Is this really true? I know people who drink moderate amounts (1 cup of coffee daily) for cognitive boost. Also, this would equate caffeine pills to being essentially worthless. If there is a recovery period needed to regain the acute effects, how long is the recovery period? I think I can safely say a month from personal experience, but I suppose it is likely much shorter...I just don't consume caffeine much anymore.
Does Modafinil build up the same tolerance?
Sadly, it pretty much meshes with what I found after gathering the best performance studies involving caffeine I could find, and then throwing out any which didn't first screen for normal use. A sizable majority of the studies out there wound up showing those performance gains 'after' the people used to their multiple doses had gone into withdrawal. Hardly a surprise that someone going through such would perform better when the discomfort was removed. In large part caffeine is a performance enhancing drug, but the problem is that much of that increase is coming from a low which it is in fact responsible for. What was normal before the habit can suddenly become "enhanced, or high" in terms of self-perception.
Unfortunately, I did all that quite some time ago and left any copies of it, were it still saved, a country away. If I remember correctly though, slight but measurable increases and decreases in performance did show on a couple of them even when the researchers had the good sense to include daily use within their selection criteria.
Too, one has to keep in mind that we have a lot of freedom in how and when we use caffeine. Even when tolerance has set in, it can be overcome by increasing the dose. Though I'm not really familiar with the research on abnormally high doses, so whether it'd be clear sailing all the way down is just whimsical speculation. Some people can kick the habit in a couple days, and it's quite possible that people who only drink during the M-F routine might wind up with the continuous benefit. And I've never looked at any studies specifically looking at how habitual coffee drinkers, and caffeine abstainers, would fare against tiredness induced performance decreases when going by their normal and non-extrasupplemental routeines. It may very well be that caffeine, even when a tolerance has been built up, can still give better resistance to that.
As far as modafinil goes, there's not nearly enough research out there, in my opinion, to say one way or another as far as long term use goes. For the short term, as far as my 'very' superficial look into the science goes, it seems to not have the same performance decreasing effect on cessation. The length of time it remains active in the system would allow it to avoid the possibility of going into early withdrawal stages during the nights sleep, a danger very apparent with caffeine.
I really do have to try to track down at least citations I might have emailed myself. I'm getting a distinct feeling of talking out my own ass when going by somewhat fuzzy memories from far too long back.
