Coffee News: Are You Drinking Coffee At The Wrong Times?

The latest bit of coffee news sweeping the internet information sites this week comes from Steven Miller, a Ph.D. candidate at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, and his blog post The best time for your coffee (NeuroscienceDC).

According to Mr. Miller, many people may be drinking their coffee at the wrong times. The human body produces cortisol, a hormone which he says is correlated to alertness, in a certain cycle which peaks at different times throughout the day. Apparently, drinking coffee during these peak times will not really help one to become more alert since the body is at maximum alertness already and when we do drink our coffee during these times we are instead building up a tolerance to the caffeine it contains.

These times of peak cortisol levels when we should not be indulging in our caffeine addiction?

8 AM – 9 AM

12 AM – 1 PM

5:30 PM – 6:30 PM

These are some of my prime coffee swilling hours! It’s no wonder I drink 3 to 5 cups of coffee a day – I’m actively building up a tolerance to it (this I already knew, but now I have scientific evidence to back it up 🙂 )

The best times to drink coffee? In between these peaks when the cortisol levels start to wane. Mr. Miller suggests between 9:30 AM and 11:30 AM for our morning dose. I’ll take his suggestion under advisement but, dude, that is way too late in my morning to just start becoming functional (I NEED my early morning caffeine injection or I’m in total zombie mode).