When is the best time of day to drink coffee?

When is the best time to drink coffee? (Not when you roll out of bed – sorry).

coffee-cup
Knowing when to have your caffeine fix can have a huge impact on your body’s energy levels.

There is a lot of debate surrounding coffee – is it good for you, or bad? Coffee has been shown to reduce the risk of diabetes and it’s a metabolism booster, but it can also cause severe adrenal depletion that leads to mood swings, fatigue and anxiety.

For a lot of people, the only effect of coffee they really care about is its ability to wake them up in the morning. You can improve your relationship with coffee just by ensuring you drink it at the right time and drink less of it. New research suggests our growing tolerance to caffeine is because we’re drinking it at the wrong time of day.

The circadian clock is a 24 hour hormone cycle that tells our bodies when to sleep, when to wake up, and when to eat. Part of this cycle is the production of cortisol, a hormone that makes you feel alert and awake. When cortisol production is at its peak you will naturally feel awake and ready-to-go.

Because most of us drink the same amount of coffee every morning during this cortisol peak, when our bodies don’t actually need an energy hit, we become tolerant to caffeine over time.

So when should you be drinking your morning coffee? Cortisol in fact peaks between 8-9am, so you should be holding out to have your first cup between 9.30-11.30am. Doing this will mean you can still rely on that caffeine buzz to get you through your morning, but without needing to drink too much caffeine.

It’s a quick and easy solution to decrease your caffeine intake without decreasing its effects. Your cortisol levels also peak between 12-1pm and 5.30-6.30pm, so if you need an additional coffee to help you through the afternoon, try drinking it between 1.30-5pm, when it’ll have the biggest effect.

Caffeine is a significant part of many people’s days, but as Bondi Beauty has looked at in the past it’s not the healthiest way to start your day. Try cutting down on your caffeine by drinking a smaller coffee later in the morning.

Yelp has recently released a list of the 100 top coffee shops in Australia, here are the top 5 in Sydney:
1. Single Origin Roasters, Surry Hills
2. Circa Espresso, Parramatta
3. Social Brew, Pyrmont
4. Brewtown Newtown, Newtown
5. The Steam Engine, Chatswood

Ally Bodnaruk

Ally enjoys long books and large coffees. She spends most of her time daydreaming about new places to travel instead of writing, and the rest of it daydreaming about all the things she’d like to write.

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