It could feel strange to get sleepy
and tired after drinking coffee. Caffeine must keep
you awake, right? But it happens with
thousands of people every day. So I checked through
20 scientific studies to tell why coffee could put you
to sleep and how to fix it. Also, I will add a
couple of opinions from psychologists, sleep
experts, and scientists to make my statements
sound more convincing. So, let's start. Hi! My name is Alex,
and it's a late night outside.
In this video, I'll talk
about the main reasons why coffee could make
you sleepy and a couple of simple enough
solutions to avoid it. You could watch them
in any order you want. And the first reason why
coffee could make you tired is that it has too
much sugar. It's pretty obvious with sugar,
and you felt exhausted after eating too many sweets
at least once in your life. Still, when combined with
caffeine, it's even worse. As provided by the Zhengzhou University in
China, caffeine itself could decrease the sugar level in your blood, which
could drop your energy levels a bit. You won't notice it because the
active boost of coffee is much higher. But what happens if
you combine it with sugar, which many people
seem to put in their coffee? Or maybe not sugar, but syrup? Or eating something
sweet like honey alongside? I mean, you know what happens, you'll get
tired, it's in the title of the video 🙂 Firstly, caffeine will
start working, plus all the sugar your got
will make you happier.
Usually, it's called
a sugar rush. It happens because, in
the ancient pre-historic times when our brains
developed through evolution, sugar was insanely rare. Maybe you'll find some
berries or apples somewhere, and fruits mean vitamins,
so your brain rewards you with happiness. And today it works the same way. What your brain doesn't
know is that you can get a yearly amount of
sugar in a single meal. It's a huge topic, maybe
it even requires its own video, so make sure to
subscribe not to miss it. But, what's important
is that happiness from a sugar rush is always
followed by sleepiness from a sugar crash.
As provided by the Humboldt University of
Berlin, when your body gets so much sugar, it starts producing insulin
to normalize the sugar levels. And by doing so, it drops
your energy levels significantly. Up to sleepiness,
fatigue, you name it. It works like a roller coaster. Firstly, you get a lot of sugar, your mood
goes up, and your body tries to process it. Then, you produce enough insulin to lower
the sugar level, and it goes down, making you tired and sleepy
in a couple of minutes. And the more you repeat the
cycle, the more tired you become.
So, the solution would be pretty
obvious – put less sugar in your cup. Or eat fewer donuts or any other
sugar-heavy food when drinking coffee. I myself prefer to
have a nice dinner, then get some raw caffeine and lay
down for 15-20 minutes until it hits. It helps a lot to record
these night episodes. But, getting back to
sweets, if your coffee doesn't taste that good
without sugar, maybe your need to pick a better one? Because the second reason
why you could be tired is that your coffee is too
cheap. I don't mean that more expensive coffee is "stronger",
has more caffeine, and so on. It does, in a way, but it's not
the main reason for this point. The main one is that coffee could include
toxins provided by mold, which could be the reason for fatigue
and other nasty stuff.
And the cheaper the coffee is – the
higher is the possibility that it had mold. Coffee goes a long way
before getting into your cup. It gets collected on
fields, then roasted in factories, stored in some
warehouses, processed to get instant coffee
or capsules, delivered to your country in
bags, packed in nice jars to put in shops, and so on. On each of these stages,
there could be some failures. Too cold, too warm, too wet, bad
packaging, thousands of potential reasons. And if something went wrong –
mold could appear on coffee beans. And this mold could produce
toxins, that make you tired. Of course, It's much
more complicated than that, but let's keep it simple
for the purpose of the video. The main problem with these toxins research
is that there's too much research and too little research
at the same time. We got tens of studies
during the last 20 years, but the topic
is still messed up a bit. For example, let's take the research
from the University of Valencia in Spain.
