Coffee and Sleep - How to do it.
How to keep enjoying your coffee and still have a good night’s sleep
Originally posted on the Sleep Like a Boss Blog
Pour-over or a french press? Espresso, Latte or Americano?
Coffee is claimed to be protective for your brain, your liver and may even prevent Type 2 Diabetes. It gives us energy and can enhance performance.
That’s why a lot of us love it!
Is it ok to drink coffee if you want to sleep well at night? How does coffee affect our sleep? Is there a way to enjoy both - coffee and restful sleep?
Let me provide a bit of background to understand the mechanisms of caffeine on the body and sleep.
How does the body generally know when to sleep?
The body follows a 24-hour inner clock that signals wake and sleep times - our circadian rhythm. The light from sunrise and sunset set this inner clock and it signals the body to release cortisol - the awake hormone in the morning and melatonin - the sleep hormone - later in the day and into the night
The second thing the body needs is so-called sleep pressure -
a feeling of relaxation and drowsiness.
How does caffeine affect cortisol and melatonin?
Caffeine raises cortisol and cortisol is our stress or “awake” hormone.
We need cortisol to get energy and make it through the day. Our cortisol normally peaks about two hours after we wake up, and then it gradually declines throughout the day.
In the late afternoon or early evening, melatonin (our sleep hormone) production kicks in. Cortisol and melatonin are partners. Their ups and downs need to be aligned in order for us to sleep well.
So, when you wake up and have your coffee at 6:30 am, your body will increase its cortisol production because of the caffeine to its peak. So your body will think it is 8:00 or 8:30 am based on the amount of cortisol you have in your body, while it is actually only 6:30 am. That can mess up our body's clock, and cause issues with energy management during the day.
How do we build sleep pressure?
This is caused by a chemical called adenosine. Adenosine builds up in your brain throughout the day.
After a good nights rest, your adenosine stores are really low and with every minute you are awake, your adenosine levels in the body build up. So the longer you are awake the higher the adenosine levels in your brain. This signals the body that it is tired and you should rest or sleep.
Adenosine concentration in the brain peaks for most people 12 to 16 hours after they’ve woken up. And that is the signal the body gives to go to sleep.
What if we now pour a cup of coffee into this process?
Caffeine levels peak in the body about 30 minutes after taking it. That is when you feel most awake and alert. Caffeine has a similar chemical structure to adenosine. It looks very much like adenosine and it attaches to the adenosine receptors on the cells in our bodies and blocks them - preventing them from doing their job.
As the day goes on, your body keeps producing adenosine to signal you that it is getting more tired and energy depleted and soon ready for resting. You don’t get that signal because the messenger (the adenosine) can’t get the message across.
While the caffeine is blocking the cell receptors, adenosine keeps building up in the body. And once the caffeine starts wearing off, the large amounts of adenosine that have collected throughout the day start rushing into the cells and give you a caffeine crash and make you want to sleep.
There are then only two ways to deal with this: sleep to decrease adenosine or give your body more caffeine to compete with the adenosine. This is what then starts the dependency cycle on caffeine.
The second impact on sleep from caffeine comes from the amount of time that caffeine stays in your system.
Depending on your body composition, your age, your weight, and how efficiently your liver is clearing caffeine, it might leave the body faster or slower.
The half-life of caffeine is between 5 and 8 hours. This means that 50% of the caffeine of that coffee you drank 5 or 8 hours ago is still in your system right now.
Let’s say you had an espresso after dinner at 7 pm. At 1 am - maybe even 3 am in the morning 50% of that caffeine is still in your system blocking the adenosine from doing its job which is to make you sleepy.
Ok, you say, that is why I only drink decaf later in the day. Great, just be aware: decaf is not caffeine free. You still get plenty of caffeine. And a lot of people feel safe about this and have more decaf than regular coffee and it adds up.
With this mechanism explained it might help you understand that the 4 or 5 pm coffee at work just to be alert in traffic on the way home does work on your alertness, but also has a negative impact on your sleep.
A study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine showed that participants who were given caffeinated drinks like coffee or tea immediately before bed, 3 hours and 6 hours before bed all had a negative impact on their sleep.
Interestingly, the people who had coffee 6 hours before bed personally felt no effect on their sleep, but on a sleep monitor it was shown that they sleep quality was compromised and they had actually lost 1 hour of sleep throughout the night compared to the days were they didn’t have any caffeine.
Over time this can add up to significant sleep deprivation.
If you wake up not feeling refreshed in the morning even though you thought you slept long enough, it is likely that some of the adenosine is still in your system from the previous day’s coffee making you feel groggy in the morning. And then you reach for the next cup of coffee to block your adenosine and wake you up …
Here are some tips to avoid this vicious cycle:
1.Don’t have coffee on an empty stomach
To avoid an unnatural cortisol spike at the wrong time of day, make sure you have your breakfast and then have your first coffee around 8:00, 8:30 in the morning.
2. Level up your coffee
Caffeine can send our blood sugar on a roller coaster ride. We want to avoid blood sugars spikes and dips because every time that happens, it causes a cortisol reaction. If our blood sugar is not stable throughout the day, it will not be stable at night either.
If you wake up in the middle of the night, it's highly likely that your blood sugar is too low. When your blood sugar drops, cortisol production increases, and you will wake up and might not be able to go back to sleep for a while. In order to have your coffee and keep your blood stable, you can add MCT oils, grass-fed butter, collagen or ghee oil .
3. Eat regularly
Also, make sure to eat enough throughout the day. Coffee is an appetite suppressant and if you're drinking a lot of coffee, make sure that you eat enough as well. Otherwise your blood sugar will go on a roller coaster ride and you will be craving more coffee and sweets.
4. Do not drink coffee after 2 PM
Have a coffee curfew and aim at your last coffee for 2 pm. That way the body has enough time to clear the caffeine from your system before you go to bed.
And then, whenever you have that afternoon craving for a cup of coffee or your energy levels are crashing, listen to your body.
What do you really need? Is it coffee, or is it a nutritious meal, a five-minute walk, or a big glass of water?
