How Modafinil and Coffee Interact

With a full understanding of the mechanism of action involved behind coffee and Modafinil individually, we can take an educated guess at how they work synergistically.

To be clear: No published research studies or clinical trials have directly examined any synergistic molecular interactions between the two.

All we have are conjectures and anecdotes from experimental smart drug users, combined with studies examining each nootropic separately.

But we strongly believe there is enough data to suggest their effects are “additive” (i.e. their wakefulness-promoting properties combine to create an even higher state of wakefulness).

First, Modafinil and coffee increase wakefulness through separate mechanisms.

While coffee’s primary effect involves blocking adenosine receptors, Modafinil selectively increases (or decreases) the production of certain neurotransmitters in very specific parts of the brain.

Some of our test subjects felt fatigued despite taking either nootropic in isolation, yet found that coffee and Modafinil taken together gave them the enhanced cognition they were looking for.

Second, coffee and Modafinil can both increase norepinephrine production [10].

Norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter associated with arousal and wakefulness. In people who are severely deficient in norepinephrine, they can fall asleep much faster while having a more difficult time waking up.

Third, Modafinil and coffee have different pharmacokinetic properties that lead to different durations of enhanced cognition.

Caffeine has a half-life of roughly 5 hours, with its effects kicking in anywhere between 20 minutes and 60 minutes after administration. Modafinil, on the other hand, has a half-life of 12-15 hours and exerts its effects roughly 1-2 hours after taking it [11].

In other words, the peak plasma concentrations of coffee and Modafinil in the body happen 30-60 minutes and 2-4 hours after taking each nootropic (respectively).

The Best Way to Take Modafinil and Coffee Together for Maximum Cognition

After rigorous experimentation, we have developed a protocol that our test subjects say increase productive work output by 50-60% compared to a working day without any nootropics.

Here is the exact sequence and timing for dosing coffee and Modafinil together…

Take your dose of Modafinil early in the morning. 7-8am or earlier is ideal, but no later than 10am.

Ensure you have your first meal around the same time you take Modafinil. Due to Modafinil’s appetite-suppressing effects, you want to have some food in your stomach so you don’t forget to get adequate nutrition later in the day.

Take your cup(s) of coffee 1-2 hours after you have taken Modafinil and sip it very slowly. We do not recommend taking any type of caffeine past 12pm as its additive alertness-promoting effects alongside Modafinil can make it very difficult to follow a normal sleeping schedule.

This protocol has allowed our test subjects to maintain high levels of productivity for 12-14 hours at a time. Additionally, the fast-acting stimulant effects of caffeine seem to complement the prolonged focus provided by Modafinil.

The Science

The mechanism behind the direct interaction of Modafinil and coffee with one another remains a mystery.

However, several studies have been done examining the outcome of taking both smart drugs at the same time.

Benefits

Both Modafinil and coffee have been shown to reduce fatigue in sleep-deprived individuals.

In one study examining both nootropics in healthy adults who were sleep-deprived for 54.5 hours, Modafinil and caffeine helped the subjects restore wakefulness when they were the most exhausted [12]:

“The extent to which modafinil and caffeine reverse fatigue effects (defined as performance decrements with time on task) during total sleep deprivation was investigated. “…Modafinil 400 mg attenuated fatigue in a manner comparable to that seen with caffeine 600 mg; these effects were especially salient during the circadian nadir of performance (06:00 through 10:00)”

The combination of coffee and Modafinil may enhance emotional intelligence.

Another study published in 2009 wanted to examine another aspect of smart drugs: Emotional perception and judgment.

While Modafinil and coffee can clearly overcome deficits in vigilance induced by sleep loss, scientists were unsure how more complex cognitive processes would be affected.

Here is what they found in patients who had not slept for 47 hours [13]:

“For simple affective faces, neither sleep loss nor stimulant medications made any difference on the accuracy of judgments. In contrast, for complex emotion blends, all three stimulant medications significantly improved the ability to discriminate subtle aspects of emotion correctly relative to placebo, but did not differ from one another”

Modafinil and coffee can potentially alleviate the increased sensitivity to pain caused by loss of sleep.

Boston’s Children Hospital examined the use of stimulants instead of pain-relieving medications to reduce the severity of pain in sleep-deprived mice.

