Studying is one of the areas where caffeine’s benefits are most obvious. When we’re studying, there are a few simple goals that we want to facilitate:
- Improving the retention of things we read
- Actively improving the association of new information with old concepts and information
- Improving recall in general
- Being able to sustainably practice these processes
Caffeine helps with all 4—which is why it has become a popular way of improving studying performance. It’s primarily useful for staying alert, aware, and focused during long days and in high-pressure scenarios (like cramming for an exam or working long hours on an important project).
In fact, caffeine almost looks like nature’s study drug. It directly improves energy levels and combats fatigue, shown to be two key factors in how well you retain information that you read or interact with.
One of the most important effects that isn’t often discussed is how caffeine helps you focus on a single topic. Recent studies specifically point out that caffeine’s main benefits include focus and resilience against distractions.
These are classic benefits for those study sessions where you’re doing well, but you keep getting off-track. Distractions are everywhere now—through the sounds and pop-ups of notifications or just the background environment—and caffeine can help blunt that urge to procrastinate.
The Issues
The main role of caffeine for most students is artificially improving restfulness and reducing tiredness. Restfulness is an important place to start any effective study, as it’s a driving factor in retaining information.
You don’t want to be sleepy before you’ve even started, and in this field, caffeine pills can be quite useful since they’re rapid onset and have a relatively strong 6-hour half-life. Fighting mental fatigue and improving restfulness improves your ability to get started with studying and overcome lethargy.
Improving Quality Not Just Quantity Of Study-Hours
Caffeine doesn’t only increase the number of hours of study you can put together—but also the quality of them.
Reducing distractions and maintaining a consistent focus for hours at a time can be a huge benefit. The quality of a single hour of study can be radically improved—especially over the course of the 6 hours of caffeine’s half-life.
Specifically, it means beating fatigue and preventing the natural drop-off that comes from spending a whole day reading, for example.
Anxiety Effects Of Caffeine
If you’re nervous or experiencing anxiety in the short term, caffeine pills may not be the best choice.
While restfulness and energy are effective in improving encoding memory, anxiety and irritability are the opposite. They can seriously undermine both encoding and recall of memory—we’ve all gone blank due to anxiety before, and it’s important to reduce these issues.
If you’re particularly close to crunch time or struggling with irritability, it can be a good idea to avoid caffeine—and especially the caffeine anhydrous found in caffeine pills.
Morning vs Evening Study Quality
The value of caffeine pills depends seriously on the kind of work you’re doing and what time of day you’re studying—as they’re definitely more of a risky choice later in the day.
Early use of caffeine can be a great choice, while later use—especially of caffeine anhydrous found in caffeine pills—can really disrupt sleep quality. This is a huge issue if you’re studying for an exam and using caffeine pills the night before.
Better quality studying happens during the day, as most people’s circadian rhythms and energy levels are higher during the day. Caffeine pills are great for playing that 6-hour boosted study performance, making sure this is in the late morning but not interrupting sleep quality.
But how are you using it?
Remember that caffeine pills can’t solve the long-term requirement of your body for sleep. High-quality sleep and proper morning and daytime study hours count for more all by themselves, even without significant caffeine intake.
You need sustainability as well as quality, and caffeine pills are best used responsibly, so you’re not borrowing focus from your future self. This is even more important in regular caffeine use, where you may have muted the benefits of caffeine pills.
Be sure to get some caffeine-free time before heading into intense study season, as you can easily lose the benefits after regular intake.
TOLERANCE: have you desensitized yourself?
This is even more important in regular caffeine use, where you may have muted the benefits of caffeine pills.
Be sure to get some caffeine-free time before heading into intense study season, as you can easily lose the benefits after regular intake.
Could there be a better alternative?
Caffeine pills aren’t the only source, and their speed of absorption can be a major benefit. In some scenarios, however, it can be smarter to take in regular beverages like tea or coffee to maintain a slower uptake and release, as well as making use of the secondary nutrients in these drinks.
Equally, if you’re using caffeine pills to fuel a raging all-night study session, consider just getting to sleep earlier. Better sleep will improve mental performance independently of tiredness, and early morning studies are unquestionably more useful than late night ones.
Early morning can be the best thing for you when you’re cramming and need to fit high-energy studies in.
In Summary…
Caffeine pills can be a great tool to improve your study quality. They’re a rapid-uptake and convenient way of getting caffeine in throughout the day—and especially for the 6-hour half-life.
Caffeine pills will improve the per-hour effectiveness of study and the sustainability of your study hours throughout the day. Use them to boost the quality of studies first and foremost, leveraging those six great, high-productivity study hours to your benefit.
It’s important not to overextend yourself and maintain a realistic idea of when to stop, get some rest, and replace a late night with an early morning. Caffeine pills are one way to make studying more effective—but they’re not the only way.
References
- Combined benefits of Caffeine and L-theanine: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1028415x.2016.1144845
- Caffeine worsens anxiety in susceptible patients:
- https://doi.org/10.1001/ARCHPSYC.1992.01820110031004
- Caffeine may interrupt or crutch high-quality sleep: https://dx.doi.org/10.2147%2FRMHP.S156404
- Caffeine may reduce sleep quality and quantity: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2016.01.006
- Caffeine can improve cognitive performance: https://doi.org/10.3233/jad-2010-091315
- Tolerance to caffeine and other alkaloids: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02245285
