Nite Nite Coffee Lovers

Do you have trouble sleeping after drinking coffee? 

The caffeine may be the reason - but maybe not the way you think.

Many know that it's stupid to drink coffee before bedtime. It's simply impossible to fall asleep. But why is that?

Caffeine is a stimuli that makes you alert, it’s true, but what scientists now have come up with is that it actually disrupt your internal clock.

The study, in Science Translational Medicine, showed that a double espresso three hours before bedtime, delayed production of sleep hormone melatonin by about 40 minutes.

The study consisted of two parts. In one, cells in a bowl were exposed to caffeine, and then scientists calculated how this changed their ability to keep time. It turned out that the caffeine could change the chemical clock that tick in each cell in the human body.

In the second part, volunteers were to eat a caffeine tablet and then be exposed to different degrees of light. In strong light, the effect of caffeine was found to be half as strong as in low light.

Drinking coffee at the right time can help people adapt faster to jet lag, which is because the body's clock is out of sync with the local time zone.

But how much coffee affects, differs from person to person. Those who have sleep problems should avoid coffee from late afternoon or early evening. After three hours the caffeine will kick in.

I'm a true coffee lover myself, but since I started to exchange my evening cup to tea or hot chocolate, my sleep has improved, at least in the sense that I fall asleep faster, and that's good if you suffering from chronic pain and usually wakes up several times later in the night, like I always do. Everything that can prolong my sleep duration is worth gold.

...and hot chocolate is yummy too....

xoxo