The Misconception: Coffee stimulates you.
The Truth: You become addicted to caffeine quickly, and soon you are drinking coffee to cure withdrawal more than for stimulation.
Mmmm, a warm cup of coffee with delicious cream, topped with a frothy head. You smell it brewing and feel cozy inside as you browse cakes and brownies, scones and biscotti. You get some of it in you, and you feel alive again – you feel superhuman.
Suddenly, you feel like John Nash, you can’t keep up with your own mind as geometric symbols float over the magazine articles in your lap. Someone strikes up a conversation about health care, and suddenly everything you’ve ever heard about the topic is at the tip of your tongue.
Damn, coffee is awesome. Except, of course, much of this is an illusion.
The truth is, once you’ve been drinking coffee for a while, the feeling you are getting after a cup isn’t the difference between the normal you and the super you, it’s the difference between the addict before and after a fix.
Ok, this is a very simplified explanation: Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist. This means it prevents adenosine from doing its job. Your brain is filled with keys which fit specific keyholes. Adenosine is one of those keys, but caffeine can fit in the same keyhole. When caffeine gets in there, it keeps adenosine from getting in. Adenosine does a lot of stuff all throughout your body, but the most noticeable job it has is to suppress your nervous system. With caffeine stuck in the keyhole, adenosine can’t calm you down. It can’t make you drowsy. It can’t get you to shut up. That crazy wired feeling you get when you drink a lot of coffee is what it feels like when your brain can’t turn itself off.
To compensate, your brain creates a ton of new receptor sites. The plan is to have more keyholes than false keys. The result is you become very sensitive to adenosine, and without coffee you get overwhelmed by its effects. After eight hours of sleep, you wake up with a head swimming with adenosine. You feel like shit until you get that black gold in you to clean out those receptor sites. That perk you feel isn’t adding anything substantial to you – it’s bringing you back to just above zero.
In addition, coffee stimulates your adrenal glands, which makes you feel like you could take a bullet and eat glass. When the adrenaline runs dry, you feel like you’ve been running a marathon, which leads you to look for more coffee to get those glands pumping again. After a few rides on the adrenal roller-coaster, you crash.
You might think all of this probably takes a while, but it takes about seven days to become addicted to caffeine.
Once addicted, you need more and more coffee to get buzzed as your brain gets covered in receptor sites. Neurologists report seeing patients regularly who drink two or three pots of coffee in one sitting before starting their day.
Coffee also releases dopamine, the feel-good chemical in the brain which is released when you have an orgasm, win the lottery and shoot heroin. A similar addiction cycle with dopamine leads to depression and fatigue when you aren’t hitting the beans.
Finally, caffeine takes about six hours to leave your system. So if you drink coffee six hours or less before going to bed, you won’t reach deep sleep as often. This means you wake up less rested, and need more coffee.
If you’ve been drinking coffee for a while, you aren’t getting nearly as much out of it as you did in the beginning. You are just curing an addiction.
“The take home is that regular use of caffeine produces no benefit to alertness, energy, or function. Regular caffeine users are simply staving off caffeine withdrawal with every dose – using caffeine just to return them to their baseline. This makes caffeine a net negative for alertness, or neutral at best if use is regular enough to avoid any withdrawal.”
- Neurologist Stephen Novella from his blog, Neurologica
Mind you, this is not a dependency. You will experience withdrawal symptoms upon cessation, but not like with amphetamines and cocaine. Coffee doesn’t seem to affect the dopaminergic structures related to reward, but before you breathe a sigh of relief, ask yourself how long you’ve been drinking it. Try and stop for two weeks and see how hard it is.
A cup or three will still give you pep, but as with all stimulants, over time you need more and more to reach that golden hum.
Don’t freak out, 90 percent of Americans are just like you, and you are not so smart.
You Are Not So Smart – The Book
If you buy one book this year…well, I suppose you should get something you’ve had your eye on for a while. But, if you buy two or more books this year, might I recommend one of them be a celebration of self delusion? Give the gift of humility (to yourself or someone else you love). Watch the trailer.
