When someone mentions ‘caffeine’, not many people have positive connotations. That’s mostly because we are used to hearing how caffeine is the reason why we stay awake even when our body needs rest and how it does not affect our health in a good way. Is it all totally true, though? We’ll find out together.
The first question we ask ourselves is ‘where does it actually come from?’. It is a substance which can be found in many plants, including cocoa-nuts, tea leaves and, most of all, coffee beans, which means you’re taking it not only when sipping your morning coffee, but also when you’re enjoying your favorite chocolate or drinking an energy drink to make it through a rough day. The list of food and drinks which contain caffeine keeps getting longer each year, and most people take it on a daily basis, it just depends on which amount.
How much caffeine is good for me?
That is actually an essential piece of information. Whether caffeine affects you or not depends on your size, diet, physical activity and the amount you ingest regularly. Most people get used to caffeine so they develop a certain tolerance for it over time. If you decide to quit on it at once, you will probably feel headaches and drowsiness, so the best way to do so is to do it step by step until you reach the consumption of 400 mg per day and less. If this happens to be more difficult than you have expected, don’t be surprised as caffeine is, in fact, an addictive drug, but we have good news for you – the addiction goes away after only 1 – 3 days, and we believe you can make it!
How does caffeine affect me? Am I an addict!?
The biggest problem regarding caffeine is the effect it has on your sleep. Half of the caffeine amount you ingest stays in your body for 6 hours, which means that if you drink a cup of coffee in the afternoon, half of the caffeine amount will stay in the system until late evening depriving your body of good night rest. You might feel the damage the next day as well, as you will be tired and you will need to stay awake, so you crave caffeine to get you out of bed. It’s a vicious circle, believe us.
Is it good for me or not?
None of the studies agree on one single conclusion. Some research points at it being beneficial, some the opposite.
Let’s get one thing straight – too much of anything can make you sick, so check out few following scientifically proven facts and decide for yourself:
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So it’s not that bad, after all?
If you don’t have problems with the intake control, it shouldn’t be dangerous. We already said that but it’s worth repeating – caffeine’s main effect is on the brain. It blocks adenosine, a neurotransmitter responsible for relaxing the brain and causing you to feel tired. Adenosine levels increase throughout the day, which is why you become more and more exhausted, and here comes caffeine to help – it connects to adenosine receptors in the brain without actually activating them and thus blocks their effects which leads to reduced exhaustion. Apart from this, in a short amount of time caffeine also increases blood adrenaline levels and stimulates a state of alertness, arousal and focus. Pretty cool, right? And it takes only 20 minutes to do all that!
All in all, we think it’s safe to say that you will be fine if you keep ingesting 400 mg and less of caffeine per day, but keep in mind that there were overdose cases with as little as 500 mg, so take care of your body and brain and pay attention to those tiny labels and declarations on the back (or bottom) of each product, they really can make a difference.