Coffee.

Known to readers of The Onion as Colombia’s “second finest export.” It’s a thing which millions of Americans “cannot live without.” In its average and immediate state of post-percolation, it is, like the life of a cynic, dark and bitter. It is also a substance that really should be avoided by the LSAT student and the meditator.

If you’re studying for the LSAT right now and are already a coffee-drinker, you know very well that not drinking coffee is an unlikely step you will take in your preparation. And if your test is in February of 2011 (or within the next three months from the time you read this) then you’re right to scoff at this advice; there’s no point in changing a long habit while studying for a test of such harrowing reputation. However, if your test isn’t for another 92 days, you should stop drinking the morning’s dark elixir immediately and suffer the five days of headaches and exhaustion. 

The reason for this is rather simple. The LSAT test day experience is between four and a half and six and a half hours long (my own LSAT experience began at noon and ended at 6:40). And depending on your tolerance of caffeine, the birth control you use, and the health of your liver, the amount of time that the caffeine’s effects will last is varied. But chances are, if you’re a regular consumer, the caffeine will last between 2-4 hours. Assuming your test center is normal and the proctor does not let beverages in the room, you will have drunk your coffee before entering the testing room and its boost will die somewhere between the end of the second section and the beginning of the third; on the outside it will last until somewhere in the middle of the last two sections after the break.

If you’re not a coffee drinker, then there is absolutely no reason for you to start. The caffeine will last exponentially longer and its primary effects will be a racing heart, a rambling mind, and the jittery-ness of a strung-out squirrel. Locating the Conclusion and Evidence in LR, Section Five, Question 23’s three-sentence stimulus so you can find the correct Assumption is not something coffee will help a caffeine-novice do.

But it will help the panic be more audible.

What all this means is that during your practice you can have coffee whenever you bloody-well please. But on test day, unless you’re your god’s favorite, you can’t even have an open bottle of water within reach…excepting the break. So, in the interest of simulating test day, nixing the coffee habit is a HUGE step in successful preparation. So is nixing gum, the preference of mechanical pencils, your aversion to coughing, and the urge to urinate. The methods of conquering these, though, will be dealt with another time.

You’ve made it this far into the post, so I’m guessing you’re at least lazily interested in a bored-mid-workday sort of way. So here’s a you-stuck-it-out tip: Releasing yourself from coffee’s shackles can be much easier if you substitute green tea.

And, oh, My Personal Lord and Savior, Kal-El, look at that serendipitous segue!

Green tea is the soft stimulant packed with health-media-hype that Zen monastics sometime use to stay awake during the many hours of zazen, sitting meditation. Whether it’s the caffeine in the beverage or the psychology of “I drank something to help me stay awake, so I will stay awake,” green tea’s effects are strong enough to assist the meditator in keeping sleep at bay and minimal enough to keep his mind from racing more than usual.

I write this knowing that something better for meditation (and the LSAT)—even better than green tea—is nothing at all. Imbibing leads to fluid in the excretory parts of the body’s system which means those parts will be following the laws of the body and sending signals to the brain, thus distracting it from following inhalations and exhalations (though distraction is a part of meditation) and identifying Question 23’s Conclusion quickly.

And in the interest of honesty, I wrote today’s post over the course of a cup of coffee. I finished my beverage and have since taken exactly two bathroom breaks on account of the drink’s diuretic properties. Coffee, like daytime television, can safely and—I think—un-hypocritically be consumed in small doses. If you’re looking for kensho, coffee has no place on the path; if you’re looking for a 177, try Maury with some green tea instead.