[MI] -- Caffeine, Nectar of the Gods
May. 21st, 2008 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elementof_riskCaffeine. Nectar of the gods? Dangerous drug? How does it affect you? What does it do to you? Why can't you live without it?
Nectar of the gods. I honestly do not think I would be able to live the life I do nearly as productively as I do without caffeine. My work necessitates a great deal of travel, often crossing as many as 12 time zones a day, just to do it again the next, either further in the same direction, or back the way I came. I could have breakfast in New York, lunch in Los Angeles and skip dinner entirely to eat breakfast the next day in Madrid. There are layovers when my clients do not send a private jet, and I am intimately familiar with every major airport in the world.
Some people speak of jet lag, and the times I have settled here or there for any length of time, I've had occasion to experience the sensation, but for the most part I do not have a "home" time zone. Life is a constant motion, and I am fairly certain that I have permanently destroyed any sense of a natural circadian rhythm based on the position of the sun in the sky or what those around me are doing. Thanks to my training, I'm very well versed in auto circadian meditation which cuts down on my need for sleep, making sure I don't completely exhaust myself, but even that simply cannot fix any sense of natural rhythm, simply with the ways our bodies react to sunlight.
So, I've learned to rely on two lovely supplements: melatonin and caffeine. Melatonin isn't as necessary, as the meditation generally takes care of the need for sleep, but it can be helpful if I truly want to get a solid night of natural sleep. More often to keep me going though, I turn to the age old cure all of caffeine. Coffee in the "morning" at least triggers my body to think it is morning and keeps me going when my body wants to protest that this "time" yesterday it was midnight, not 10 AM.
I cannot risk not being alert and at my best for any meeting or any job. It really is a matter of life or death, and caffeine is one thing that makes it possible. Frightening to think of the world lost but for a cup of coffee--or more likely the world saved for want of a cup of coffee, truthfully--but there you have it. The secret to defeating all my evil schemes; my carefully percolated Achilles heel. Withhold coffee, and I'm defenseless. Who knew saving the world could be so easy?
Nectar of the gods. I honestly do not think I would be able to live the life I do nearly as productively as I do without caffeine. My work necessitates a great deal of travel, often crossing as many as 12 time zones a day, just to do it again the next, either further in the same direction, or back the way I came. I could have breakfast in New York, lunch in Los Angeles and skip dinner entirely to eat breakfast the next day in Madrid. There are layovers when my clients do not send a private jet, and I am intimately familiar with every major airport in the world.
Some people speak of jet lag, and the times I have settled here or there for any length of time, I've had occasion to experience the sensation, but for the most part I do not have a "home" time zone. Life is a constant motion, and I am fairly certain that I have permanently destroyed any sense of a natural circadian rhythm based on the position of the sun in the sky or what those around me are doing. Thanks to my training, I'm very well versed in auto circadian meditation which cuts down on my need for sleep, making sure I don't completely exhaust myself, but even that simply cannot fix any sense of natural rhythm, simply with the ways our bodies react to sunlight.
So, I've learned to rely on two lovely supplements: melatonin and caffeine. Melatonin isn't as necessary, as the meditation generally takes care of the need for sleep, but it can be helpful if I truly want to get a solid night of natural sleep. More often to keep me going though, I turn to the age old cure all of caffeine. Coffee in the "morning" at least triggers my body to think it is morning and keeps me going when my body wants to protest that this "time" yesterday it was midnight, not 10 AM.
I cannot risk not being alert and at my best for any meeting or any job. It really is a matter of life or death, and caffeine is one thing that makes it possible. Frightening to think of the world lost but for a cup of coffee--or more likely the world saved for want of a cup of coffee, truthfully--but there you have it. The secret to defeating all my evil schemes; my carefully percolated Achilles heel. Withhold coffee, and I'm defenseless. Who knew saving the world could be so easy?
