What is caffeine and how does it affect our ability to have a good night’s sleep?

Did you know that if you drink tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate or most soft drink you are giving your body a ‘caffeine hit’ every time you ingest it. Caffeine is one of the most widely used psychoactive stimulant drugs or mood effecting drugs used in the world today. So with 80% of people worldwide consuming coffee on a daily basis, it is not surprising that sleep disorders and insomnia are rising quickly and becoming a large health concern.

Where did it all start?

It has been documented that since the Stone Age humans have consumed caffeine in one form or the other. Stone Age people found the chewing the seeds, leaves or bark of certain plants had a stimulating affect on them as well as easing their fatigue levels. As time pasted it was discovered that if the plant was steeped in hot water the effects of caffeine increased and your hot caffeinated beverage was born.

What is caffeine?

Chemically speaking, pure caffeine is a plant-based alkaloid which stimulates our central nervous system when ingested. The chemical caffeine is found in more than 60 plants in nature in their leaves, seeds and fruit. But where is it found in the food and drink that we readily buy from any shop?

Caffeine is found in a wide variety of hot and cold drinks readily available as well as in chocolate, dairy products and some medications. Of course we all know that one of the easiest ways to get a caffeine hit is having a cup of coffee. The amount of caffeine in a coffee, even a coffee bought from the same coffee house can vary even on the same day. This is because brewing methods and roasting styles can affect the amount of caffeine in each cup. The lighter that the beans have been roasted the more caffeine they have in them.

What has caffeine in it?

In a 16oz Starbucks coffee you are going to get approximately 330mg of caffeine. This is more than the American National Institute of Health considers to be the average, or a moderate daily caffeine intake (which is about 250mg of caffeine or three 8oz cups of coffee). The American National Institute of Health considers ten 8oz cups of coffee per day is considered to be an excessive daily intake of caffeine. With this in mind we all need to ask: How much caffeine am I taking on a daily basis?

The list of products which include caffeine doesn’t stop there: sodas and energy drinks also have loads of caffeine in them. A standard can of Red Bull has 80mg of caffeine and 12oz Pepsi One has 55mg of caffeine. The list just keeps getting bigger with caffeine being found in everything from latte flavored yogurts and readily available coffee milk drink, to chocolate, tea, ice creams and pain medications and diet and study pills.

Over recent years different manufacturers have started putting caffeine into bath products. These products include shampoos and soap; and studies have found that your body starts to absorb the caffeine through the skin after approximately 2 minutes of use. This is done mainly through your hair follicles and the caffeine then reaches your blood stream.

How Caffeine affects us.

Looking through this wide list of products, it is easy to see just how readily available caffeine is in our modern society, but how does caffeine affect us? Caffeine is very similar structurally to the chemical Adenosine which occurs naturally in our bodies. Adenosine is the chemical that builds up slowly over the day and tells our body it is time to sleep. Caffeine blocks the buildup of the chemical Adenosine and by doing so our bodies are tricked into thinking we don’t need sleep.

To make matters worse our bodies quickly build up a tolerance to caffeine so that the more you drink the more you need to feel the same affect. Research has shown complete tolerance to any effects is developed after ingesting 400mg of caffeine 3 times a day for 7 days. This means that you’re now consuming a large amount of caffeine and your body will experience all the detrimental effects but none of the stimulating effect. So in order for you to feel the same buzz you need to increase your caffeine intake. Surprising isn’t it?

Caffeine from coffee and other beverages is absorbed by your stomach and small intestine within approximately 45 minutes of drinking it and the affects are very fast acting. The good news is that your body doesn’t hold or retain any caffeine in your system for a long period of time. You pass it completely through your pores and urine. Caffeine has a half-life of three to four hours, a half-life being the amount of time it takes to eliminated the caffeine in your body by one half. For example if you drink a 16oz Starbucks coffee (330mg) at 6 in the evening and then go to bed at 10pm that night you will still have approximately 165mg of caffeine in your system that is stopping you from getting a good nights sleep.

Is your Caffeine intake affecting your sleep?

If you find that you have trouble sleeping at night you might want to try reducing your daily intake of caffeine. Caffeine is addictive and leads to withdrawal symptoms when you stop consuming it. Withdrawal symptoms range from a moderate to severe headache, irritability, sleepiness and lethargy when you stop ingesting caffeine products. It is suggested that you decrease the amount slowly cutting back over a period of time. A healthy step down from coffee is green tea. Green Tea still has caffeine in it just in much smaller amounts, and is much healthier for you.

When you stop your caffeine intake you need to allow time for your body to make up its lost sleep. You might find that you require more sleep and you sleep deeper. At this point it is a good idea to give you body the time it needs to adjust to the conditions. By doing this you will sleep better and feel healthier in the long run.