What time should you stop drinking coffee to get a good night’s sleep? Getty Images:
To avoid insomnia, some people avoid coffee in the afternoon, while others still drink it after lunch. So what time is the best time to stop consuming to ensure deep sleep?
When it comes to afternoon coffee, there are two teams. The former maintains a relaxed relationship with caffeine and can easily drink the drink late into the day, even after dessert served at lunch. The second, after 3pm, replaces the black liquid with any other caffeine to ensure you sleep properly that evening. And for good reason, caffeine is a molecule that boosts our alertness and keeps us awake. A useful dose of energy when you want to avoid the midday rush, but an unwanted bedtime. So, for the most active people, what time should you stop drinking it to ensure a soft sleep and a quality night’s sleep?
In the video, coffee is good for health.
Different metabolisms
In order to sleep properly, all caffeine consumed during the day must be removed by our body, and more specifically by the liver. But the speed of the process depends on one’s metabolism. Some of us are so-called “slow” metabolizers, others are so-called “fast” metabolizers. “The average half-life of caffeine, the time it takes us to eliminate half of the absorbed substance, is three to five hours,” says Astrid Nehlig, director of research at the National Institutes of Health and Medicine. Research (Inserm) and expert on the effects of coffee on health. In “slow” metabolizers, this duration can be up to 16 hours.
It takes an average of 3 to 5 hours to eliminate half of the caffeine absorbed during the day
Astrid Nehlig, Research Director of Inserm and specialist in the effects of coffee on health
If caffeine remains in the body before going to sleep, it will be difficult to sleep. The reason is simple. Caffeine binds to the same receptors as adenosine, a molecule that accumulates during the day and tells the brain at night to lower its activity in order to sleep. “By binding to these receptors, caffeine takes the place of adenosine and prevents it from producing ‘sleep pressure,'” notes Armel Rancilak, neuroscience researcher and sleep specialist at Inserm. The quality of our night will also change. Still present in the body, caffeine alleviates slow-wave sleep and breaks it up. So the night will be less restorative.
We are not all equally sensitive. It all depends on genetics. “The more adenosine receptors we have in the brain, the less sensitive we are to coffee’s effects on sleep,” adds Armel Rancilak.
Stop around 4 o’clock.
Considering these elements, according to Astrid Nehlig, it is still possible to define an average shutdown time. “To sleep successfully at night, if we are used to sleeping around 10-11 p.m., we don’t need to drink coffee after 4 p.m.,” says the specialist. The advice, of course, depends on the dose of caffeine taken and therefore the type of coffee drunk. So it’s useful to know that espresso contains less caffeine than filter coffee, culinary practitioner and health educator Philippe Pouillard informed us in a previous article.
Nothing beats experimentation to adjust our personal downtime. According to Armelle Rancillac, the best test is to go a week without a single coffee. “If after seven days we notice that our sleep is better, it means that our caffeine habits have probably been inappropriate and that we need to adjust our consumption by revising the doses or stopping drinking it earlier in the day. the day”: And if we want to reduce our consumption while maintaining the taste of the drink and its antioxidant properties, it is always possible to choose the decaffeinated option.
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Source: Le Figaro
