean, I have no idea how any of this works and I have never thought about it. But yeah, there's all these chemical reactions happening in your body. And that's funny because I want the adenosine, but when I'm drinking coffee, I'm purposely not trying to be relaxed. Yeah. Exactly. Do we know why caffeine affects different people differently? Like, like from, I was telling Raj earlier, I can't drink any caffeine. It makes me so anxious. And you love caffeine. I love it. I mean, I like a good strong cold brew also. So like that extra. Yeah. Yeah. So what is it? Why is caffeine affecting me differently than Raj than someone else? It's likely the metabolism of it. We all metabolize it very differently. And genetics play a role, but there are also other factors for differences in caffeine metabolism might be smoking. So we know that we know that smokers generally consume more caffeine. And there's, there's kind of two reasons for that. It's probably a behavioral thing, but it's also a biological thing. The chemicals in the tobacco induces the, the activity of the enzyme that metabolizes caffeine and the enzyme that metabolizes caffeine is sip one a two. And it metabolizes 95% of caffeine and smoking increases the activity of the enzyme. And so that's why smokers consume more caffeine. And when they become non-smokers or just, you know, past smokers, they generally reduce their caffeine consumption because they can't tolerate because they don't metabolize it as quickly as they do because the caffeine linkers on in their system. So that's one factor. Another one is estrogen. Women generally have lower sip one a two activity. So they metabolize caffeine a little slower than men. I have a follow up. Yeah. What about related to that? Is that similar with mood? Like why some people get jittery and kind of anxious when they have coffee? I personally, and I get happy. I get in a better mood when I have coffee and I know other people anecdotally have been like, yeah, it feels like prozac. Like your mood elevates a little bit. Is that also just genetic? How we, our bodies respond to the caffeine? Yeah, that's one reason. And people who experience jitters or anxiety with caffeine, it's because they probably just consume me too much. I think because caffeine is so widely available, a lot of people are very familiar with how they respond to caffeine and know exactly how much they consume. And so they kind of avoid the, which cool about caffeine is that you get those, that feedback, you get the negative feedback. So you cut back. Right away. Even in the genetics, we see this is that we generally titrate our levels to, to kind of match the, the good feel that we get from caffeine. So if we're having, if we're getting jittery, we naturally cut back. If we need more, we go and get more. When you talk about feeling good in the mood, there's also some behavioral or kind of environmental factors. Because when people think about having to have a coffee, they think about a coffee shop being with your friends. It's also the social environment. So people might kind of correlate the, the psychosumitant effects of caffeine with those social factors. So interesting. Yeah, that really is. And when I think about myself having more energy, that makes me happy. Like I want to get more done. I think that's totally the behavior. I'm like, okay, I feel like I can handle more. You're making all these associations with it. Yes. Yeah. Marilyn, here's a question for you. If we drink too much caffeine and we are jittery, we're having that anxiety. Is there anything we can do in that moment to get rid of that feeling? Is there something we could take to counteract it? Or do we just have to ride it out until our body processes it and gets rid of it? At the moment, there isn't anything. You just have to ride it out basically. How much caffeine can we consume comfortably or should we be consuming? I know there's a lot of news every year about like, caffeine's good for you because of this or but, and there's like a certain amount. Can you give us a little bit of advice if I'm a coffee drinker? How much should I be drinking? The FDA suggests that up to 400 milligrams of caffeine is safe and that's equivalent to around four cups of coffee or yeah, four cups of coffee per day. That's a lot. Yeah, right. For some people, like if, say my father, he was a used to be a huge coffee drinker, four cups was just nothing. In 2015, the dietary guidelines actually went into the literature on caffeine and coffee specifically because there's been a lot of research linking coffee consumption specifically to health and they indicated that they actually indicated up to five cups of coffee per day is safe. Obviously black preferably. It's safe and possibly beneficial, but it wasn't a recommendation that you should be consuming five cups per day. Okay. If you're already consuming five cups per day and you're healthy relatively, there's no need to cut back. So I have a little story for you guys. I had a friend in college and she had never drank coffee before she got to college and she started to love it. And at the same time, she started to get sick and she couldn't sleep and she's losing a ton of weight and she went to the doctor and they asked her, they were like, are you drinking coffee? And she said yes. And they said how much and she said, well, two a day. And they were like, that shouldn't be it. So she laughed and after a couple months she came back because she was still really having a lot of issues and they said, are you sure you're not only drinking two cups a day? And she said two cups. I'm drinking two pots. Oh my God. And they were like, oh my God, you can't drink two pots a day. And so she had to like wean off of it. But Marilyn, what are some of the health risks if you are drinking too much? I think most of the literature suggests that at least coffee is actually beneficial, but the adverse effects would be those. More and be acute effects that you get with too much caffeine. So again, the jitters and anxiety. And also if you're not sleeping well at night, that's another indicator that perhaps you're consuming too much caffeine. The weight loss is interesting that coffee or caffeine actually is beneficial with weight management because it does act like an appetite suppressant. This is why I never drink coffee with my breakfast because I like a big old breakfast. And if I drink it, I can't eat as much. I always have it after. Interesting. I asked about healthy ways to consume caffeine. Can you tell me a little bit about tea? I feel like a lot of my friends are like, I'm doing green tea now. It's like the caffeine kind of rides out for a little longer and they like the way it feels. Is that a healthier alternative? It's another alternative. I wouldn't say it's healthier. It's probably equivalent. If you want to, you know, mix up your caffeine sources, that's great. The profile of tea and coffee are very different. Black or green tea typically have about half game out of caffeine. And the phytochemical profile, so the things that we consider antioxidants are pretty good for you. They're quite different. So for example, tea is very rich source of catechins. So sometimes you might see these in your supplement store where they sell green tea extract. It's the catechins that they're putting to a pill for potentially beneficial benefits for cardiometabolic risk factors. So that's catechin. The other one that it's probably related to what your friends had mentioned about how the caffeine kind of lingers on. It's kind of a balanced impact. It might be the inane. It's an amino acid that has more of a relaxing profile. So that might be contributing to the effects we see with tea. Coffee, it's been linked to benefits on regulating your sugar metabolism. And it's probably implicated in the inverse relationship that we see with coffee consumption type-dude diabetes. It also contains another number of other compounds that are produced during the roasting effect of coffee. They might also have benefits as well. But coffee and tea have hundreds of different compounds. We just know a lot more about caffeine, but there are so many other potential good things that are found in coffee. And that's why we might be seeing benefits with a number of neurodegenerative diseases, cardiometabolic diseases, and cardiovascular disease. So those might be the kind of key factors. Caffeine might be contributing to some of these benefits, but there's also other things as well. And if you compare it to, say, other sources of caffeine like sodas and energy drinks, many of these also have other chemicals or sugar, sugar which counteracts probably the benefits that we see with coffee. So these are clearly better sources. But I'm going back to your main question about tea. Yeah, tea is definitely an option as well. This is one of those episodes where people are like, oh, I'm getting healthy by drinking my coffee. Yeah, yeah, permission. They all love to hear it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Hey, guys, it's Afeera Intencia from the Girls' Bathroom podcast, and this message is brought to you by L'Oreal Paris. Now, we like to think we're the experts, to be honest, on green and red flags and dating, but really it comes down to the basics. Someone who's reliable and who actually shows up when you need them most. So why aren't we expecting the same from our makeup? With 46 shades and skin matching technology, True Match Foundation is the one. And to lock it in, the L'Oreal Paris Infallible 3-Second Setting Mist. It commits in 3 seconds and locks in your makeup for 36 hours. No stickiness or transfer, just total unfiltered loyalty. Shop True Match Foundation and Infallible Setting Mist, the ultimate duo online or in-store. Hey, guys, it's Afeera Intencia from the Girls' Bathroom, and we're currently sponsored by Batiste Dry Shampoo. If there's one thing us girlies love to do, it's sharing, especially beauty products we swear by. When something makes your hair look, feel, and smell as amazing as Batiste does, you don't gatekeep it. You pass it on. Whether you've just finished a sweaty workout, want to refresh your hair before going out, or add a bit of volume and texture, Batiste instantly elevates your hair. And it's