How Does Caffeine Interact With Your Body to Keep You Alert?

You need to know this if you rely on coffee, tea, or energy drinks to stay awake.

“I need my morning cuppa to wake me up, otherwise I’m an unproductive zombie.” This is a common problem for many tea- or coffee-drinking adults and students who count on a can of Coke or RedBull to pull an all-nighter.

Coffee, tea, and energy drinks are all caffeinated drinks. They all rely on caffeine, a stimulant that increases alertness and energy, to keep the consumers alert and performing.

Caffeine is widely recognised as the most utilised psychoactive stimulant worldwide. We consume it every day casually, without any guidance or understanding of how it interacts with our bodies.

In this article, we shall take a deep dive into the science of caffeine, so you can be more mindful about your consumption and relationship with it.

How Does Caffeine Wake You Up?

The scientific answer to the question is that caffeine is an adenosine receptor antagonist. This three-word term represents a very complex understanding of chemistry and biology. Don’t worry, we break it down word by word.

In simple words, caffeine does its job by blocking your sleep and relaxation receptors, but what does it block, how does it do the blocking, and what do the receptors do?

Caffeine blocks adenosine receptors, and the blocking is why it’s called a receptor antagonist. It takes the place of adenosine because they share a similar component in their molecular structures — a purine group.

Schematic via Public Domain

The purine of caffeine fools the adenosine receptors into thinking it’s adenosine and thus binds to it, preventing the sleep-promoting effects of binding with adenosine. As a result, caffeine temporarily prevents or relieves drowsiness and thus maintains or restores alertness.

As to what the adenosine receptors actually do, it’s a whole big field of biochemical and physiological mechanisms and pathways research that can’t be summarised in a short article.

A very simplified view would be that they modulate neurotransmitter release, such as dopamine, glutamate, acetylcholine and serotonin, which are related to very important functions such as mood, memory, movement and sleep.

Therefore, it’s alarming that we consume caffeine so casually without the same cautions we’d otherwise have for other psychoactive drugs.

It’s Not All Pros without Cons

Photo by Gianfranco Grenar on Unsplash

I get how people are reliant on caffeine. I’m sipping a cup of strong tea myself while researching and writing this article. It is one of the most helpful drugs to my productivity and daily functioning.

However, the possible downsides are never really discussed, because drinking coffee and tea seems so relaxing (quite the contrary!) and benign. There are a couple of not-so-good things I feel compelled to tell you.

Insomnia

This one is quite intuitive since the whole purpose of caffeine is to make you more awake. However, caffeine’s elimination half-life may range between 1.5 and 9.5 hours, meaning it will stay active and working in your body most of the day after consumption.

You might take a cup of coffee during lunch, and by the time you go to bed, the caffeine concentration might not even have been halved in your body, thus disrupting your sleep quality.

If you take caffeine irregularly, it might further confuse your body physiology and cause adverse effects on your sleep.

Caffeine Intake in Pregnancy and Fertility Is Equivocal

Many health authorities advise on no or reduced intake of caffeine for pregnant women. In an article by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it suggests that people “talk to your health care provider about whether you need to limit caffeine consumption.”

There simply isn’t enough clinical evidence to affirm that it’s safe for fetuses, so pregnant ladies, I urge you to consider and weigh the pros and cons of consuming caffeine during your pregnancy.

Also, there is a study that points to the possibility of reduced fertility in women who consume caffeinated beverages compared to those who don’t. Because caffeine dampens the activity of the muscles in the fallopian tube that aid egg transport, thereby lowering the chance of conception.

Mental Health Issues

There is one study on the relationship between caffeine intake with various mental health issues in Korean adolescents. It shows that the kids with higher caffeine intake are more likely to have depression and anxiety.

Although correlation doesn’t equal causation and the study employed a rather small sample size within the same stratum (234 middle school students at one middle school in Daegu, South Korea), the possible implication is alarming.

How Can You Manage Your Consumption Better?

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

I know it’s hard to eliminate caffeine, and I am not suggesting that you do that. The point of this is to help you use caffeine to achieve your goals and objectives. So, here are some tips backed by research to help you manage your relationship with it more consciously.

Talk to Your Doctor

If you have mental health issues or are pregnant, I strongly advise you to consult a medical professional to reassess your caffeine consumption.

For mental health, it’s because a lot of the time, the causes for the issues are neurotransmitter imbalances. Adding caffeine to the mix is going to complicate the situation.

For pregnancy and fertility, there are research findings that suggest an adverse effect of caffeine on the situation, though still lacking enough empirical evidence. Starting a family is a big life decision, so it’s worth treating it with caution and seeking medical advice.

Refrain from Caffeine in the Afternoon

As mentioned before, it takes 1.5 to 9.5 hours for caffeine concentration to halve in your body. Also, another study has concluded that caffeine taken 6 hours before bedtime has important disruptive effects on sleep.

It’s good to include a rule of no caffeine 6 to 9 hours before bed (so afternoon) to improve your sleep hygiene. That way, you are still awake during the day but sleepy enough at night.

Keep an Eye on Your Dose

The FDA recommends an intake of no more than 400 mg a day. Generally, given the cup is 8 ounces, coffee contains 95 to 200 mg, tea is around 14 to 60 mg, and an energy drink is 70 to 100 mg.

An important thing to note is that caffeine is now also added to gum, jelly beans, waffles, water, syrup, marshmallows, sunflower seeds, and other snacks. It’s easy to exceed the maximum intake if you are not aware of these figures. You might be secretly taking more than you intended to.

It’s good to have a log or strictly adhere to a one-cup policy to avoid too much caffeine.

I know it’s hard and a lot of working adults are caffeine junkies, but for our health it’s worthwhile to take a step back and reassess so that we can live a productive and healthy life.


Comments

One response to “How Does Caffeine Interact With Your Body to Keep You Alert?”

  1. natskiu Avatar

    That’s quite interesting

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