When to Take Caffeine Gum
The honest answer is that it depends on what you're doing. Here's how we'd break it down.
Introduction
This is probably the question we get asked most. More than what's in it, more than how it tastes. Everyone wants one simple answer, and the honest one is that it depends on what your day looks like.
We built Ruthless Gum to work across a few different situations, not just one. Training is the obvious one, but plenty of our customers are tradespeople, shift workers, students, or people who just have long days and no time to sit down with a coffee.
So rather than give you one rule, here's how we'd think about it depending on what you've actually got coming up.
“There isn't a wrong time to chew a piece. There's just a time that suits what you're about to do better than another.”
— Josh, Co-Founder
Before Training
Ten to fifteen minutes before you start is the sweet spot. If your session runs long, past ninety minutes or so, a second piece partway through keeps things steady instead of fading in the last third.
During a Work Day
Whenever concentration starts slipping is genuinely the best guide. For a lot of people that's mid-morning or straight after lunch. There's no harm chewing a second piece later on if you need it, just be mindful of your total caffeine if you're also having coffee or tea that day.
Shift Work and Long Days
Spacing pieces out across a long shift tends to work better than using them all early and running dry by the end. A few of our customers on nights or long driving shifts do exactly this.
A Couple of Things to Keep in Mind
- Try to avoid chewing within about six hours of bedtime. Caffeine sticks around longer than most people expect.
- Stacking it with coffee or energy drinks? Count the total rather than treating each one separately.
- There's no strict limit of one piece a day. Use what the day actually needs.
Backed By
The timing guidance around bedtime isn't a guess either. Drake et al. (2013) found that caffeine taken even six hours before bed measurably disrupted sleep in a controlled study (Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine). On general daily intake, the European Food Safety Authority's safety review found that up to 400mg a day, and single doses up to 200mg, don't raise safety concerns for most healthy adults (EFSA Journal, 2015), which is worth knowing if you're working out how many pieces makes sense across your day.