not just about taming oily roots. I love using it to extend a blow dry, add some lift, and make my hair smell great. So wherever you are, whatever you've got going on, pass the Batiste. We have seen in the news, and because it's so sensational, but like people dying from drinking too much caffeine. I think there was a Panera, an incident at Panera where this woman had what they called like supercharged lemonade, and it had like 400 milligrams of caffeine in a large, and she was drinking them all the time. I think she might have had it at her issue as well. Yeah. And you spoke earlier, Marilyn, about this idea of like toxicity from too much caffeine. So where is the line? I mean, when do people, you said five cups should be okay for some people? What do people have to watch out for though, if they're having like six energy drinks today, or you know, a ton of red bowls. What would you say in terms of where are we getting into territory that is not safe? Going back to Panera issue, the lemonade, I believe it was almost like a fountain drink the way that you, the people got it. And so to actually regulate how much caffeine is added to that, it's very difficult. And when you go into a coffee shop, it's not like you have to be 18 years of age to consume it. It's not regulated. You can have as much as you want, because it's also because it's natural. But these lemonade charged drinks, they're kind of targeting a very different population. They're sweet tasting. You're kind of targeting the younger individuals. So that's an issue too. And because they're cold, you can down a lot in a short amount of time. When I'm talking about five cups of coffee per day, that's not typically in one setting. It's usually spread out throughout the day. Another example would be back to the alcohol and caffeine mixes. Some of those were pulled from the shelves as well. And even some of the energy drinks have also changed their profile. I believe Celsius at one point had a beverage that was 300 milligrams of caffeine. I don't believe they sell that kind anymore. I think the most that they have is around 200 milligrams. But that's quite a bit. It's around just under maybe two cups of coffee. But the people who are consuming these are very different. People that like to take risks in life, I guess they're riskier people. Again, going back to the alcohol and caffeine consumption, a lot of these people are binge drinking. So those are things to consider. I have to bring up forloko. This was a big part of my college years. Now, I have not tasted a forloko in my life because I was always really scared. I didn't love the idea of something that made your heart race mixed with alcohol. And you're right about when you're binge drinking, you're also dehydrated. This is going to affect the way your body handles all of this stuff. I love the point that you made, Marilyn, too, about this idea that people, when it's cold and they're just chugging it. Again, I didn't even think about that. If you have five cups of coffee throughout the day, you're working, it's spread out over 10 hours. That's very different than chugging. A red bull that tastes like soda. Yeah, or 400 milligrams in a lemonade that you might drink in eight minutes. That seems insane to me. That caffeine that's in the energy drinks, is that synthesized in a lab or is that the natural stuff that's in coffee and tea? Some of these energy drinks, they do claim that it's natural. So it's maybe extracted from coffee, but you can also produce it in the lab as well. I was going to say, too, as we've heard in other episodes, just because something is labeled as natural doesn't mean that it is. Or even if it is, doesn't mean that it still can't hurt you. Exactly. There's very little regulation until something goes really wrong and then it can be too late. So do not trust labels and don't even trust natural. Yeah. You have to be careful. Is caffeine a diuretic? Because I really have to pee like seven times after I have one. It does have kind of a mild diuretic effect, but it's not something you need to be really concerned about because the amount of liquid that you're typically consuming in conjunction with caffeine, it balances out. People say it shouldn't be consuming too much caffeine when you're exercising and because you dehydrate or it imbalances your electrolytes. That's typically isn't something to be too concerned about. I've only come across a few case episodes where a patient might have an electrolyte imbalance and I found out this person was consuming 10 cups of coffee per day. Those are rare cases, but it's generally not something to worry about. And so if you think about your five cups of coffee over the course of a day, that's also a lot of liquid too. Yeah. Yeah. As much as you would encourage people to consume maybe more water instead of all these other beverages, but for some people they don't like water, but they need to be hydrated. So if coffee is the only way to keep them hydrated, then go for it. Sorry, it's steeped in water. Let's not forget. Absolutely. What about the myth or the truth, I don't know, that coffee makes you poop? Is that