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Can Drinking Coffee Before A Nap Trigger Your Energy Levels?

By Nupur Jha

Drinking coffee has both good and bad impacts on your health. Coffee is known for boosting your energy levels and keeping you focused but does drinking coffee before a nap leave you energised?

The health benefits of this beverage include protecting you from liver cirrhosis and lowering the risk of a number of diseases like diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, heart ailments, multiple sclerosis, gout risk, as well as colorectal and liver cancer. Some studies even revealed that consuming 4 or more cups of coffee aids in combating depression.

coffee for heart

Overdrinking it can trigger various health risks such as triggering the risk of heart attacks amongst young people, it's linked to early death, raises the risk of causing incontinence by 70%, leads to headache, indigestion, reduces fertility in women and even causes death (in case you have a caffeine sensitivity).

Nutritional Value Of Coffee:

Nutritional Value Of Coffee:

Coffee is rich in various micronutrients, here's the nutritional value of 100 ml of black coffee:

  • Potassium- 92 mg
  • Manganese- 0.05 mg
  • Magnesium- 8 mg
  • Niacin- 0.7 mg
  • Riboflavin- 0.01 mg
  • Coffee also has traces of sodium in it. The quantity of milk, cream, sugar, etc., you add to your coffee it will change its nutritional value.

Does Drinking Coffee Before Napping Really Leave You Energised?

Does Drinking Coffee Before Napping Really Leave You Energised?

Drinking coffee affects a chemical called adenosine which plays a role in inducing sleep. Coffee plays a role in making you feel less sleepy by not letting your brain receive adenosine; it acts as a adenosine-receptor antagonist.

Coffee might help in boosting your energy levels if you have it before taking a nap according to the scientists. As you sleep, the levels of adenosine starts depleting, and the caffeine you consumed has to compete with lesser amounts of adenosine for the receptors present in your brain.

Sleep is believed to amplify the impact of coffee by increasing the number of receptors present in your brain, and this is thought to be the reason behind the surge in energy levels post having a nap after drinking coffee.

The impact of coffee on you won't be instant, your body would take some time till it is felt by your body.

When To Have Coffee For Getting A Perfect Coffee Nap?

When To Have Coffee For Getting A Perfect Coffee Nap?

According to most health experts, the key to get the best coffee nap is by drinking about 2 cups of coffee around 20 minutes before you plan to take your nap. The reason behind this is that caffeine would require around this much time to interact with your brain.

Taking a nap for 30 minutes or more is likely to make you fall into a deep sleep which is called Slow Wave Sleep (SWS). When you wake up from this kind of sleep you end up feeling drowsy as well as disoriented. It's believed if you have a short coffee nap for less than 30 minutes you will not wake up feeling that way.

The time of the day you plan to get a coffee nap also plays an important role. As per a pilot study including 12 healthy adults, it was found that those who consumed around 4 cups of coffee which contains a total of 400 mg of caffeine around 6 or 3 or zero hours before bedtime had a disturbed sleep.

This research pointed out that it's best to take coffee naps around 6 hours before hitting the bed. The researchers advised that the right amount of caffeine consumption should be around 200 mg, which is equivalent to around 2 cups of coffee. Doing so will leave you feel energised, sharp and active after waking up from your coffee nap.

Further research needs to be one on whether outcome of coffee naps is linked just with drinking coffee or something else.

Story first published: Friday, September 7, 2018, 18:03 [IST]
Read more about: coffee caffeine nap sleep health