Everyone knows that caffeine gives your brain a boost and helps you be more alert and less tired, however that’s if you drink it in moderation.
If you were to drink 2 liters of Coca cola or a similar beverage per day, for months, would you experience the opposite, your brain having an “anti-boost” and working less efficiently? I drink too much of soda and caffeine and I often feel tired, both physically and mentally, even though I sleep well and eat normally, I go for walks with my dog, so caffeine, or perhaps the added sugars or a combination of them is most likely the reason.
Caffeine does affect anxiety, since it tampers with adrenalin and some other stuff, it can lead to depression, mood swings and the sugar affects energy swings, where you feel boosted for a while, but drained afterwards, however I couldn’t find anything that specifically talks about the ability of brain to process things, even though I’m 100% sure there is at least some effect, from either the caffeine or sugar.
Also, I had agoraphobia, which is a fear of public spaces, or more precisely in my case the fear that something will happen to me when in that situation, since I blacked out 2 times in front of a lot of people, so that got in my mind and I felt scared going to public spaces for a long time after that, I realized that whenever I have a smaller dosage of soda, that I don’t feel as scared and eventually I stopped having agoraphobia, at the start I had trouble even going to my local shop, but afterwards I could walk through the center of the city and visit a bunch of shops and not feel a thing, so fueling phobias is an additional negative effect of caffeine.
I do know your body builds a tolerance, where it depends on the caffeine for wakefulness. I don’t know if prolonged use can make you feel the effects in reverse. I do, however, know people for whom caffeine makes them feel calmer and actually helps them sleep, though that seems to be a paradoxical reaction, or possibly related to the effects of stimulants on ADHD or ADHD-like symptoms.
Other than the anxiety effect and the withdrawal effect or crash, I don’t know much else that is actually a downside. I do know that, if you are tired but you also drink caffeine, it can cause insomnia, getting you to a point where you’re both mentally exhausted but can’t sleep, as the caffeine only affects part of what keeps you awake. That’s why drugs like modafinil were created.
I do know the positive long-term effects found are usually based on a moderate amount, like a cup a day or similar.
No, caffeine encourages diuresis, the passing of more fluids through the kidneys. Whether or not that results in dehydration depends on the amount of caffeine consumed, the amount of fluids consumed and the amount passed through the kidneys.
No matter how much caffeine is consumed, most people consuming it still drink enough liquid with it to avoid dehydration.
That’s 800 calories.
A third of the recommended daily intake for a man, 40% for a woman.
So unless you skipped one meal a day of your 3 meals, you would gain quite a bit of weight. Don’t know about the effect on the brain, but the effect on the body would be obvious to everyone.