true? It's true. It's true. I would say that in the morning, if they don't have their cup of coffee, they won't have a poop and it's just timing. It's like within a half an hour of having my coffee, I have a poop. Yes. And it's kind of cool because it's actually used in the clinic and there's a lot of evidence suggesting that it's beneficial for postoperative surgeries. People experience postoperative ills is where their bowels aren't functioning well and they're constipated after surgeries. Women might experience it after caesarean and clinical or randomized patrol trials have shown that coffee helps kind of alleviate some of those issues and allows you to go back to your regular bowel movements much more quickly than having water. So it's kind of a cool, practical, cheap way of ensuring regularity, I guess. I love it. But is that caffeine related? Is it something else in the coffee? What is happening that makes us more regular or makes us have to go? The poo catalyst. We probably think it's a mix. It's caffeine does have a kind of an impact on the motility of your intestine, but there's also other compounds in coffee. It could be the polyphenols because in randomized patrol trials, we also see that decaf works just as well. The fact that we kind of see it with decaf suggests that there are other things in coffee as well. I have an old school myth I would love to hear from you about. A deviant question from a deviant host. If you're drunk, does coffee help you sober up? Does caffeine particularly help you sober up? There is data suggesting that it does mask some of the detrimental effects of alcohol, but not all of them. Your reaction speed might be better, but your cognitive clarity might not be altered with coffee after you've consumed, say, alcohol. There are different aspects of your cognitive function and your psychosomia effects that can be masked with coffee. I always think of... I don't know if they do this with every wedding, but typically when at a wedding, once the bar is closed, suddenly they start serving coffee. You're going to drive home and sober you up because I don't think it necessarily sobers you up, but it does mask some of those detrimental effects that might impact your driving. People do... when they drink, they think, well, I'll just drink caffeine and it'll counteract those effects, but man, that's a lot of interactions going on. That's kind of risky business we're talking here. I think caffeine probably does a lot of incredible things like we've been talking about today, but I don't know. Maybe don't rely on it. It's not worth risking it. Can you tell us about anything else about... we talked a little bit about mood, about caffeine and how it affects your mental health? In the population studies, I've actually shown that coffee is associated with reduced risk of depression. Again, it suggests that it's possibly the caffeine and that could be the driving factor, but again, it could be confounded by, again, those social factors where we link... Yeah. You know, when you're depressed, you might be lonely and not with people, but when you're with other people, you might be consuming coffee. So there might be that what we call a confounder. So it might be the social aspects of consuming coffee too. You're typically with people, with your friends, with family. We really don't know which is the cause and effect here. You know, I can imagine that there are a lot of variables when we're talking about mental health and caffeine. And it's not just like, I love what you said about the social factor, but like the one time in my life when I've experienced mild depression and was like diagnosed as such, when I went and got my coffee, I would go to a coffee shop on purpose. I could be out and like experience the world and I got to see sunshine and they got me out of the house. I did all of this on purpose and I would always feel better after even if I didn't talk to anyone but the barista. There was a social interaction. Plus, I leave the home to get my coffee. I think coffee tastes delicious even though I don't put all this stuff in it. I think there's like a reward factor that also is involved with certain caffeine things that can make you feel better. So I never thought about this, but like there's so many underlying variables that go into how we react to caffeine. I think that's true too. Like I know a lot of people who loved it like treat themselves with a diet coke. You know what I mean? And I bet you again, I think the caffeine in that probably is having some effects, but also I think it's this idea of like this is my treat. I made it to 3pm. Taking a break. Yeah. Exactly. So I think there's probably a lot of stuff at play here. Raj and I were laughing when we wrote this outline about Jesse Spano. From Save by the Bell. Yeah. That famous episode where she gets addicted to caffeine pills. Not a funny thing. No. You know, in and of itself, but sort of the meme that Jesse Spano had been playing. Teen drama is always, yeah. Yeah, but is there a danger of becoming addicted to caffeine? Individuals who, you know, might start off with 4 cups of coffee per