Research

Hormonal

Short-term withdrawal (2-4 days) from caffeine restores the plasma norepinephrine response to acute caffeine ingestion during exercise, which is blunted in habitual users without withdrawal.

For habitual caffeine users, stopping caffeine for 2-4 days before an event will trigger a stronger norepinephrine spike when you take caffeine, compared to taking it while still consuming your normal amount. However, this hormonal spike does not appear to improve performance (endurance) compared to taking caffeine without withdrawal.

GoodQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
Caffeine ingestion resulted in significantly elevated plasma NE concentrations over the placebo conditions at exhaustion in the 2- and 4-day withdrawal trials, but NE levels were similar to placebo in the no-withdrawal trial.
Mary H. van Soeren et al. · Journal of Applied Physiology · 1998

Why this rating

Statistically significant difference found in a controlled trial, but small sample size.

Source

Effect of caffeine on metabolism, exercise endurance, and catecholamine responses after withdrawal

Mary H. van Soeren et al. · Journal of Applied Physiology · 1998

DOI 10.1152/jappl.1998.85.4.1493

rct · n=6Cited 186×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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