This disorder falls under the heading “Caffeine-Related Disorders,” but in a new guide, that section includes a new entry: “caffeine withdrawal.”
May 31/New York/Time -- According to a new edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM, or in this case, DSM-5), that sort of excessive caffeine intake can lead to a condition known as “caffeine intoxication,” except it is nothing like the sort of blissful stupor generally associated with that other sort of intoxication.
Someone who has had more than 250 mg of caffeine (2-3 cups of brewed coffee) and experienced five or more of the following symptoms, says the guide, has probably been caffeine-buzzed: restlessness, nervousness, excitement, insomnia, flushed face, diuresis (having to pee a lot), gastrointestinal disturbance, muscle twitching, rambling flow of thought and speech, tachycardia or cardiac arrhythmia, periods of inexhaustibility or psychomotor agitation (unintentional motion, say rapidly bouncing one leg).