day. Suddenly, you know, they go through say a stressful episode of work and they're now they're up to 6 cups of coffee per day. You build a tolerance. You start to need more of it. You can address that issue by slowly weaning yourself off. Cutting back. Not cold turkey because again, those where you'll get those which all seems like like headaches. And those which all seems to be because your adenosine receptors in your brain, for example, are actually are highly expressed now because first of all, they've been blocked for a while because they've been blocked. Their expression increases. And now once you've taken away caffeine, your adenosine receptors, their expression of them is much higher. And now they're looking for caffeine and now they have this kind of vasoconstrictive effects on your brain. So you get these headaches, but in order to slowly kind of avoid those withdrawal symptoms, you could just slowly wean off. So take a, you know, instead of going 6 cups per day, wean yourself off to me before cups and then slowly wean yourself back. Now that we've got all these crazy drinks at like Starbucks and Don't You Don't It, I'm seeing like 8 year olds going in and getting, you know, a Frappuccino or so I'm like, is that okay? Yeah, are there systems with tender? But I guess we give kids like sodas with caffeine. So yeah, what do you think about all that? Well, first of all, soda has maybe 25 milligrams of caffeine. Coffee has around maybe 100. So they're quite different. Okay. The other issue is that these sodas have a lot of sugar. That's, you know, sugar can make you hyperactive too. And combined now with caffeine, you're, yeah, it's kind of crazy. The research is interesting because all of the health benefits that we see have been based on research done on adults and again, coffee and tea. And that's kind of our traditional sources of caffeine. The impact the caffeine has on the developing brain of say young children, we don't know a whole lot about. And so that's where there's always been the concern about always should be banning energy drinks. If it's packaged and looks nice and it's being marketed to this demographic that see it as, oh my gosh, this is amazing. This is just like a fruit juice. It's not, it's very different. If you have caffeine and sugar together and you get that natural high from the sugar, that's another reason why you want to go to consuming more of these sugary beverages. It's kind of you equate that the sweetness and caffeine together to, and you kind of get hooked on to these things. Are there any other demographics or populations that should be more careful with caffeine than others? Some maybe people with an underlying heart condition. There might be some people that do suffer heart palpations with caffeine. So there's going to be those kind of outliers that might respond in an adverse way to coffee. There's a very small demographic. And again, as we mentioned, people who are suffering from depression and anxiety, they might also be on other drugs that might interact with caffeine. So again, these are very special cases. Caffeine is a drug and might interact with other medications that we might be taking. So be aware of that. I love that advice because I feel like I have friends who don't drink coffee because they're like, I don't like the way it makes me feel. Period. Like that goes for any drug, right? Like weed, whatever. I don't like the way it makes me feel. Done. Just because it's a part of our societal, like it's really big doesn't mean you have to do it. Exactly. Yeah. Marilyn, thank you so much for this. I feel like I learned a ton. I definitely got smarter. I learned big words. Yeah. And I'm going to use them with my barista. Yeah. Great. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. It was my pleasure. My pleasure. Hi, it's Jessie and Lenny from Table Manners and our podcast is sponsored by Innocent Orange Juice, which they reckon can help you get a better start to your day. I'll be honest, Mum, when I heard that I thought it sounded very unrealistic. It's not like you can stop your kids getting jam all over that nice, clean shirt or your keys disappearing from the exact place where you definitely left them. But they're not saying some juice can stop the chaos. It just helps you get some good stuff into your family whatever the morning's doing. Each 900 milliliter bottle contains 13 squeezed oranges and nothing else. So even on the messiest of starts, you can shrug and say, well, at least we've had some fruit, no chopping, no blenders, no worries. Well, apart from where you left your keys, which have actually been in your hand the whole time, Innocent Orange Juice is a source of vitamin C, which contributes to the normal function of the immune system, enjoys part of a healthy lifestyle and balanced diet. Hello, this is Jessie and Lenny from Table Manners and we are currently sponsored by M&S. Love that. And honestly, there's nothing better than a great compliment, especially when it's about what you're wearing. A new season is always the perfect excuse for a wardrobe refresh. And the new spring collection is now at