Sleep and coffee have been linked throughout life. You may have heard the popular saying, "The early bird catches the worm." And how many of us find that the first thing we do in the morning is have a cup of coffee? Our cultural tradition has also taught us that the best remedy for sleep is a strong cup of coffee. To stay up all night studying, I drink coffee. For that midday sleep after lunch, coffee is also drunk as an energy booster. But why does coffee really keep us awake ?
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Indeed, Caffeine is an energy producer in our body It has a direct effect on our brain, causing us to transition from a sleepy state to one of alertness, where concentration, the ability to think, and physical effort can flow. In the human body, we find an enzyme called ADENOSINE that controls this state of fatigue; specifically, caffeine attacks or replaces it to regulate our brain activity against sleep. When drinking a cup of coffee, adenosine receptors are blocked, momentarily supplementing (experts suggest approximately half an hour after drinking the coffee) the ability to regulate physical and intellectual fatigue, resulting in an energy boost that lasts between 3 to 9 hours depending on the percentage of caffeine, the amount consumed, the body of the coffee, the bitterness, and the consumer's metabolism.
A study by the University of Colorado in the United States and the Molecular Biology Laboratory of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England, states that The cause of lack of sleep when drinking coffee is that caffeine affects our internal biological clock, called CIRCADIAN. , which regulates the sleep-wake phases and tells us when to sleep and when to wake up. For example, the caffeine in a double espresso, consumed three hours before bedtime, would delay our biorhythms by 40 minutes, making it difficult for us to fall asleep.
Is it pleasant to have a cup of coffee?
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter responsible for carrying messages from neurons to cells, intervening in many processes such as movement, memory, learning, among others. It's called the happiness molecule, justifying emotionality, hence the fact that learning that contains an emotional charge lasts longer, such as memory, for example. Our childhood learning has been the basis for our development as adults, leaving aside the saying "Letters enter with blood." Now, when we drink coffee, Caffeine binds to dopamine, increasing its production and decreasing its elimination, so we feel more active, more focused, and have better motor responses. In other words, we're going to feel pleasure, like the one we feel with that first coffee of the day or that energy boost after lunch. Do those sensations sound familiar to you?
Happiness and coffee
Happiness and adrenaline often go hand in hand. For those who enjoy extreme sports, for example, skydiving from a height of x meters above sea level will generate adrenaline before, during, and after the jump, leaving that final feeling of happiness for having achieved their goal. Possibly, you've felt happiness with the smell of freshly brewed coffee and longed, savoring it in the morning, a moment of pleasure between that coffee and the sunrise, or possibly that happiness of having a fraternal encounter with the rhythm of a cup of coffee in an afternoon chat, or simply the happiness of a coffee experience on a sensorial level. All this happens thanks to the increase in brain activity generated by caffeine. Adrenaline is what causes heart rate and blood pressure to increase, which is why after a cup of coffee we feel excited and our hearts beat faster.
Not everything is rosy, It should be noted that excessive caffeine is not healthy. , all organisms are different and will not produce the same thing, as we have discussed, it combines with enzymes and in inappropriate quantities can cause arterial uncontrolled, arrhythmia and changes in the body's metabolism. In addition, it can cause an anxiety factor in our body and mind, without forgetting the addiction that can generate due to the repetitive and monotonous factor, every day at the same time needing a dose of coffee , since the greater the amount of caffeine, the greater the accumulation of adenosine, which our body wants to compensate with more coffee. Surely when you started drinking coffee it was only one a day, then two, then three, now it may be four cups a day.