Caffeine: What You Should Know Before Your Next Cup of Coffee
Almost 75% of Americans drink coffee daily. Yet very few understand how caffeine affects us.
A Brief History of Caffeine
The history of caffeine actually goes a lot further back than the history of coffee. This is because the first use of caffeine came from tea. This tradition likely began around 1000 B.C. in China. This would mean it predates coffee by close to 2000 years.
Coffee and tea would both become popular quite quickly. This was in part due to taste and its energizing effects, but it had another benefit; it was much less likely to kill you than plain water. For much of human history, there really were only two ways to make water drinkable. The first option was to ferment it. This process would create ale and kill much of the bacteria in the process. The other option would be boiling the water for drinks like tea and coffee.
A Caffeinated World
The effects caffeine would have on society are relatively undisputed. Despite its commonality today, caffeine is still considered a psychoactive drug, one with unique stimulant properties. This stimulating property may have had a bigger effect on our world than you might think.
Michael Pollan discusses the effect of caffeine as well as other drugs in his book This Is Your Mind on Plants. In this book, he discusses how caffeine was used and quite possibly helped fuel the industrial revolution. Linking topics such as the coffee break to an increase in worker productivity. However, given this stimulant's long history of use, it's unlikely this was the first or only stage of human history that was at least in part fueled by caffeine.
The Effects of Caffeine on Our Brain and Body
Many of us have heard that caffeine is a stimulant, but how exactly does it work? Before you can understand caffeine’s main method of action, you have to understand one of the fundamental ways your brain gets tired.
Adenosine
As our neurons fire, they produce a compound called adenosine. As we move through the day, these stores of adenosine grow. Adenosine can bind with receptors in our brain, effectively slowing nerve activity. This means the more adenosine we have mingling with our adenosine receptors, the more tired we feel. I like to think of this almost like a clock where as time goes on, we build up more and more adenosine so our brain knows when to feel tired.
Caffeine enters the picture
The reason you need to understand adenosine before you can understand caffeine is because they bind to the exact same receptors in the brain. However, when caffeine is present, it has a tendency to bind first, effectively blocking the adenosine from interacting with our brain to the same degree, and when caffeine binds, it has very different effects, such as:
- Wakefulness
- Alertness
- Increased Focus
Caffeine is also known to increase dopamine levels in certain parts of the brain. This is a common trait among stimulants. For example, increased dopamine levels are part of the reason drugs like Adderall can be so stimulating.
The Downsides
Unfortunately, the effects of caffeine are not all positive, as anyone whos ever had a few too many cups of coffee can tell you. As we have more and more caffeine, that pleasant wakefulness can quickly spill over into symptoms such as
- Anxiety
- Jitters
- Increased Heart Rate
- Increased Urination — Potentially leading to dehydration
- Dizziness
- Insomnia
Dependency
Another common downside is dependency. As we begin to consume caffeine regularly, our brain adapts to the new source of energy. This means that on days when we do not have caffeine, we will often feel more tired and irritable than we would if we had not had caffeine in the days and weeks prior. In more severe cases, people can experience headaches and severe irritability when stopping caffeine.
The Bottom Line
This article is in no way meant to say whether you should or should not drink coffee. The goal instead was to help you better understand how it affects us and our society. Hopefully, this allows you to make informed decisions about how much caffeine is right for you.
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