My Experience with Nootropic Coffee

A Journey with Reflect and BeElevated Coffee

Background

I’ve been drinking coffee regularly for a long time. I have a mixed relationship with it. On one hand, drinking my first – and more often than not, my only – cup in the morning provides a wonderful buffer between rest and my world of action where I gather my thoughts and my subconscious arranges itself. On the other hand, coffee agitates me and I’m mildly addicted to it. It doesn’t interfere with my personal or work life, as more serious addictions often do. However, I do have a voice inside of me that tells a story that I will not be as effective or feel as alive without it, and its adverse effects often have me wondering if maybe I should quit.

I’ve made a handful of casual attempts at quitting coffee. They were usually of the cold-turkey variety and not trying to substitute it with things like matcha, Irish breakfast tea, or brewed cacao. All of these attempts resulted in a relapse and rebound where I would drink more coffee afterward than I would have otherwise. So, I’ve learned the hard way that another approach may be more effective.

My first attempt at changing my coffee habits was to simply have less. I ran an experiment with Reflect that had me alternate between one and two cups of coffee. The results of that experiment showed that having more coffee had a significant impact on the quality of my REM sleep and incidence of insomnia, even though my second cup was usually directly after my first and early in the morning. Having struggled with sleep issues, this felt empowering to discover. I posted the results on Reddit, galvanized to find ways to further my progress and run more experiments.

Then, Chris Donais, founder of BeElevated coffee, messaged me asking if I wanted to try their product (a blend of organic Arabic coffee, cordyceps militaris, rhodiola rosea, taurine, and L-theanine) to see if it would further help with my sleep.

I was not ready to quit coffee, but I was definitely ready to keep having coffee (even if it deviated from my normal routine). As one would expect, Chris dropped off his proprietary goods to me in a local coffee shop. Soon after, I started my experiment – which consisted of a one-week baseline of my normal coffee consumption, a month of BeElevated consumption and, finally, a one-month return to baseline.

Experimental Design

Independent Variable – BeElevated Instant Coffee

Consuming the BeElevated coffee was tracked with a “Yes/No” metric. If I had BeElevated, I recorded a “Yes.” If I had my usual brand of coffee (Groundwork Light Roast from Whole Foods), I recorded a “No.”

Dependent Variables

Chris and I were interested in a lot of metrics. Here is the full list of them, all of which were recorded in Reflect:

• Subjective

  • Sensations and Mood

    • Agitation

    • Sense of Awareness

    • Congestion

    • Decisiveness

    • Fatigue

  • Exercise

    • Rate of Perceived Exertion

  • Meditation

    • Focus

  • Work

    • Motivation

    • Enjoyment

    • Flow State (Task Absorption)

    • Working Memory

• Measured (from Whoop and Oura)

  • Sleep Metrics

    • Average HRV

    • Average Resting Heart Rate

    • Lowest Heart Rate

    • REM Sleep Hours

    • Restless Periods

    • Efficiency (Awake : Asleep ratio)

  • Workout Metrics

    • Strain (Whoop’s proprietary measurement)

    • Zone Five Heart Rate Duration

    • Zone Four Heart Rate Duration

    • Zone Three Heart Rate Duration

    • Max Heart Rate

All of the subjective metrics were recorded once per day on a scale from 0 to 10, and were meant to summarize how I felt throughout the course of that day.

My sleep metrics were automatically tracked by my Whoop and Oura devices each morning. My workout metrics were recorded each workout session. This consisted of jiu jitsu and lifting sessions.

Results

Once the experiment finished, Reflect generated a report of the results. Below are the most significant results (p < 0.05). The other metrics did not significantly change.

• Agitation: 34% decrease (p = 0.0015)

• Average HRV: 13% increase (p = 0.0041)

• Flow State: 18% increase (p = 0.0257)

• Work Enjoyment: 15% increase (p = 0.0172)

• Working Memory: 10% increase (p = 0.0323)

Discussion

By far, the decrease in my agitation was the most significant and most surprising result. The reason it was surprising was because I didn’t notice that I was less agitated compared to my normal coffee. I only found out when I looked at the results of the experiment after it was over. If I could take a guess at what ingredient played the largest role, it would be the L-theanine. This is based on my past experiences with L-theanine – outside of this experiment I sometimes take it in capsule form when I feel agitated or I know I’m going to have a second cup of coffee. So, the results align with my past experiences, but highlight the importance of tracking these things.

The increased interest in my work and working memory is also interesting. I’m not sure what ingredient might have played the most prominent role, but I’m grateful for the increase generally. I imagine that there is a feedback loop that can occur when you are working, enjoying it, and able to hold the context and challenges in your mind without losing a grasp of the problem at hand.

Further Studies

I think that there were some limitations of this study, and some things I would do differently next time.

With coffee, running a blinded experiment would be difficult, unless I had the coffee intravenously. I’m extremely picky about the kind of coffee I drink and can tell the differences in taste.

I would also like to run this sort of experiment for longer. Running an ABA schedule is nice, but running an ABABABA schedule might have produced more conclusive results.

The presence of a lot of subjective metrics is its own challenge. Over a long enough time span, one’s subjective experience of emotions may drift. After a life-rattling stressful event, one might want to normalize past data to account for the new perspective. Thankfully, this experiment had no such events. To the extent possible, I’d like to create or find objective measures for this category of dependent variable, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Woodcock-Johnson III Cognitive Battery, Overt Agitation Severity Scale, etc.

Conclusion

If the effect of BeElevated is a calm, compelling experience working on one’s business, I’m pretty satisfied! I have two more bags on their way in the mail, and that leaves me with a few possibilities for more experiments. Thank you to Chris for that.

It’s also very satisfying, as a creator of Reflect, that I can use my own product to make improvements in my life. I think it’s safe to say that all of the significant changes resulting from this experiment flew under my radar. Reflect allowed me to convince myself with data that I can introduce meaningful changes; I can now make data-driven and informed decisions, and that’s empowering! Especially in the biohacking world, where there can be snake oil salesmen and sketchy products, being able to validate the efficacy of these products for oneself can be incredibly helpful.