M&S, from chic trench coats to gorgeous pops of color they've got your spring confidence covered. Shot the new M&S spring collection online and in store and get set for compliments. Business is in flux. AI and geopolitics are reshaping industries and competitors are emerging where you least expect. We are London Business School, where rigorous thinking meets real world impact. We accelerate transformation for organizations, preparing leaders to navigate complexity with confidence, not just to lead, but to define the future. London Business School. What we can do for your organization at London.edu. Okay, it's time for Better in Five. These are your top five takeaways from this episode. Number one, caffeine can come in natural or synthesized forms, but all of it is a stimulant. That's right. Number two, everyone's going to respond to caffeine differently depending on your genetics, but also something like your cultural background can play into it as well. That's right. Number three, most people can consume safely about 400 milligrams of caffeine a day, but it really comes down to everyone's individual journey and how you feel. Number four, consuming caffeine via black coffee or tea is usually going to be better for you than sodas or energy drinks with tons of other chemicals in them. And number five, super important, there's not a ton of research yet on the effects of caffeine in young people. If you are a teenager, maybe take it back a notch. You don't want to be Jesse Spano. Okay, I feel like I know the answer to this question, but I'm going to ask you anyways, have you been doing caffeine wrong? No, A plus for Raji. I'm drinking less than the recommended amount. I'm not putting a lot of stuff in it. It makes me feel really good. And I'm like an eight minute responder in the morning. It just helps me start my day. My body feels good. I don't know. I kind of feel like I've been given permission to keep doing it, how I'm doing it, which is so different from most of our other topics. Yeah, that's a gift. It's a gift. I got a gift today. What about you? I just, I don't know if I'm doing it wrong because I don't want to go anywhere near it. This is the thing too. When I was growing up, my mom would buy caffeine free diet Coke. Okay. And I was convinced it tasted worse. Like I just didn't want it. It had those weird gold cans. It was like a grandma soda. Okay. So I don't know if my grandma soda is now in my fridge because I don't even drink regular diet Coke anymore. I just, I've been so burned by that feeling of the anxiety. I have enough anxiety in my life as it is. I feel you. I don't need to like welcome more in. Yes. I think she gave us permission to have as little or as much or zero if you want it, which feels really good. And also to maybe think about our consumption. Yeah. And maybe some people listening don't realize maybe they're going to have the awakening that I have where they're like, I actually feel anxious sometimes too. Yeah. And it's after I have the iced coffee. Yeah. Maybe they're not, I'm not going to say you're a dummy, but maybe you're just less informed like I was. We're the dummies. We are always the dummies. And until next time, as long as there are things to get wrong, these two dummies are going to be right here to help you do it better. We love you. Am I Doing It Wrong is a co-production between HuffPost and ACAST. Our producers are Eve Bishop, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, and Malia Agadello. Our executive producers are Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Special thanks to HuffPost's head of audience, Abby Williams. Head of video, Will Tuch. As well as Kate Palmer, Marta Rodriguez, and Terry D'Angelo. And we're your hosts, Raj Punjabi-Johnson. And Noah Michelson. I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half-bull kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, challenges, their stories, their funny, and my candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half-bull. Search Glass Half-Bull with Craig Melvin from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Anna Amandi from our podcast Sisters in the City. And we're currently sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions. Life's busy and admin gets forgotten. But if you're claiming benefits, listen up. If something changes, you need to tell DWP. Otherwise, you could face a penalty. That could be a partner moving in, even if they keep their own place. Or if your car doubles up as a taxi and a family car, you must only report work-related costs. Or forgotten savings like premium bonds. To find out if you need to report a change, search Tell DWP. Use SSE Energy Solutions at different kind of energy. Business is in flux. AI and geopolitics are reshaping industries and competitors are emerging where you least expect. We are London Business School, where rigorous thinking meets real-world impact. We accelerate transformation for organizations, preparing leaders to navigate complexity with confidence. Not just to lead, but to define the future. London Business School. See what we can do for your organization at London.edu.