Why I Stopped Drinking So Much Coffee

I love coffee but I love sleep more

Coffee, oh how I love thee. Let me count the ways…. We all love coffee. Waking up in the morning and brewing a nice cup of joe. Being super tired and then waking up finally. It’s really a lifestyle and at times… well, an addiction. Right now I’m in the beginning process of my Myofunctional Therapy. The therapist, Amy, asked me how my sleep was. I answered “Not so great.” I still felt tired and I had to drink more and more coffee just to feel awake. Even though I was working on my tongue strength and wearing the OSA Vivos device (see my ‘OSA! No Way! blog), I still wasn’t getting enough sleep. So what was going on? She asked me what time approximately would be my last cup of coffee. I defended myself, “But I don’t drink coffee after 3 pm.”

She said, “Do you know who Matthew Walker is? He’s a sleep specialist at UC Berkeley. He studied the effect coffee has on sleep. The half life is actually really long so you really shouldn’t be drinking it that late.” So I looked it up! If you just want to skip to his video down below, just go there. It was a real eye opener.  

Apparently the Half-Life of caffeine is 5-6 hours. So the quarter life is 10-12 hours. He analogizes that if you drink a cup of coffee at 1pm, and you go to sleep at say 10pm, it’s like you just taking a “swig” of a quarter cup of coffee. That can explain a lot. Like how i would just sit in bed for 2-3 hours trying to go to sleep but just laying there with my eyes closed. Or blaming me looking at the phone, even though I put it on Night Shift mode so the colors are subdued. Mind racing and a little anxiety! I probably still had a half a cup of coffee in me because if had worked that day, my last cup of coffee was at 6pm. OHHHMMMGGGEEE! MIND BLOWN!

So suffice it say, I only drink my morning cup of joe just like that… in the MORNING, JOE! But I still have that little bit of addiction so what I do that REALLY HELPS A LOT! is drinking DECAF. WHAT?!?! DECAF?! I used to think that decaf was a waste of a coffee bean. But NOW I get it. I could drink coffee at 3pm and I can still go to sleep without my mind racing and me chasing my sleep…. Sometimes I’ll even go the whole day without caffeinated coffee and just drink the decaf and my body doesn’t know the difference. Then *click I realize, it’s all in my head. Since I’ve been drinking or not drinking my morning cup of joe in the morning I’ve been getting better sleep, I’ve been more productive, and life is a little better as I drift off into REM sleep caffeine-free, feeling more awake than ever!

 

The coffee I recommend of course is BulletProof coffee because it is MOLD-FREE! AND LOW ACID!!

Hours