Do you like to have a morning cup of coffee to start your day? If you are one of the 150 million people in the United States, statistics show that you have an 85% chance of having at least one cup of coffee before you walk out the door and on average 3 cups per day!
With coffee being consumed by so many people throughout the U.S. the real question is should we be drinking it? Well as Emily likes to say, it depends……… and today we will cover the top 3 benefits and drawbacks of consuming coffee.
Top 3 Benefits of Drinking Coffee
- Could Increase Lifespan: Who would have thought something you love so much could help you live longer? Studies have shown that drinking 2-4 cups of coffee can lower the risk of death regardless of age, weight and alcohol consumption.
- Can Promote Weight loss: If you drink coffee you know the boost of energy that can come from a good cup of Joe and when that surplus of energy is directed towards daily movement the results can be great! In a study it showed that those who drank 1-2 cups of coffee a day had a 17% increase in meeting recommended daily activity levels in comparison to those who drank 1 or less cup of coffee a day.
- Can Lower The Risk of Type 2 Diabetes: Type 2 diabetes is related to over 100,000 deaths a year and those numbers continue to rise. Research has shown that for each cup of coffee that you drink it can lower your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 6%.
*To see even more benefits of coffee checkout the top 9 brought to you by our friends over at healthline.com
As you can see there are some incredible health benefits to drinking coffee but can you have too much of a good thing? The answer is a resounding YES and this is where a lot of us can get into trouble when it comes to having too much coffee!
Top 3 Drawbacks of Drinking Coffee
- Anxiety: If you have ever had multiple cups of high octane coffee on an empty stomach you might relate to the feeling of nervousness and anxiety that seemingly comes out of nowhere. This is because the caffeine in coffee can increase your adrenaline levels known as your fight or flight hormone which is designed to constrict your blood vessels, increase your heart rate and shorten your breath.
- Insomnia: Laying in your bed wide awake when you know you should be sleeping is no fun and too much coffee has been linked to insomnia and poor sleep. This is because the caffeine in coffee can take up to 9 hours to wear off depending on the individual. This means having an afternoon coffee at 2pm could result in still having caffeine in your system at 11pm!
- Fatigue: Although coffee can give us the boost to get our day started it can also have the opposite effect known as rebound fatigue. This happens when the caffeine leaves your system and you find yourself feeling more fatigued than before. This can cause the cycle of reaching for more caffeine to push away the fatigue but as mentioned above it can then disrupt our sleep causing us to be even more tired the next day!
*To see other side effects of too much coffee check out this article from our friends over at healthline.com
The Proclivity Prescription to Drinking Coffee
Now that you know both the health benefits and drawbacks of drinking coffee, what should you do now? Below is our prescription when it comes to drinking coffee as a baseline for the average person. As we stated above, each person is going to be different so make sure to experiment with your coffee consumption to find what works best for you!
- Delay having your first cup of coffee until 1-2 hours after you wake up.
- Drink high quality coffee from local coffee roasters
- Have 1-4 cups a day depending on your genetics
- Have your last cup 8 hours before you will be in bed
To learn more about how to use coffee as part of a healthy diet check out Episode 58 of The Proclivity Podcast where Emily and Joel break down the different health benefits from the types of coffee you have to how you actually brew it!
