[Joemoplata]

Okay, here's the deal with reference to caffeine (don't forget, I sell coffee so I know a thing or two about caffeine!)

Caffeine blocks the brains ability to receive melatonin which is one of the chemical precursors for sleep. It tells the brain "it's time to sleep". The more melatonin in the brain, the more likely you are to sleep and sleep well. So, if you have caffeine in your blood stream you CANNOT get as good of a sleep than if you had no caffeine. Tolerance is not a factor.

Caffeine has a half life of 6 hours. So, after consumption of caffeine you're looking at roughly 6 hours before it starts to lose affect and up to 12 hours for it to be processed completely. So it's a good idea not to have a lot of caffeine after, say 4, if you plan to go to bed at let's say 11:00.

Another thing about sleep that the article didn't really get into that really pertains to us as Martial Artists:

The body does more to repair and grow muscle during sleep than it does awake. When we sleep, the body releases more human growth hormones and other anabolic compounds by a factor of like 10 than while we're awake. So if you're working out hard but not getting a good nights sleep you may as well have not worked out. It would actually be WORSE for you to workout and not get good sleep than it would be not to workout.

Sleep is critical for physical recovery from a workout.