Nicotine vs. Caffeine: The Most Popular Stimulants, Compared

When it comes to stimulants, nicotine and caffeine reign supreme, tracing back for centuries. They are both socially integrated and accepted worldwide, despite the myriad of effects they have on one’s system, not all of which are positive. In fact, few substances have had such a large sociocultural impact as nicotine and caffeine.

However, as ubiquitous as they are, how many of us actually understand these substances beyond their basic stimulating properties? This is exactly what we’re going to explore in this article.

Understanding Stimulants

Before getting into the nitty gritty details of caffeine and nicotine and how they affect our bodies, let’s take a look at the stimulant family of substances. Belonging to a broad class of drugs that increase brain activity, stimulants prompt a boost in alertness, attention, and energy. They influence chemicals in the brain and nervous system, affecting processes such as heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration rates.

The application of these substances can vary widely, ranging from the medically sanctioned to the illicit. In legal use scenarios, prescription stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin are often prescribed to manage disorders such as ADHD and narcolepsy. They help enhance the patient’s focus and maintain wakefulness, respectively.

Moreover, some over-the-counter medications, like decongestants or weight-loss aids, also utilise stimulant substances to induce certain physiological responses.

Illicit Stimulants

When most of us hear “stimulants,” our minds often wander to a number of illegal substances that uplift their users’ moods, make them feel more “awake,” and generally boost their energy levels. Street drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and ecstasy all fall into the stimulant category.

Cocaine, for example, stimulates the nervous system to create feelings of euphoria and increased energy. Methamphetamines deliver similar effects but can be a lot more potent and damaging due to their synthetic nature. Finally, ecstasy combines the qualities of both stimulants and psychedelics, leading to altered sensations and feelings of increased emotional closeness on top of the energy boost.

Whether legally approved or not, all stimulants have the potential for misuse and addiction. The balance between their benefits and potential harm is a delicate one that requires careful monitoring. This includes nicotine and caffeine. Understanding the need for balanced, cautious usage is a crucial aspect of developing a healthy relationship with either one of them.

A Deep Dive Into the Coffee Mug

No other stimulant is as widely used and promoted as caffeine. There is a coffee house on nearly every city street corner, and the vast majority of working adults can’t imagine beginning their day without the proverbial cup of joe.

Drinking coffee is a popular activity that’s been around for hundreds of years. Some intellectuals who’ve devoted years of their careers to studying caffeine and its impact on society even hypothesise that this stimulant is responsible for important civilizational advancements that took place over the last couple of centuries.

We’re all well aware of the fact that caffeine can boost our productivity, help us get ready for the day, and elevate our energy levels after we haven’t gotten enough sleep the night before. But how exactly does it interact with our body?

How Caffeine Affects the Central Nervous System

The central nervous system (CNS), which comprises the brain and spinal cord, is affected by caffeine in various notable ways. Chemically, caffeine resembles a substance our bodies naturally produce – adenosine. Adenosine is produced continually throughout the day, building up in our brains and binding to its receptors, which gradually induces feelings of fatigue and sleepiness.

Caffeine takes advantage of this process due to its structural similarity to adenosine. Once consumed, it competes with adenosine and binds to its brain receptors, effectively blocking them. This interference prevents adenosine from causing its calming effects, leading to increased neuron firing and consequent stimulation of the adrenal glands.

As a result, adrenaline – a classic “fight or flight” hormone – is released. This causes elevated heart rate, blood pressure, and glucose levels, resulting in a feeling of alertness and elevated mood.

Moreover, caffeine boosts the levels of dopamine – the ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitter – by slowing down its reabsorption into our bodies. As a result, it plays a rewarding role in the pleasure circuit of the brain similar to some addictive drugs. This process provides not just the awakeness associated with a caffeine “buzz,” but also an element of genuine euphoria.

Recommended Daily Dosage

It is difficult to estimate exactly how much caffeine a person should take per day to only reap its benefits and avoid experiencing any side effects. As is the case with many other things in life, this amount may vary depending on the individual.

Generally speaking, however, healthy adults with no outstanding contraindications can safely consume roughly 400mg of caffeine on a daily basis, according to the American FDA. This amounts to 4-5 cups of coffee per day. If you drink much more than that, you’re likely to run into a myriad of unpleasant side effects, such as:

• Insomnia
• Frequent urination
• Elevated heart rate
• Jitters
• Headaches
• Irritability

Nicotine: A Misunderstood Substance?

