I was rudely awoken by a kick in the lay-z-boy I’d called a bed for the last few hours. The paramedics were back, and the one to whom belonged the offending foot handed me a peace offering before I could utter a word of protest.
“Here’s your coffee!” he said, with more cheer than one had the right to have at this time of the night. Grunting an incomprehensible “thanks”, I grabbed the lukewarm paper-cup and cradled it with love in my hands. We were halfway through the night, and with some luck all we needed to do was fly home from where we were, and sleep off the rest of the night. In the spirit of ushering said sleep faster when we got back to base, I asked the paramedics to grab me a fresh cup of decaf coffee on their way back from the hospital. I guess our loving paramedics had a different idea of what my priorities should be.
Halfway through the flight home, the intercom chime rang softly in the cockpit, indicating an open channel request by the team in the back. Rubbing sleep off my eyes, I acquiesce. “Hey! By the way, how was your coffee?” “It was… warm” I answer. I love my coffee piping hot. But in the cold night of winter, warm was as good as I’d get. “Oh good. We were afraid it’d taste different. We had them pour you a cup of regular coffee with an extra shot of espresso. Wouldn’t want you falling asleep on us now, would we?”
And with that, I knew I could kiss the rest of my night’s sleep good-bye. I couldn’t fault them, really. Still to this day I still remember the prank and that sweet, sweet blissful sleep I missed that night.
That being said, when it comes to coffee and the likes, not every caffeine, or metabolism for that matter, is the same. Everyone is different, and we all react to stimulants differently. Yet, it is good to know their values and properties, so as to make a more informed decision when using them to promote alertness. Let’s explore the more popular ones.
Stimulants
Before going deeper into stimulants – more precisely coffee and tea and other caffeine sources, it is important to understand how caffeine itself works. Contrary to a common misconception, a good cuppa’ Joe does nothing to actually stimulate your brain. Instead, it acts more as a “drowsiness inhibitor”.
Scientifically speaking, as the day progresses, during every waking moments your neurons work without stopping. As those neurons fire, they create a by-product called adesonine. Your nervous system, in turn, continuously monitors your adesonine levels through receptors. As your levels of adesonine increase and reach a certain point in your brain, your body will start feeling the effects of drowsiness, urging you to sleep or rest.
This is the point where a person typically feels the urge to hunt down a fresh, hot cup of coffee or tea and indulge in its effects. But how does it work? Caffeine occurs in all kinds of plants, and chemicals relative of caffeine can even be found in your body. But taken in larger amounts – your typical 100mg that comes in a strong, heart-warming 8oz cup of coffee for example – it becomes an almost perfect adesonine impersonator.
Once ingested, caffeine takes about 20 minutes to make its way to the brain, where it finds your receptors and, because of its similar structure to adesonine, is accepted by the receptors as the real deal. Once there, it not only fits in but it literally binds with the receptors and blocks them, without actually activating them. This allows the brain’s own natural stimulants (dopamine and glutamate) to do their work more freely.
So caffeine doesn’t push your brain’s gas pedal down as much as it puts a block under the brake pedal so to speak. Although the effects vary in length and strength from person to person, what’s important to remember is that caffeine doesn’t act as a simple stimulant, as its effects on alertness levels are much more subtle.
The general consensus on caffeine suggests that it can enhance your work but only on certain levels. In fact, caffeine seems to have almost no effect on abstract thinking functions. However, studies have also shown caffeine to improve memory recall, or “declarative memory” – the part of your brain used to remember procedures and checklists. In other words, you can do the work you know faster, but your creative and more abstract thinking functions like decision-making remain the same.
Healthy doses of caffeine have also shown to provide various health benefits depending on its source. How is a “healthy dose” defined? According to the Mayo Clinic, consuming up to 400 mg of caffeine per day is safe for the majority of healthy adults. The US Government health website puts it equivalent at 3-5 cups a day. The dosage varies obviously, as some people may be more susceptible to the effects of caffeine, while others (pregnant women for example) should limit their input even more.
Sadly, the human body can quickly build a tolerance to caffeine, therefore reducing its beneficial effects on fatigue mitigation. That’s because of the brain’s ability to quickly produce more adesonine receptors to compensate for those blocked by the caffeine molecule. Being a highly addictive substance, caffeine will also put your body in withdrawal once you’ve become accustomed to it – which can take as little as 4 days. Once the brain and body have become accustomed to a certain dose of caffeine, the only way to regain its effects is to increase consumption.