The results were completely unexpected and led to new implications for pain management [14]:

“Surprisingly, common analgesics like ibuprofen did not block sleep-loss-induced pain hypersensitivity. Even morphine lost most of its efficacy in sleep-deprived mice.” “…In contrast, both caffeine and modafinil, drugs used to promote wakefulness, successfully blocked the pain hypersensitivity caused by both acute and chronic sleep loss. Interestingly, in non-sleep-deprived mice, these compounds had no analgesic properties.”

Modafinil and coffee may be used to break the devastating sleep-pain cycle: Increased pain leads to difficulty with sleep, which leads to sleep loss that induces further pain and disrupts sleep even more.

Modafinil and coffee can enhance complex decision making

There are few games that possess the sheer complexity and difficulty of chess, especially when played at the highest levels.

An interesting study examined the use of 400 mg caffeine and 400 mg of Modafinil separately to examine how they would affect performance across thousands of chess games [15]:

“…[Modafinil and caffeine] significantly increased average reflection time per game compared to placebo resulting in a significantly increased number of games lost on time with all three treatments. …Only when controlling for game duration as well as when excluding those games lost on time, [Modafinil] enhanced chess performance as demonstrated by significantly higher scores in the remaining 2876 games compared to placebo.”

In other words, Modafinil and coffee led to decisions that were made after considerable reflection. This debunks the idea that both nootropics lead to rash decision-making and ill judgment.

Side Effects

Can you drink coffee while taking Modafinil without any adverse events whatsoever? The answer is no, as neither smart drug is perfect.

There are some side effects that are worsened when coffee and Modafinil are taken in high doses too frequently…

Dehydrated Eyes & Mouth

Modafinil and coffee are known as diuretics — substances that rid your body of water and can make you feel dehydrated [16, 17].

Many first-time users to either drug, or the combination of both, often experience dehydration in the form of dry eyes and/or mouth.

The easiest solution to alleviating this side effect is to drink much more water than usual. If you’re combining coffee and Modafinil together, drinking 2-4 liters of water a day would be a reasonable way to counteract their diuretic effects.

Headache

A Modafinil headache is a fairly common side effect, but coffee is also believed to induce headaches due to its ability to constrict blood vessels in your brain. Once coffee’s effects wear off and blood flow increases, it can sometimes cause a headache [18].

This can be remedied by ensuring your lifestyle habits are fully optimized (clean nutrition, physical exercise, regular sleeping hours). In some cases, you may need to abstain from the combination of coffee and Modafinil for a few days.

Higher Blood Pressure

As central nervous system (CNS) stimulants, Modafinil and coffee increase the activity of your body’s sympathetic nervous system. There is a slight connection between Modafinil and elevated blood pressure, and this same connection also exists with regular caffeine use.

Therefore, combining the two may lead to even higher increases [19].

The good news is that you do not need to worry about this unless you have existing cardiovascular problems.

Abstaining from the combination of both nootropics for a few days is usually more than enough to eliminate this unwanted side effect.

Anxiety

For some nootropic users, Modafinil and caffeine may simply be too much in terms of the cognitive boost they provide in isolation. Taking both smart drugs at the same time may potentially increase anxiety levels, stress levels, and jitteriness even further [20]:

“Most notably, a significantly higher percentage of the caffeine group reported symptoms of nervousness, excitation, happiness, abdominal pain, nausea, and jitteriness compared with placebo; higher nervousness, excitation, nausea, and jitteriness compared with modafinil”

Even though Modafinil did not significantly induce more jitteriness and anxiety compared to placebo in the quoted study, we know of several research subjects who have noticed this side effect while taking Modafinil.

While reducing the dosage of both nootropics may be helpful, several anonymous users on Internet drug forms suggest adding a third nootropic to the mix: L-theanine.

L-theanine is commonly taken alongside caffeine to counteract its unwanted side effects while providing its fair share of cognitive effects.

To put it another way, L-theanine can “smoothen” the focus provided by caffeine via improving sustained attention and decreasing the frequency of mind-wandering [21].

The combination of L-theanine and caffeine can also reduce the frequency of headaches and tiredness brought on by caffeine while shortening reaction time [22].

We highly recommend a 2:1 dosing ratio of L-theanine to caffeine for best results [23]. If you are taking 200 mg of caffeine throughout the day, you should also supplement with 400 mg of L-theanine.