It is common knowledge that nicotine is highly addictive. So is caffeine, though. Nicotine gets most of its bad reputation from the primary intake method that has been used to deliver the substance for centuries: smoking. Tobacco smoke contains hundreds of harmful chemicals, and modern tobacco conglomerates take its contents to the next level by incorporating other additives into cigarettes.

While still the main addictive ingredient of cigarettes, nicotine, when taken in another form, isn’t as harmful as you might think. Like caffeine, it also interacts with our brain’s central nervous system, albeit in a slightly different way.

How Nicotine Affects the Central Nervous System

Once inhaled, nicotine is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream and crosses the blood-brain barrier. Its primary impact on the central nervous system is made by binding to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), which are found all throughout the brain.

When nicotine binds to these receptors, it triggers a cascade of responses. It stimulates the release of a number of neurotransmitters, including dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine itself. These interactions collectively result in increased arousal, focus, and cognitive function.

The particular stimulation of dopamine release is responsible for the characteristic pleasurable sensation associated with nicotine use and plays a substantial role in the development of addiction. In that way, nicotine and caffeine are very similar.

The Benefits of Nicotine

In recent years, an increasing number of studies have come out that point towards nicotine having a beneficial effect on the brain’s cognitive function. Some of the cognitive benefits of nicotine that were pointed out include:

• Enhanced attention: Shortly after ingesting nicotine, users may find it easier to focus and pay attention when carrying out brain-intensive tasks.
• Memory improvements: Nicotine use has been linked to an activation of a number of proteins that promote neuronal communication and memory function improvements.
• Increased alertness and overall cognitive performance: Just like caffeine, nicotine activates your nervous system, making you feel more alert and capable of performing demanding cognitive tasks.

Furthermore, scholars are growing increasingly interested in exploring the usefulness of nicotine in treating Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s patients. This is because nicotine has shown promise of slowing down cognitive decline and neurodegeneration in older patients. The neuroprotective qualities of the substance have also generated interest among scientists to incorporate it into Parkinson’s treatments as a means of slowing the disease’s progression.

Nicotine vs. Caffeine: Key Differences and Similarities

When it comes to their impact on the central nervous system, nicotine and caffeine are rather similar. Both promote alertness and cognitive function, trigger dopamine release, and mitigate the feeling of drowsiness caused by sleep deprivation.

Despite having similar effects, the substances don’t exactly interact with the same brain receptors, as we already outlined in the sections above. But the differences between caffeine and nicotine don’t end there.

Social Acceptability

Both substances are legal, but nicotine use carries a stigma with it that’s virtually non-existent when talking about caffeine. This is, of course, because for decades, nicotine has been associated with nothing else but cigarette smoking, a known cause of lung cancer and a number of other deadly conditions.

So while coffee is generally accepted as a beverage with more positive aspects than downsides, nicotine continues to be demonised by most of society due to its inseparable association with tobacco.

Health Risks

When it comes to the health risks of overindulging in either caffeine or nicotine, they are actually quite similar. They include high blood pressure, elevated heart rate, and sleep disturbances.

NEAFS: A Reduced Harm Way to Use Nicotine

While it’s still a very addictive substance, nicotine does come with certain benefits. Of course, the downsides of smoking far outweigh the positive aspects of nicotine, but what if there was another, less harmful way of consuming it?

If you’re an ex-smoker who’s not quite ready to quit nicotine, or still want to enjoy the cognitive boost it provides from time to time, NEAFS can help you obtain what you’re looking for.

Our TEO devices use the same technology as most popular heated tobacco products out there, with one key difference: we don’t use any tobacco in our cigarette sticks. Instead, we’ve opted for a premium tea leaf extract, further reducing the potential harm of using heated tobacco technology. Our sticks come in two variants: nicotine-free, and 1.5% nicotine.

The Bottom Line

The public perception of nicotine is radically different from that of caffeine, but in fact, both substances are quite similar in the way they affect your body. Their advantages and disadvantages also largely overlap. Both are also very addictive.

While we definitely wouldn’t recommend overindulging in either, neither nicotine or caffeine should be demonised, as they come with a whole host of cognitive benefits that shouldn’t be ignored.