Cooking and eatingEveryone knows the sage advice: no more coffee before bed. Caffeine keeps you awake, making it impossible to get a good night’s sleep if you drink coffee late. But is it really so? And does it apply to everyone? Science expert Martijn Peters is looking into it.
Starting the day with a fresh cup of coffee dates back to the 17th century, when the famous drink first arrived in Europe. Coffee is made from roasted coffee beans. They look a bit like real beans, but are actually the seeds of the coffee cherry.
The red or yellow bean grows on the coffee tree or Coffea. The most popular variety is Coffea arabica. Most of the world’s production comes from this coffee plant. Although that doesn’t mean that every cup of coffee tastes the same. There is a lot of variation possible within it. Your cup of coffee will always taste different, depending on the type of coffee bean and how you grind, roast or brew it. All of these things affect the exact amounts of the ingredients in the blend.
Can coffee cause insomnia?
One of those important components in coffee: caffeine. Most coffee lovers who seek their precious morning drink do so primarily for this substance, because caffeine increases alertness, energy and concentration.
Your body absorbs caffeine within an hour of consuming coffee. Depending on how quickly our liver breaks down caffeine, it can stay there for hours. And this can start to bother you in the evening if you want to enjoy a good night’s sleep. With caffeine in your blood, that sleepy feeling goes away.
To know exactly how caffeine affects your ability to fall asleep, it’s first important to understand how that drowsiness is caused.
Normally, the chemical adenosine binds to adenosine receptors in the brain. This slows down the activity of nerve cells, resulting in drowsiness.
Caffeine can also bind to that adenosine receptor and thus block access for adenosine. As a result, not only does the feeling of sleepiness disappear, but the production of adrenaline is also restarted at the same time. Scientific research therefore effectively demonstrates that consuming caffeine makes it more difficult to fall asleep, can reduce the total number of hours of sleep and can worsen the quality of sleep.
Sensitivity to caffeine and how quickly the body processes caffeine varies widely between individuals
How long have you felt like you’ve been drinking coffee?
How long exactly will this effect of caffeine disturb your night’s sleep? American scientists also asked themselves this question. They studied what happens if you allow someone to consume 400 mg of caffeine just before bed, 3 hours before and 6 hours before. Their results showed that caffeine up to 6 hours before bed can affect sleep quality.
Scientific research also shows that this can vary drastically from person to person. Sensitivity to caffeine and how quickly the body processes caffeine varies greatly from person to person. So it may be that you are still bouncing in your bed many hours after drinking your coffee, while someone else falls asleep easily 1.5 hours after their last cup. Then you can experiment a bit to find out what works best for you.
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