Caffeine: How much is too much?

Caffeine has its perks, but it can pose problems, too. Find out how much is too much and if you need to curb your consumption.

If you rely on caffeine to wake you up and keep you going, you aren't alone. Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system, alleviating fatigue, increasing wakefulness, and improving concentration and focus.

When to consider cutting back

For most healthy adults, moderate doses of caffeine — 200 to 300 milligrams (mg), or about two to four cups of brewed coffee a day — aren't harmful. But some circumstances may warrant limiting or even ending your caffeine routine. Read on to see if any of these apply to you.

You drink 4 or more cups a day

Although moderate caffeine intake isn't likely to cause harm, too much can lead to some unpleasant effects. Heavy daily caffeine use — more than 500 to 600 mg a day — may cause:

• Insomnia
• Nervousness
• Restlessness
• Irritability
• Stomach upset
• Fast heartbeat
• Muscle tremors

Even a little makes you jittery

Some people are more sensitive to caffeine than are others. If you're susceptible to the effects of caffeine, just small amounts — even one cup of coffee or tea — may prompt unwanted effects, such as restlessness and sleep problems.

How you react to caffeine may be determined in part by how much caffeine you're used to drinking. People who don't regularly drink caffeine tend to be more sensitive to its negative effects. Other factors may include body mass, age, medication use and health conditions such as anxiety disorders. Research also suggests that men are more susceptible to the effects of caffeine than are women.

French village of Allouville-Bellefosse

The Oak Chapel of Allouville-Bellefosse

It is like something out a fairy tale or perhaps a Tim Burton film.  Yet the oak tree in the small French village of Allouville-Bellefosse is not a figment of the imagination or, indeed, an old film set.  A staircase spirals around its twisted trunk but neither is this an everyday tree house.  Instead of a dwelling place atop or amongst its branches the visitor will discover that the interior holds the secret of this ancient oak.

Within there are two small chapels, which are to this day used as places of worship by the local people.  How old the tree is exactly is the subject of some debate but it is without doubt the oldest known tree in France.  While it has persevered the centuries, others have come and gone but Chêne Chapelle (Oak Chapel) has remained.

It was growing when France became a truly centralized kingdom under Louis IX in the thirteenth century.  It survived the ravages of the Hundred Years War with the English.   The Black Death, the Reformation, the Revolution and the time of Napoleon all came and went as it spread its branches.

Local folklore places the time at which the acorn first took root as a thousand years ago. They maintain that William the Conqueror said prayers at its base before he went off to thrash the Anglo-Saxons near a small seaside town called Hastings. Yet tree experts put the real age of the tree at around 800, which puts its roots firmly in the thirteenth century.

As such it is still a wood-framed mirror to the history of modern France and of course each country has its disasters. Catastrophe occurred for the oak in the late 1600s.  It was nearing 500 years in age when one stormy night it was struck by lightning. A bolt with a temperature approaching 30,000 °C pierced the magnificent tree to its heart.

Yet instead of dying, something astonishing happened.  The fire within burned slowly through the center and hollowed the tree out. Perhaps it should then have simply slowly rotted away, but each year new leaves would form and the tree would produce acorns in abundance. In those religious times it was not long before the miraculous tree gained some pious attention.

The local Abbot Du Detroit and the village priest, Father Du Cerceau, determined that the lighting striking and hollowing the tree was an event that had happened with holy purpose. So they built a place of pilgrimage devoted to the Virgin Mary in the hollow.  In later years, the chapel above was added, as was the staircase.

The chapels are called Notre Dame de la Paix (Our Lady of Peace) and the Chambre de l'Ermite (Hermit's Room).  On August 15 of each year it is still a site of pilgrimage for local Christians.  However, the tree had at least one moment of peril after the original lightning strike.

The need to survive sometimes precipitates change. During the Revolution the tree became an emblem of the old system of governance and tyranny as well as the church that aided and abetted it.   Le Chêne chapelle was to experience its own terror.  A crowd descended upon the village, intent on burning the tree to the ground. 

However, a local whose name is lost to history had an inspired thought – as sometimes people do when they have to think at a speed approaching light.  He renamed the oak the temple of reason and as such it became a symbol of the new ways of thinking. It was thus spared the lightning strike of political revolution.

Of course, a tree this old cannot go on forever and Chêne chapelle is showing its age.  Poles must shore up its weight where it once it bore its own, like a giant stretching. Wooden shingles have been used to cover areas of the tree which have lost their bark.  Yet as much care and diligence is given to the tree as can be, to ensure that it lives on as long as possible even though part of its trunk is already dead. Yet twice a year its loyal congregation gathers and mass is celebrated within the confines of this remarkable chapel of oak.

Vietnam Crazy House

Vietnam Crazy House

When an individual has a vision then often the only way to get any peace of mind is to go for it – no matter what anyone else might think.  So it was with Vietnamese architect Dang Viet Nga (pictured left). Her dream was to create a house like no other in the world.

