Wired

There are students out there much more dedicated than I. Truth be told, most students are probably more dedicated than me. After all, I'm the guy blogging about coffee during finals week. Not exactly academic stuff. But hey, you have to prioritize. 

Regardless, this being finals week, many undoubtedly plan on staying up to obscene hours of the night/morning in order to cram as much information in to their brain as will fit. A great plan. In order to do this, said individuals will ingest caffeine by the hundreds of milligrams. 

But what will they use as a source? Some will rely on soda, or energy drinks. Which is fine, I suppose, if you're in junior high. Those who have grown out of their need for sugar bombs will turn to coffee. 

But even within that category, there are ways to optimize caffeine consumption. Plain ol' black coffee works great, especially when consumed in enough quantities. But the amount of water that comes along with the caffeine might have someone running to the bathroom too often. 

If that's the case, consider espresso. Espresso is simply concentrated coffee, thus, by volume, it has more caffeine. One could easily shoot several shots down in a matter of moments. Of course, you could also enjoy the drink -- and probably should -- but that's not the point in this scenario.

Some gas stations now have coffee with added synthetic caffeine. If you don't care about the taste and have a death wish, this might be worth looking into. 

My best tip correlates nicely with an earlier post: Basically, that fat is your friend. You see, caffeine is fat-soluble. That means that, in order to absorb and utilize it fully, your body needs dietary fat. So the old trope about drinking coffee on an empty stomach being more effective? Wrong. To get wired more effectively, drink your coffee with or immediately after consuming food. Adding half & half or heavy cream to your coffee is an even easier route to take. But again, I must recommend that you lay off the sugar. Although there are a myriad of great reasons why you should, the one that's most relevant to this discussion is that sugar prompts a spike, and subsequent precipitous drop in energy levels. Despite what you've probably heard, caffeine is a much more stable source of energy, due to its blood sugar stabilizing properties.