Caffeine Intoxication
So what happens when you consume more than the recommended max of 400 mg? “Caffeine intoxication” can result in nervousness, insomnia, irritability anxiety and effects of palpitation, agitation, and tremors.
Strategize your Caffeine
So the question is, how do you benefit from caffeine without getting addicted or worse, over-indulging as your body steadily builds a defence against it?
The answer lays, as for most things, in moderation. If you have already built a tolerance to caffeine, you can “reset” your body. Once the withdrawal symptoms have disappeared (typically after 10 days or so), you can resume a carefully monitored consumption.
By resetting or preventing caffeine tolerance, a dose of about 100-200mg will produce the desired effects once again. The key is to avoid habitual caffeine consumption. Remember, caffeine takes about 20 minutes to become effective once ingested, so drinking more won’t speed up the process!
With this better understanding of caffeine and its effects, it is now possible to explore its sources, and their own benefits and draw backs.
Coffee
Coffee is probably the most widely enjoyed caffeine source. But it is also the most heavily drank! Believe it or not, an average coffee drinker consumes roughly 70 gallons of coffee a year, while a typical tea drinker drinks about 10 gallons annually! However, if you’re from New York, chances are you drink 7 times more coffee than the average North American. No wonder it’s the city that never sleeps!
That being said, here’s a few facts about a typical cup of coffee. Keep in mind that as a general rule of thumb, the longer the water stays in contact with the coffee grounds, the more caffeine content is extracted – no matter what the method.
First, caffeine can be found in 60 different plants! Coffee and tea are not the only ones. Coffee beans themselves are the berries of an evergreen plant. The roasting process of the coffee bean brings out many of its chemical values, including the caffeine content. A lighter roast contains more caffeine than a dark roast – as much as 60-90mg per serving depending on the size. Espresso contains the least of it per serving. Here are some numbers compiled by the Mayo Clinic:
| Coffee drinks | Size in oz. (mL) | Caffeine (mg) |
| Brewed | 8 (237) | 95-165 |
| Espresso | 1 (30) | 47-64 |
| Instant | 8 (237) | 63 |
| Latte or mocha | 8 (237) | 63-126 |
It’s obvious that not all cups of coffees are created equal. Bear in mind that 8oz is what is considered an “extra-small” in most coffee shops (US standard “small” cup is 12oz). Speaking of coffee shop, depending on where you like to stop for your regular fix, that fix might be more (or less) than you thought!
Health Benefits of Coffee
Aside from the previously mentioned benefits (improved memory recall, faster reflexes, and higher level of alertness) coffee also has a multitude of benefits if used with care.
It helps you burn fatty acids, increases your metabolism while curbing your appetite. Its antioxidants also help curb a few mental and heart diseases, and even helps protect from certain kinds of cancer.
Tea
The milder version of caffeine that a lot of people enjoy is the beloved tea. Made from a variety of plants, teas differs in their names and caffeine content just as much as different coffee brews do. Most of the tea consumed world-wide is black, while about 20% is green tea, leaving a small fraction to oolong tea and white tea.
As with coffee, the length of the brew will be the major determining factor in the caffeine content of a tea. With this being said, even though the overall stimulants in tea and coffee are technically identical, tea affects us in different ways.
An amino acid called L-theanine, found only in tea, reduces stress and promotes relaxation. It works with caffeine to calm the body without reducing the alertness caffeine produces. This allows tea drinkers to have the benefit of mental alertness and focus, without the jittery nervousness that caffeine is known for.
Black Tea
Boasting the strongest concentration of caffeine in the tea variety – averaging 40-60mg per 8oz serving depending on your favorite preparation technique. Providing you with just over what a shot of espresso offers, it’s the perfect way to kick-start your brain or seek the mental benefits of caffeine. It also provides similar health benefits as coffee such as heart disease prevention.
Oolong Tea
The caffeine content and antioxidant level is mid–way between that of green and black teas – an average of 30-50mg per 8oz serving – making them most healthy. Because it is also semi-oxidized during the process, oolong tea provides a higher anti-oxidant level than black tea, while tasting better than green tea (according to most!)
