Courtesy of ChromaDex, this infographic depicts "our conflicted relationship" with caffeine, according to the company. Oh, well... you be the judge.

Caffeine Zone is a free iOS app that tells you the perfect time to take a coffee break to maintain an optimal amount of caffeine in your blood.

It also tells you when to stop drinking tea and coffee, so that caffeine doesn’t interrupt your sleep.

The authors of the app, doctors Frank E. Ritter and Kuo-Chuan Yeh, found that between 200 and 400 milligrams (mg) of caffeine in your bloodstream provides optimal mental alertness, and that below 100mg of caffeine is ideal for sleeping.

Caffeine Zone displays a graph of this in action (pictured above). You hit the Consume Caffeine button, pick your poison (tea/coffee/gum/other), and the app plots a graph of your caffeine level. A green bar represents the “caffeine zone” that you’re trying to hit, and a blue bar shows the level that you need to drop below before bed time. Ideally, you’ll probably drink a large cup of coffee/tea in the morning and then top it up with small cups throughout the day. One of the app’s neatest functions is that it warns you if you’re about to consume something that will leave you above the sleep threshold (in general, this means you shouldn’t drink a large cup of tea or coffee after midday). If you have built up a resistance to caffeine, or you’re particularly affected by it, you can alter the “optimal” and “sleep” values in Settings.

This is an excerpt from an ExtremeTech article, which you can read here.

When people imbibe drinks with caffeine and alcohol at the same time they can develop an over-inflated impression of their capabilities and are more likely to engage in risk-taking behavior.

“You should never mix uppers and downers,” says Lyndon Withdrawal Unit addiction medicine physician Rod MacQueen from Australia. “People overestimate their sobriety because they feel wide awake.”

Add to this the fact that the effects of alcohol wear off quicker than the effects of caffeine, so when you wake up in the morning you feel twice as “stoned.” Nicotine may help you with that one way - but obviously it has its downside too.

Mixing caffeine and alcohol can also create a cycle of drinking and violent behavior. Caffeine could cause anxiety in some people, so they would have another drink, then another, to try and calm the nerves, while exacerbating the anxiety.

Now that is a definite downer, no matter how “high” you feel, isn’t it?

Consumer Reports, the highly regarded independent non-profit magazine, has a very simple quiz on their web site. It allows you to figure out how much you know about your favorite stimulant.  Flipping through it you'll have questions like:

1.  All of the following sodas are free of caffeine.

2.  Ounce for ounce, Red Bull, the energy drink, has twice as much caffeine as Nestea 
     Iced Tea. 

3.  You can always tell if a food or beverage contains caffeine by looking at the ingredient 
     list.

They have a total of 12 questions that you can finish in a minute. Take the quiz now!

That’s what the ThinkMasters of ThinkGeek think about our CaffeinAll™, now on sale at their site!

To prove it, they really make your saliva glands going with the picture of fresh golden French fries being kicked up more than a few notches with it:

Not to mention their pitch that REALLY makes us proud:

“There are milestones in human development that will be used as points in time historians will chronicle and refer back to. Sometimes they're disasters and sad things, but most times they are inventions or improvements that echo through time. This is one of those milestones. Something we've craved forever is finally possible, all thanks to CaffeinAll™ Powder Caffeine Shaker.”

We are humbled, to say the least. A lot of work and testing went into developing CaffeinAll™. Not to mention the angst-ridden moments of trying to decipher how the FDA intends to regulate caffeine, their upcoming labeling requirements, etc., etc. 

At the end we decided to go the extra mile of putting multiple, detailed warnings on the label PLUS the shipping box itself. Just follow them  — you will, won’t you? — and you’ll be on your way to keeping your mind sharp and body alert. All this for ONLY 10 CENTS vs. the average $1.79 you’d pay for a large, strong cup of coffee with 100 mg caffeine in it. Eminently epic, isn’t it?

Can’t wait to see the next Customer Action Shot with Caffeinated Pepperoni Pizza! 

Actually, we may have something better... this video segment, courtesy of Kev Lieber of  VSauce2: