Caffeine & Coffee

So today my goal is to accomplish 3 things
1 Dispel some myths about caffeine
2 Tell you about the science behind it
3 Give you some tips on how to implement this into your life

Source: https://medium.com/life-hacking-2/complete-guide-on-how-caffeine-affects-our-body-and-alternatives-to-coffee-to-try-1ea75b8656

Separating Caffeine Fact from Fiction

Consuming Caffeine will burn fat - Mostly Fiction

• Caffeine mobilizes fat into fatty acids, but it’s up to you to actually do the physical activity required to burn them

Caffeine is bad for my heart - Fiction

• Caffeine is perfectly fine in most doses, only chronic overconsumption has been shown to have potential negative consequences (more on what we can define as overconsumption later)

Caffeine will keep me up at night - Fact

• Caffeine inhibits receptors that tell you when you’re tired which can cause it to be difficult to fall asleep

Alright now that we’ve got some myths out of the way let’s move on to a little more about what caffeine actually does

Caffeine Science

So what exactly does caffeine do?
Caffeine prevents the binding of adenosine in the brain. Adenosine is essentially a hormone that slows your body down when you’re tired. This also cause an increase in dopamine (pleasure) and norepinephrine (fight or flight). Norepinephrine turns out to be pretty important here as it has been shown to both decrease appetite as well as mobilize the fat from your fat cells into fatty acids that can be burned with physical activity. So caffeine has the potential to have some pretty solid effects.

But…

There are also some drawbacks to caffeine use
Caffeine can affect your hormone balance, drinking lots of caffeine while already stressed and under-rested can elevate cortisol levels which we don’t want. Cortisol has all kinds of nasty side effects.

• Weight Gain
• Mood Swings
• Anxiety

Caffeine also has the potential to decrease your sleep quality like I said earlier if you consume it too close to bedtime. In my experience, I just don’t get tired enough to go to sleep, so I end up tossing and turning.

That’s all Great, but How do I use this in my Life

1 Try to eliminate over consumption of coffee

• My opinion on the definition of overconsumption is when it starts to become something you’re overly reliant on, or you’re consistently exceeding 400-600 mg per day. (4-6 cups of coffee a day)

2 Don’t drink your coffee at night!

• Unless you’re not planning to sleep any time soon as caffeine can stay in your system for multiple hours

3 Consume some caffeine before the gym to mobilize your fat stores

4 Don’t sweat it if you down 8 cups in a day to pull an all nighter for something crazy important because at the end of the day it won’t kill you.

What’s your favorite way to get your caffeine fix?
Let me down below and let me know if you learned anything!
Thanks for reading!

My Research/Further Reading

http://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2015/11/coffee.aspx
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315611897_Review_of_Caffeine-Related_Fatalities_along_with_Postmortem_Blood_Concentrations_in_51_Poisoning_Deaths