Green Tea
Coming in third place with its caffeine content, green tea comes just shy of black tea with an average 30-35mg per 8oz serving. But where it lacks in “oomph” it gains in a host of health benefits that only it can provide.
Rich in antioxidants, green tea has long been known to be a powerful friend for your brain. By reducing neurological damage due to oxidation, it helps protect you from brain function losses such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Anti-oxidants also slow down caffeine absorption, providing a smoother transition and longer alertness periods with no “crash”. Green tea does a lot for the rest of your body too, including accelerating fat burning and improving cholesterol levels.
White Tea
While teas are the least processed of all teas. They also release the least amounts of caffeine, between 10-15mg per 8oz serving. Because it is consumed in its most natural form, it also provides the highest amount of anti-oxidants, and has been told to also inhibit the growth of new fat cells.
Energy Drinks
Where coffee can only be called a sleep-inhibitor, energy drinks are true-to-form stimulants. The reason is that while coffee actually holds more caffeine per serving, energy drinks are instead a combination of caffeine, amino acids, vitamins and often herbs.
In comparison: (caffeine content in mg per fluid ounce)
- Starbucks Coffee: 22.5mg
- Filtered Coffee: 18mg
- Rockstar/Monster: 10mg
Sadly not much research has been done on the use and effects of energy drinks. However, there are a few important points to remember when comparing their use to a regular cup of coffee or tea:
- Most energy drink cans contain more than one recommended serving. Read the label carefully to prevent unhealthy consumption levels.
- A typical can of Monster Energy drink contains 54 grams of sugar. That’s the equivalent of 13.5 teaspoons!
- Coffee, despite the chemicals used during some of the growing or roasting process, is a mostly natural drink. Energy drinks contain a multitude of artificial preservatives, flavors and dyes.
- A cup of coffee will generally contain less than 5 calories on its own.
In conclusion, be mindful of what you drink. Stay informed, read the label and if you can’t tell what an ingredient is or will do to you, it might be a good idea to look it up before injecting it into your system. You are what you eat and drink!
Strategies
When it comes to beating the grogginess out of your head, there’s obviously many tools available, albeit some more appealing, tasty or straight out healthier than others.
But there’s more than just ingesting caffeine that you can do to help maintain higher energy levels and promote an alert mind.
The Coffee Nap
Yes! You read it right. And no, it is not an oxymoron. If you recall the previous chapter on sleep and the introduction to alternative sleep cycles. Napping is a powerful restorative tool for your nervous system and cognitive abilities. As was also mentioned, not all naps are created equal.
The optimal sleep time for a nap was determined to be 26 minutes by NASA – later to be dubbed “the NASA Nap”. A more general rule of thumb is that a 20 minutes nap provides the best boost with the least side effects, by clearing the adesonine but preventing sleep-inertia. More to the point, 20 minutes is also the time it takes for caffeine to take effect for most of us.
The coffee nap is a method which takes advantage of both these numbers to produce the best rest and benefits possible:
- Drink Coffee (Maybe an espresso or a small cup)
- Take a 20 minutes nap (Set a timer or alarm!)
- Wake up when the coffee kicks in, alert and refreshed!
Alternatives to caffeine
One more (among many) alternatives to straight out caffeine intake is managing your diet. A lot of foods naturally contain caffeine, but it is not the only thing that will provide you with energy.
The all-mighty breakfast for example is a powerful way to kick-start your day with the proper amount of energy and nutrients for both your brain and body to function at peak levels.
Protein is also a very important factor. If you’d rather not or cannot use caffeine to help get over the slump, high-protein content foods will provide you with a natural energy boost, feeding both your brain AND your muscles to provide long-lasting energy with no “crash” at the end.
QUESTIONS
- How does coffee help you remain more alert?
- By stimulating your neurons
- By blocking your brain and body receptors from the neurons’ byproduct
- By forcing your body to produce more dopamine
- By enhancing your time/space perception
- Where can you typically find the highest amounts of caffeine
- Light roast brew
- Dark roast brew
- Espresso
- Tea
- What is the maximum recommended daily caffeine intake for an average adult
- 200mg
- 400mg
- 600mg
- There is no limit
- What are the differences between tea and coffee
- Coffee provides more caffeine
- Tea provides more anti-oxidants
- Tea’s caffeine is ingested slower
- All of the above
- In your own words, describe how caffeine works in your brain, and why it can be used before
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