This Is How Long After Waking to Have Coffee
Coffee is an essential part of so many mornings, but timing is everything – who knew you should wait for a while after waking to drink your coffee?! While some might need that cup of joe right away, it might be time to switch up that routine and start waiting a little bit to drink your morning coffee.
It’s best to wait at least an hour after waking up before you enjoy your first cup of coffee. Drinking it immediately may interfere with the production of cortisol, which is important for regulating stress hormones and other functions in the body.
There is a lot of science that goes into why you should wait. So if you’re interested in maximizing your coffee benefits in the morning, read on to find out all the reasons why you should wait at least an hour after waking to have coffee.
Why Should You Wait
When you first wake up, it takes your whole body a little while to do the same. Yes, your organs are always working to keep you alive, but they too go through phases for rest, just like you go to bed to sleep and give yourself a mental break. It is important to know about these phases because your body’s phase affects how it processes coffee.
Your Body’s Phase
Waiting an hour after waking up ensures that your body is at the best phase to process your coffee. This is because of the cortisol production in your body during your wake-up process. Cortisol is a hormone that makes you feel alert in the morning. Drinking coffee during this phase won’t increase your “alertness” at this time.
Because cortisol causes you to wake up, caffeine isn’t necessary at this time. Caffeine consumption can cause your body to reduce the creation of this hormone. This will make you feel less alert in the morning and won’t be the best for you if you want your coffee to wake you up.
You will want to drink coffee when your cortisol production is at its lowest. This will allow the best results and give you the energy you need throughout the day. There are even other times throughout the day where you should drink a cup of coffee to maintain that energy.
Tolerance
If you try to use caffeine to replace the hormone cortisol, yes, it may work initially, but your body will soon gain a tolerance for caffeine. This means that you will need more coffee to wake you up, and eventually, coffee won’t help with this.
This also may make you feel more tired in the long run. When you drink coffee during cortisol production, your body will realize that you do not need as much cortisol because the caffeine is doing the hormone’s job. Eventually, your body won’t produce as much cortisol, and you won’t feel as awake as you did before.
Are There Other “Better” Times for Coffee?
Yes! Your body goes through different phases of cortisol production. It doesn’t just sit around with an open gate of cortisol pouring through it all day long. No. There are different times of the day you can drink coffee to optimize its benefits.
These other times to drink coffee for its peak benefits are usually around noon and 6 pm. This is for those who live a normal workday of 8 am to 5 pm. This could change if you work odd hours. Cortisol levels can also be affected by other sources, which will affect how caffeine and coffee work for you.
You never want to drink coffee thirty minutes to an hour before bed because this can make it difficult for you to sleep. The caffeine will give you a boost and can disrupt the feeling of being tired. Prolonging your sleep cycle will also mess up your cortisol phases.
What Is the Best Amount of Coffee?
What time you drink coffee is important to get the best benefits, but so is the amount. Moderation is often key in anything you consume. This is true for coffee as well. Too much can be detrimental to your health short term and long term.
Coffee can be a great asset to your diet and has many benefits. It has been said that drinking up to 5 cups of coffee is a safe amount with the understanding that each cup is only 8 ounces and no more. So you can’t get that venti five times a day without that not being within a healthy amount.
This doesn’t include the additives like milk, creamer, sugar, and other ingredients. Those can make your coffee unhealthy if you add too much. When you add sugary products, your coffee can become quite unhealthy. Black coffee is the best, but, understandably, we all have our sweet side.
What Happens with Too Much Coffee?
There is such a thing as too much coffee. Sorry coffee lovers. But an excessive amount of coffee does have negative side effects. The biggest being that you will gain a tolerance against the “wake up” feeling you get when drinking coffee, and that’s one of the reasons many people start their day with it.
There are other side effects that you can experience if you drink too much coffee. Here are some of those:
- Increased heart rate
- Increased or high blood pressure
- Anxiety
- Headaches
- Inability to go to sleep
Too much of anything can be harmful to anyone. The key is moderation when it comes to consuming food or drinks. Coffee is no exception.
Why Is Coffee Good for You?
Although there can be negative side effects to having too much coffee, there are many benefits when you drink a healthy amount. There are so many benefits that it is better to drink coffee than not. But everyone has their preference.
