If you need to wake up, caffeine can help. But for the optimal jolt, how much and when?
As The Wall Street Journal reports, The U.S. Army and the Department of Defense have developed an algorithm to answer that question.
It’s of critical interest because soldiers may go for days without getting enough sleep or, in some cases, any sleep at all. A perfectly timed and ideal portion of caffeine can fend off fatigue that might otherwise jeopardize a mission or put lives at risk.
But the mathematical model could also benefit drowsy civilians.
“If you could come to work, drink caffeine and have your mental acuity improved by 40% for four hours, wouldn’t you like that?” asks Jaques Reifman, a senior research scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command in Ft. Detrick, Maryland, who created the algorithm. “That’s what we’re trying to do here.”
About 40% of soldiers sleep no more than five hours a night. So the math calculates caffeine consumption based on how much would provide the same level of alertness as a person who slept eight hours a night.
An 8-ounce cup of weak coffee has about 100 milligrams of caffeine. A strong cup has about 175 milligrams. Soldiers are advised to consume 200 milligrams in varying intervals to combat lack of sleep.
So far, the algorithm isn’t public, the Wall Street Journal notes, but the Army plans to license the technology and a smartphone app. Until then, coffee fiends can access a simplified version of the mathematical model online at the website 2B Alert, where they can test the effects of different combinations of sleep and caffeine on alertness.
