Looking for plain language studies or reports on this topic.

I've found studies on dementia and Alzheimer's patients, but not those relating the chemical relationship of nicotine and caffeine on concentration and work performance. I'm not as interested in the dementia / AD studies.

Situation: I quit tobacco about a year ago (although shifted to Commit Lozenges on a regular basis), but maintained my caffeine intake. Lately I've found my ability to focus on dull, repetitive tasks (i.e. my work) is suffering. My job requires me to pore over documents, research and write opinions and record my time. My performance is down and I'm starting to worry if work-stress is inducing ADD (never had it before, but my inability to concentrate and perform at work sounds similar to descriptions of ADD). Despite quitting the tobacco, I am tempted to restart dipping to utilize the nicotine-related concentration boost to get through my projects. My wife, on the other hand, will kill me if I start back up - which is a bit of a deterrent.

If anyone has information on work performance, stress and the relationship of caffeine and nicotine on concentration - and alternatives, I'd appreciate the info.

Thanks!

__________________
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
- Goethe

Jump in with both feet!
- Me, indulging my inner eight-year-old

*** *** ***

"Are you a mad-hatter that just types what he wishes, or have you actually any physics training?"
Occam's Ghost to Grant Hutchison.

Nicotine is like any other stimulent.

Kicks up focus (to a point, too much and you can get "fleet of mind" and not be able to concentrate on one subject for longer than a moment or two) and speeds your thoughts. Both George Carlin and Robin William's best stage work was when they were major coke heads.

But it's destuctive. Put too much voltage in a lightbulb and it gets brighter for a little while...

But back to nicotine. Nicotine is a defensive alkaloid thats meant to be poisonous. It masks your bodies ability to detect neoplasms and acts as a tumor growth factor. That's a cool double whammie. Then you consider that by the time you are 35 or so you have accumulated enough errors in DNA coding that you really, really don't want to comsume that does that.

I was a very bad smoker. When I was referreeing D&D games (In my 20's) and on a role, I would chain smoke a whole pack, lighting one off the other.

Imagine my surprise when I was 37 and the doctors said I have the opening rounds of emphysema. After only a brief bit of research I quickly decided that emphysema was something I wanted no part of. I quit ten years ago and haven't looked back since.

A work aquaintance was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. Hadn't spread out of his lungs yet, but all the badness is around his main bronchial pipes and up tubes. This means he's ******. You can't cut them out because you just unplug his lungs. 39 with two small sons.

You want that, just to be able to think faster?

Check to see if you are anemic first.

Get a check up.

Go on vacation.

Don't start smoking again.

Unclemode=off

__________________
In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

blame the lack of nicotine if you want, but it sounds like it's time for a new job.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

There are other ways to take in nicotine...

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*

I stopped smoking about 30 years ago, I've made good decisions in my life and some really crap one's, on reflection quitting smoking was in the former.

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But you're sure the astronauts are lying; you just don't seem to know what they're lying about: Jayutah


I are Learnding.

Well no information, just personal experience and with coffee only (As I am not smoking). And a bit of information I heard recently in the radio, but forgot the original source.

Of course nicotine is addictive, but let's focus on something else for a moment. I very often have the impression (that at least for coffee) it is more the habit itself that makes you feel better concentrated, not so much the substance included. For me I can focus a lot better on problems if I have a big pot of coffee in both my hands, elbows on the table and cooffe pot right under my nose sipping from time to time on it. I think it is like a "concentration technique" or something.
Smoking might partly fall in the same category. I remember when my brother quit 20 years ago, he turned to Gummibears and salt sticks always to have something in the fingers and between the lips to play with.

That is one part.

The other thing is that bit of information I mentioned.

There was a study done with people who wanted to stop eating cookies and choclate to loose weigth.

They put cookies in a bowl on a table and beside that bowl another one with fresh fruits, carots and so on.

Now they took one group of these people into the room and didn't allow them (or told them not to do so) to eat the cookies, but only the fruit stuff.

The control group was allowed to eat everything.

After that they confronted both groups with a complicated problem to solve. The group that was not allowed to eat the cookies gave up after a very short time with none of them finding a solution.
The control group found the solution always (there was no time limit). Especially they did not give up.

So as a conclusion from this it looks as if your brain needs to work and gets tired if you willingly try to do without something.
I am sorry that I can't provide a link to that study, and I haven't listen carefully enough to remember who had done it.

So it seems working away the other way around. Smoking does not make your concentration better, but not smoking makes it worse. And obviously because you seem to have a very stressful job now, you need all the recources of your brain to do the job.

Seems as if you will have a hard time ahead of you. I doubt I was of any help for you.

__________________
Andre

"They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!"
Mark Twain

Anyone who thinks caffeine is not addictive either does not use it or is in denial.

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Thanks folks - I appreciate your comments.

AndreH - contrary to your end thoughts, I do appreciate your insight. Vielen Dank!

novaderrik

Looks like I'll be consuming Commit Lozenges at the cyclic rate...

__________________
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
- Goethe

Jump in with both feet!
- Me, indulging my inner eight-year-old

*** *** ***

"Are you a mad-hatter that just types what he wishes, or have you actually any physics training?"
Occam's Ghost to Grant Hutchison.

To kick up your concentration level you can do the following:

1.) One slow cooker

2.) 6 femur bone segments, each cut about 4 inches in length

3.) Cover the femur bones inside the slow cooker with water and place on a low setting for 48 hours. Your experiment will marry the marrow into the water.

4.) After 48 hours remove the femur bones from the fluid and pour the fluid through a screen strainer into a Rubbermaid container. Cover and leave it in the fridge overnight.

5.) The lard will have risen to the top so you must pry that off. Underneath lies the gelatin. Take one tablespoon of the gelatin twice a day. It should last about 5 days before you need to make another batch.

It takes about two weeks and then you should notice that you will keep pursuing and following up on things. I am a celiac and I found that it cleared away the brain fog that we celiacs have as one side effect. Wheat has a habit of going straight into the blood stream of celiacs and likes to park right in the brain. It could be possible that as one goes away from tobacco that some residual is left behind that has the same effect but don't take my word for it. The experiment is cheap and worth a try.