Order now: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - iTunes - Books A Million
Links:
Drinking coffee doesn’t make you more alert, new study shows
The effects of chronic caffeine intake on adenosine receptors
Caffeine and adenosine receptors, a genetic view
Caffeine Withdrawal A Recognized Disorder
Adenosine and caffeine at About.com
Tolerance and addiction to coffee at Wikipedia
Ridiculous. I don’t drink coffee, but I find this article uninformed and probably written by a Mormon, who is against the beverage for religious rather than health reasons. The term ‘drug’ itself is misused a lot. There are many drugs. Drugs that you take to alter your body chemistry. There are many reasons someone would take drugs to alter their chemistry. Take for example, insulin. Caffeine is probably the most stupid ‘drug’ to write an article warning that it could be addictive about…give me a break. “OH Noes! I’m addicted to COFFEE!”
If one wanted to attack a harmful beverage, sugar sodas are a much better target. Not only do they contain this dreadful ‘caffeine drug’ that seems to invoke so much fear, but are also chock full of mouth rotting sugar and calories and have absolutely no nutritional or beneficial effects at all.
There are also studies that indicate that a cup of coffee (caffeinated or decaf) is beneficial for men, helping to reduce the chance of prostate cancer. Another caffeinated beverage that is beneficial to health is tea, green, black, oolong etc. (all come from the same plant), which has caffeine, but is also very healthy.
The world is not black and white. The likelihood of coffee negatively effecting one’s life from drinking one – two cups a day is so extremely low that it really does not warrant much thought. Time could be more productively used writing about more pressing issues.
You mad?
(Note_I’m not really fluent in english, so I might do ridiculous mistakes in my messages. I’m sorry in advance)
I also have read about the health benefits of caffeine and have to agree that the term drug could seem like an exaggeration when we talk about coffee, a beverage which can be accessible for anyone. However, I do think that coffee can become a bad habit in the long run and depending of the individual. It’s not dreadful, but it can be inconvenient. For example a couple of months ago I had the habit to take a big large cup of coffee each morning: I liked the effect of boost and then the sensation of being a little tired at the end of the boost which tended to help me relax more easily (when it was appropriate – if not I would take another cup). But (and maybe it’s because I’m sensible to coffee in particular because I don’t have that problem with tea or sodas) I began to see change in my habits : I could ate way more less (which was an advantage from my point of view) but had an horrible skin. And because I couldn’t make it without my cup of black magic, I sometimes happened to be late for appointments. I would say to myself « It’s only 5-10 minutes » « It’s not that important anyway » « But if I don’t take coffee I can’t make it ! ». Coffee isn’t, in my humble opinion, as dreadful as could be the kind of drug people create gangs for selling them (thought you could talk about the people who are paid with nuts for making that coffee, but that’s another topic). But it can still be a bother. I do think « addicted » seems like a big word, but it’s maybe (maybe) the one the more direct to make understand that it can lead you to unwanted behaviours (or just for laughs « Bah I’m addicted to coffee look at me running! AM I NOT FAST ?! »).
Now I only take a little cup maybe 1 or 2 times a month during a lunch with friends. And I stick with green tea.
Again it’s only from my little experience.
t’uh.
If caffeine has an effect on my physiology, I haven’t been able to detect it. Very rarely ever have (or am interested in) one cup of cold drip in the morning. Nice little ritual; I like it at least as much for the cream in it as the flavor of coffee.
If you want to talk about a much more addictive “drug”, check into some of the recent research on high-carb eating (esp. refined and high glycemic carbs). Not only is it much more addictive than caffeine, it’s ruining the health of our citizens to a much greater degree, by just about any measure!
I love the “Your are not so smart” at the end of every article. Tell it how it is.
Nice article! Thanks for this post!
6-apb
your logic is extremely flawed you state that
“To compensate, your brain creates a ton of new receptor sites. ”
if this is the case obviously you may feel more tired if you are lacking caffeine as more adenosine ( assuming you have the neural precursors to create it ) will bind to the receptor sites.
however due to more receptor sites you actually experience the effects of caffeine more than someone who does not use it regularly as you have more receptor sites for the caffeine to bind to in one frame of time.
therefor as long as you have the necessary precursors ( many don’t. you need to supplement them ) taking caffeine regularly will result in a greater high compared to non caffeine users.
its is possible to remain high indefinitely without any negative side effects if you are supplementing the neurotransmitter precursors so you do not crash. you will also need to eat more to ensure you have enough energy and your body does not catabolize your muscle.
