What is caffeine?
- A central nervous stimulant found in coffees, teas, energy drinks, sodas, chocolate and some over-the-counter medications.
- Temporarily increases alertness, attention, energy, blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration.
- Caffeine may be helpful in the short-term to increase alertness and energy, but it can have negative effects on sleep.
How does caffeine negatively affect your sleep?
- Caffeine reaches its peak effect within about 1 hour of consumption, but it takes longer to break down in your body. The duration of action of a medication or drug is called its half-life – how long it takes for half of it to be eliminated from your body. The half-life of caffeine is long – 6 hours.
- So, this means, if you take a Five Hour Energy® at 6pm, 50% (or 100mg) of the caffeine is still in your system at midnight. This is equivalent to taking a shot of espresso at midnight.
- Caffeine in your system makes it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. Your sleep on caffeine may be more shallow and the quality of your sleep may be poor.
Your body’s caffeine crash
- A compensatory response: As your body eliminates caffeine, it needs to compensate for the effects of the drug to bring your body back into balance and return you to your baseline. Since caffeine increases alertness, your body brings you back into balance by decreasing alertness, which at some point is lower than your baseline.
So, at some point following caffeine consumption, you are LESS ALERT than before you had the caffeine.
How to keep caffeine from affecting your sleep
- Try to stop caffeine use in the evening. If you need to drink something to maintain alertness, try caffeine-free teas or ice-cold water (still or sparkling).
- If you have to use caffeine to stay awake temporarily, bear in mind that it can take an hour or more to take effect and that the effects will last for some time.
- If you have trouble sleeping possibly due to caffeine use, try any of the following:
- Decrease your overall caffeine consumption. Use the calculator tool to experiment. “Decaf’ beverages can be a good option, although remember these still contain some caffeine.
- Avoid caffeine after 12pm.
- Avoid caffeine altogether.
Sources:
