Espresso

For the last week or so, I have been getting only 4-6 hours of sleep a night. This is not good, even with the added energy of regular workouts, after a few days this routine has the -some say negative- effect of reducing my normal brain power by ninety percent.
Luckily, there is an all-curing balsam called Coffee.
I'm not talking about the filtered boiled-socks juice that passes for coffee for some people, I'm talking about coffee beans grown in the mountain slopes of Sumatra or Colombia or some place where coffee is supposed to be grown, then cured and roasted to perfection, shipped to your favorite coffee stand to be ground seconds before hot steam condenses as it passes through it, capturing all its flavor and other qualities in the perfect shot of espresso. Three of these, combined with chocolate syrup, steamed milk, water, and whipped cream make up my usual grande mocha with an extra shot. By means of a caffeine and sugar high, it has the effect of restoring -if not the actual, at least the illusion of- a normal mental state. But it does more than that. It is definitely a mood enhancer –imagine being transported from a modern, neon-lit, slightly cold and grey Monday morning in a plastic and metal office chair, to an old, warm leather armchair by the fireplace, in a log cabin somewhere, surrounded by an old-growth forest. Well, not exactly, but that’s the best way I can think to describe it. All this from a hot beverage. How I went from not liking coffee, to my current state, is somewhat of a long story, but let’s say that along the way I was in need of a sleep substitute.

Take enough caffeine, and your state in the morning after a sleepless night goes from zombie to alert. The price you pay is your judgment. If your brain is truly exhausted, it will still make mistakes; paradoxically, sleeping eventually becomes more productive than staying awake. And by the way... lack of sleep kills neurons.