your not so smart.
and as a follow up. the reason you do not feel as high ( but you still are ) is that the dopamine surge you receive from getting high off caffeine is doing the same thing to your dopamine receptors that the caffeine is doing to your adenosine receptors.
it is not the fact that you aren’t getting high off caffeine. the fact is you need more dopamine because there are more dopamine receptors. this is why users increase the dosage of caffeine because the amount of dopamine caffeine releases is a constant depending on dosage.
so the goal of a person who wants to achieve a mania like high would be to increase the amount of adenosine receptors and decrease the amount of dopamine receptors. so they are non stop bombarded with dopamine. much like how the drug adderall stops dopamine metabolization and keeps re-attaching to receptor sites.
“your not so smart” Beautiful irony :)
“With caffeine stuck in the keyhole, adenosine can’t calm you down. It can’t make you drowsy. It can’t get you to shut up.”
I have read many Louis L’Amour novels. One thing he always mentions is the characters making coffee. I began to notice, as a coffee fiend, that in many instances he writes of a guy drinking a cup at night shortly before going to bed. I long thought that such references were a weakness in his writing, because how could a guy ever fall asleep after pounding down coffee? It seemed unrealistic. Then I realized that often times I fall asleep right in the middle of a cup or shortly thereafter. Sometimes I can actually feel the coffee putting me to sleep. I wonder why that is. It seems counter-intuitive, but it happens.
I don’t drink coffee (must less on a regular basis or because it tastes/feels good), and I only drink caffeine in emergencies (like when I need to stay up all night for homework), and those occasions are spaced apart.
Boom. I win.
What can I drink instead of coffee that is as warm and delicious!?
So this is really how caffeine works. but this is not necessarily a bad thing, is it? I don’t see the negative in this. Did you mean to imply drinking coffee is bad? Or any substance that contains caffeine?
just shut the fuck up.
back to my damn awesome mug of coffee, go rag on smoking.
You should be a part of a contest for one of the most useful blogs online. I’m going to recommend this site!
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In reply to someone defining “addiction”. I would define it as a habit in which someone
no longer has any control of- it controls you.
This was a very good article. A lot of it I was already aware of from reading
“Caffeine Blues” by Stephen Cherniske. He goes into a great amount of details along
the lines of this write and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed this.
Being a coffee lover and knowing the effects of excess caffeine in your system, I have stopped drinking caffeine altogether on numerous occasions. Indeed, you feel the positive
and rejuvinating effects, and sleep is oh so nice. The best part about it is when you return to
your next cup of coffee, it becomes the best cup you’ve ever had.
Thanks for sharing this!
Love your information brings a lot of insight to coffee consumption. Our brains and bodies are like spoonges too everything just prepare your selves for the after effects.
I never use to drink coffee then went onto some anti depressants, now I can’t live without my caffeine hit. Tried going cold turkey (headaches) and took three days to get over it then sleep improved again. Now back onto it as couldn’t get motivated during days. Can’t be that good for me but then again, at least I’m feeling normal during the days again.
I never used to drink coffee but this article convinced me I am missing out.
From http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jun/02/drinking-coffee-alert-caffeine
“Infrequent users had more headaches after taking the caffeine pills, but did not feel any more alert than normal.
Among people who usually consumed little or no caffeine, a dose boosted their anxiety levels. Those participants who had a variant of a gene called ADORA2A, which has been linked to panic attacks, became particularly anxious after a dose of caffeine.
Medium-to-high level caffeine users, however, did not become any more anxious after caffeine, implying that regular consumption helps build up a resistance to its anxiety-inducing effect.
People in this group who were genetically predisposed to anxiety drank more coffee than the rest, suggesting mild feelings of tension might even contribute to their enjoyment of the caffeine buzz.”
Doesn’t this imply that drinking moderate levels of coffee every day (say one or two cups) could still be beneficial, whereas drinking occasionally is more likely to cause anxiety and ADHD-like energy? I’ve been drinking coffee moderately for a while and do not feel badly if I skip a day or two. Really I have no problem being dependent on caffeine as long as it is still doing its job keeping me stimulated. In my experience, this has been the case throughout the several years I have been drinking coffee regularly. How long are we talking about in terms of desensitization? And how long would I have to be off the juice to get back to zero tolerance?