Against all the odds, she succeeded.

The Crazy House as it was soon known is in fact called the Hang Nga guesthouse. Situated in the city of Da Lat in the Lam Dong Province of Vietnam, the house began life as a personal project, something which simply had to be done. It was not intended for life as a hotel or a tourist destination in its own right. 

Once complete its true potential became evident. The city itself was built as a tourist spa in the 1890s.  Now it had a unique guest house of its own too. Of course, it had cost a lot of money to create and it was the financial burden of building and keeping up the house that persuaded its creator to open it to the public.

As well as more often than not being referred to as crazy, the house takes much of its inspiration from fairy tales.  It looks like a giant tree – somewhere in-between of Tolkien and Disney with more than a dash of Gaudi and Dali thrown in for good measure.

Natural forms abound through the house – more often than not in the form of animals, such as the giraffe and the bear.  Spider webs and cobwebs compete for space in this organic complex. The opposite of rectilinear, the guest house has a bewilderingly maze like feel to it.  If Uncle Walt had taken LSD then he may well have come up with something like this.

Although the creator of the house, Dang Viet Nga trained as an architect she created her final, ultimate fantasy without the aid of any regular architectural strategy (such as blueprints!). Rather she produced painting which reproduced his vision of the place. Then she hired local artisans and crafts people to make her mind’s images come to life.

The ‘tree’ at the center of it all is inspired by the local banyan, a fig tree which grows upon a host, enveloping it slowly but surely with its roots.  To mirror the chaos of nature, the windows too are uneven and there are few if any right angles to be found in the structure.

It is not an easy place to describe. The local People’s Committee, rather nonplused by the building, refers to it as expressionist in their literature.  The local government was against the building for many years, worried about the safety of its structure, not to mention the aesthetics. Da Lat is renowned for its elegant French style villas and boulevards. The Crazy House didn’t quite fit in to their idea of what buildings should look like in this attractive town.

Yet Nga succeeded and eventually the authorities let her have her way. Somewhat Tardis-like, the guest house contains no less than ten themed apartments with each having an animal for its subject. There is a room devoted to the tiger, one for the kangaroo and another for the eagle to name but a few.  Nga, the architect, envisioned them as an homage to the various nationalities that stay there.

For example, the eagle room (above) represents Americans – people Nga describes as big and strong (and who pay around thirty US dollars per person per night to stay here).  On the other hand, there is an ant room for Nga’s own nationality, the Vietnamese and this portrays their hard working characteristics. Nga was often called the mad woman of Da Lat, an appellation to go hand in hand with her crazy house. Perhaps she was not so crazy after all.

Germany Happy Rizzi House

Germany The Happy Rizzi House

You can only imagine the coughs and splutters from certain more traditional quarters when the idea for the Happy Rizzi House was first mooted to the council of a historical German city.

SpongeBob SquarePants might be happy taking up residence inside its day-glo walls but some of the elders of the ancient German city of Brunswick (Braunschweig in German) were most certainly not amused. Worse still, the planners wanted it to be placed in the city’s most historic area, the Magni quarter. Many were agog that this outrageous idea could even be proposed, let alone accepted.

Yet 15 years later the Happy Rizzi House is part of the city’s landscape and most denizens of Brunswick would be loathe to see it torn down. Just as Saint Paul’s in London was derided when it was first built for being a veritable blot on the landscape and then first slowly accepted then finally adored, the Happy Rizzi House is now a cherished part of Brunswick.

The idea for the Rizzihaus was first proposed during a conversation between artist James Rizzi and gallery owner Olaf Jäschke. Within months the plans had been made and the planning permission given. Architect Konrad Kloster came on board the project and it then took two years to build this remarkable collaboration.

Rizzi, an American pop-artist who died in December 2011, was most famous for his 3D artwork and this is probably his largest piece.  American readers of a certain age may remember him best for his artwork for the cover of the Tom Tom Club's first album (they were an offshoot of Talking Heads).

A riot of colors, shapes and body parts, this is maximalism taken to, well, the max. Rizzi, who was worshiped in Germany as something of a pop art idol, truly pulled out all the artistic stops on the project. No wonder Rizzi was often described as Picasso meets Hanna-Barbera - it is art that can be taken quite seriously while being deliriously absurd at the same time.

The Happy Rizzi House, at first disparaged and scorned by many as infantile and architecture which would bring the town of Brunswick in to disrepute. One does have to nod to the detractors – this house may not have worked in a city said to have been founded in the ninth century. Yet it does, gloriously and happily.

It is now seen as a kind of border.  On one side is the hectic and very twenty first century business sector of the city. On the other lies the tranquil historical district. For all its exuberant silliness, the Happy Rizzi House is something which will still raise a smile in a hundred years.