That being said, here are the many benefits to drinking coffee:
- Decreases risk for diseases and cancer
- Decreases inflammation
- Protects your liver
- Longer life expectancy
Decreases Risk for Diseases And Cancer
It has been proven that coffee can prevent or reduce the risk of many different diseases and cancer as well as protects you from them. These diseases and cancers include:
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Parkinson’s disease
- Colon cancer
- Heart disease
- Kidney disease
- Diabetes
Amazingly enough, coffee can help strengthen your DNA. Which only helps with your health to fight against diseases and cancer. It also helps reduce the degradation of your DNA that happens over time to live longer and have a longer quality of living.
It also helps your heart to pump blood, reducing heart disease. Caffeine has been seen to help control Parkinson’s symptoms as well as protects from getting Alzheimer’s as well as dementia.
Coffee has also been found to help process the sugar you eat. This reduces your risk of getting Type 2 diabetes which is not genetic like Type 1 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes can be rid of a proper diet. This is great news for those who are more susceptible to get Type 2 diabetes!
Last but not least, it has been found that women are less likely to develop colon cancer if they drink coffee. Researchers found that it reduced the risk of colon cancer by 26 percent!
With all these benefits, who wouldn’t want to drink a little coffee. Amazingly, it has such qualities!
Decreases Inflammation
Caffeine has been known to help reduce inflammation and swelling. This is why you see caffeine in some pain medications or menstrual pain relief medicine.
It has been found to block an immune cell that causes inflammation. This may sound bad, but it helps calm down the immune system, so it doesn’t go into overdrive, causing chronic inflammation.
Because of this quality, this is how caffeine helps reduce heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer’s, which are all inflammatory conditions.
Protects Your Liver
When you drink coffee, whether it has caffeine or not, you are more likely to have a healthy amount of liver enzymes. Liver enzymes are important for chemical reactions in the body. They also help filter proteins and chemicals for your blood in a sense.
In the end, this can help protect from infections as well as liver disease! Another one for the books.
Longer Life Expectancy
Of course, with all these benefits, you are more likely to live longer. Your quality of life will also be better longer which is very important!
What Is the Best Way To Drink Coffee?
Although coffee can provide all these amazing benefits, those benefits can be counteracted with anything you add to the coffee. These added ingredients can make your coffee unhealthy. Many ingredients that are used are:
- Creamer
- Sugar
- Whipped cream
- Sauces or syrups
- Milk
These are all okay in moderation, but if you add too much, it can have negative effects. One reason for this is the sugar content. Sugar can cause inflammation in your body. This is why soda is not a great drink to get a caffeine fix.
When you increase the sugar in your coffee, the caffeine may block some immune cells for inflammation, but the sugar causes more of those cells to be created. This is counterintuitive.
But there are many alternatives you can choose from! Here are some alternatives to your ingredients:
| Ingredient | Replace with… |
| Creamer | Use creamers made with less sugar or made from nuts or soy. |
| Sugar | Try to use less sugar with each cup to get used to the taste. |
| Whipped Cream | Try for coconut whipped cream or removing it altogether. |
| Sauces or syrups | Vanilla extract, cacao |
| Milk | Skim milk or milk made from nuts or soy |
Milk, creamers, and whipped creams made from nuts or soy often have less sugar than milk, creamers, and whipped creams made from cow’s milk and oil. If you don’t like the taste of milk from nuts or soy, you can always try to reduce the ingredients so that you aren’t consuming too much.
With sugar, I necessarily wouldn’t replace the sugar with zero-calorie or artificial sugars because it has been shown to have negative effects on your body. Natural sugars are more beneficial than artificial ones. But you can try to reduce your intake or just make sure you don’t consume too much sugar throughout the day.
Moderation is always key when it comes to ingredients and drinks. Finding what range is safe to consume in moderation is an important aspect.
Final Thoughts: How Long After Waking To Have Coffee?
Coffee has a lot of benefits to help you throughout the day. For the maximum benefit from it, make sure to wait that hour after waking. This will give you better lasting effects, and you won’t build up a tolerance as quickly to the caffeine! We don’t want that happening.
