Have you ever noticed that the effect your pre-workout has on you isn’t quite the same as the first few times you used it? Or the cup of coffee you drink before training doesn’t give you the same stimulation as it once did?
If we’re getting technical here, caffeine is a drug, and the same thing happens with caffeine as it does with drugs—you develop a tolerance. While caffeine can be great for increasing productivity and performance, too much of it can have the opposite effect.
That’s why it’s worth resetting your caffeine tolerance every so often.
If not for any other reason, for this: as you consume more and more caffeine, your body adapts and requires more to elicit the same effects. While cutting caffeine out cold turkey is one way to reset your tolerance, it’s not the only way to do it.
Right now, we’re breaking down what you need to know about resetting your caffeine tolerance. We’ll cover the basics of how caffeine tolerance works and why it happens, and give you our best tips to reset your caffeine tolerance.
How Caffeine Tolerance Works
Caffeine is a substance that has a chemical structure very similar to that of a brain chemical called adenosine—a substance that slows down brain activity and induces drowsiness.
Many of the biological actions caffeine exhibits are mediated through its antagonistic effects on adenosine receptors 1. Caffeine promotes arousal by blocking adenosine A2A receptors (A2ARs) in the brain and stimulating CNS activity to increase energy and arousal 2.
But the reason it takes more and more caffeine to elicit the same effects is that chronic caffeine consumption not only alters the density of adenosine receptors in the brain but also the number of adrenergic, cholinergic, GABAergic, and serotonergic receptors 3.
Levels of cortical and striatal adenosine receptors increase by about 15-20% with chronic caffeine consumption; cortical muscarinic and nicotinic receptors increase by 40-50%, and levels of cortical benzodiazepine-binding sites linked with GABAA-receptors increase by a whopping 65%.
Simply put, in an effort to make up for what it’s missing, the brain spouts up more and more adenosine receptors, so you’ll need to consume more caffeine to trigger the same effects and reduce sleepiness, and you’ll probably feel increasingly worse if you’re not getting enough.
Symptoms Of A Caffeine Tolerance
Aside from the obvious symptom that caffeine isn’t waking you up or giving you energy, there are a few other signs that you may have developed a caffeine tolerance:
- Low energy
- Sleep disruptions or insomnia
- General exhaustion
- Poor concentration
- Headache
How To Reset Your Caffeine Tolerance
If you’re tired of feeling tired even after three cups of coffee or a pre-workout that never seems to kick in, chances are it’s time to do some spring cleaning—curbing the caffeine tolerance, that is. There are two primary ways to do it: slowly reduce your intake or quit cold turkey.
The latter option is definitely the fastest way to reset your caffeine tolerance, but it can also be pretty miserable.
Here’s how to approach both.
Option 1: Slowly reduce your caffeine intake
If you heavily rely on caffeine to get your day started or push you through your workout, slowly reducing how much caffeine you consume each day is ideal. Either substitute it with tea (preferably herbal because it’s caffeine-free) or mix your regular coffee with half decaf, slowly increase the amount of decaf in the cup. If you’re relying on pre-workout, knock back your scoop size every day until you reach your desired caffeine intake or opt for a caffeine-free pre.
Option 2: Quit caffeine cold turkey
Quitting cold turkey may be the most effective and fastest way to reset your caffeine tolerance, but you can expect to have some challenges during the process. Just as it sounds, quitting cold turkey means getting rid of caffeine completely—in any form. It’s the fastest way to diminish the effects of caffeine tolerance and reset your energy levels.
How Long Does It Take To Reset Caffeine Tolerance?
With all of that said, it’s important to remember that everyone is wired differently, and the individual responses to caffeine (or lack thereof) are going to differ.
If you’re someone who chronically consumes a large amount of caffeine, you’re almost certainly going to experience caffeine withdrawal symptoms as you try to reset your tolerance. That means you can expect some headaches, mood swings, fatigue, poor focus or concentration, and sometimes even flu-like symptoms.
Although caffeine tolerance seems to build pretty quickly, resetting your tolerance may take a bit more time.
A 2019 study published in PLOS One looked to investigate the time course of caffeine tolerance using 11 healthy, active individuals 4. Participants consumed either 3 mg/kg/day of caffeine for 20 days or a placebo for 20 days.
Compared to the placebo, caffeine ingestion significantly increased peak cycling power for the first 15 days, but the effects steadily decreased for the remainder of the test period. In both physical tests, the extent of caffeine’s effect was higher on the first day of consumption and progressively decreased.
Essentially, cutting back on caffeine for 2+ weeks can let your adenosine receptor levels readjust back to a more normal level, thereby reducing your tolerance and increasing the effect caffeine elicits when you do consume it.
Final Thoughts
No two people are alike, and how long it takes one person to reset their caffeine tolerance may differ from another.
But in general, you want to avoid caffeine for anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months to really allow your body a reset. Once you add it back in, opt for moderate or infrequent consumption to avoid rebuilding a tolerance.
References
- Ammon HP. Biochemical mechanism of caffeine tolerance. Arch Pharm (Weinheim). 1991;324(5):261-267.
- Ribeiro JA, Sebastião AM. Caffeine and adenosine.J Alzheimers Dis. 2010;20 Suppl 1:S3-S15.
- Daly JW, Shi D, Nikodijevic O, Jacobson KA. The role of adenosine receptors in the central action of caffeine. Pharmacopsychoecologia. 1994;7(2):201-213.
- Lara B, Ruiz-Moreno C, Salinero JJ, Del Coso J. Time course of tolerance to the performance benefits of caffeine. PLoS One. 2019;14(1):e0210275.