It's the latest one I found. The scientists
picked 100 varieties of coffee from Spanish
supermarkets and tested how much mold toxin they had. 95 out of 100 products were
within allowed standards. But the other 5 were
outside the limits: decaffeinated coffee, coffee capsules, and decaffeinated coffee
capsules with some spooky results. But the problem is – it
doesn't prove anything. There are multiple
types of mold toxins, and the researchers
measured only one because Europe had
standards for only one. So, scary numbers
and no clarity. Still, 5 out of 100 is
not that bad, right? Yeah, but, for example,
there's another research from the Department of
Public Hygiene of Portugal. They tested 60 different
samples of coffee and found toxins in more
than 90% of the products. Like, in almost all of them. Sounds even scarier, right? But, if you read it through,
you see that all the results are below the limits, so
it's not a big deal at all. What I want to say
is that there's enough information to prove
any theory right or wrong, if you really want to.
Some companies do these
studies to blame their competitors. Some provide them as examples
of why coffee is worse than tea. Some try to advertise
their own products this way. And so on, and so forth. But there're a couple
of statements that are indeed true, and I
propose to stick with them. Firstly, mold
toxins surely exist. They could make you
tired, affect your health, and most of the coffee
products include them. The good part is that
their portion is so tiny in average coffee
that it's scientifically impossible to affect
you in any way.
Countries and factories
have standards, and high temperature kills everything
when coffee is roasted. The bad part is that some
cheap coffee manufacturers don't follow these standards
as much as they should. So, some noname coffee
you get at the nearby gas station, snack
stand, or even your office could make you feel bad. Especially if you
drink it regularly. And the solution is clear –
try not to drink cheap coffee. Skip cheap brands you've never
heard of, and you should do fine. Also, as my personal recommendation, don't
ever drink coffee from sticks, like 3-in-1, 2-in-1, and so on. Firstly, the cheapest coffee usually goes
in these sticks because it's mixed with a lot of other stuff. Secondly, such sticks
usually have an enormous amount of sugar, close
to 70% of their weight. And, as we saw in the previous part,
it could take more energy than it gives.
And the third one is that the usual cup of
espresso has 60-80 milligrams of caffeine, while a stick has 40
if you're lucky enough. So, I'm not sure we
can call it coffee at all. But, on the other hand, getting
less caffeine could also help you. I mean there's a high
possibility that most of the people watching this
video drink too much coffee. I could even bet that I'm getting at
least two times less caffeine than you. This episode covers a bit different topic,
but another one, about "5 Signs You Drink Too Much Caffeine" ,
will be out soon, so make sure to subscribe
to get the notification.
Getting back to why coffee could
make you sleepy, the third reason is that you don't drink enough water. However,
there are two completely different cases of how it could affect you. The first one could be applied if
you don't drink caffeine every day. When you start drinking
coffee, tea, or something similar, it takes your body
up to 4-5 days to get used to it.
But, if it's your first
cup in a couple of days – as provided by the
research from Loughborough University in the United
Kingdom, your body will require more water
to keep you healthy. The research stated that caffeine doesn't
cause any form of dehydration for regular users, so it's cool, and
we'll discuss it in a second. But new users would need to get
to the bathroom a bit more often. And if not followed by drinking
more water, it will cause dehydration. As stated by hundreds of studies, like this
one from the University of North Carolina, dehydration could and
will lead to a bad mood, decreased cognitive
abilities, and a lot of nasty stuff you don't
want to experience. And the obvious solution would
be to drink more water, yup. I even have a special fitness bottle for
that, it's two liters or seventy ounces. There're tons of such
bottles on Amazon or similar sites, and most of
them are cheap enough. I usually drink close to
one-and-a-half bottles per day, and it seems close to
medical recommendations, so yeah, highly recommend
you doing the same.
But, getting back to the topic, if the research stated
that caffeine doesn't cause dehydration,
then it mustn't affect you if you drink
coffee every day, right? Technically, yes. But imagine that you
are already dehydrated. There could be tens
of reasons, share your ones in the comments if
you don't drink enough water. Maybe it's early morning, and
you didn't have time to get a glass. Perhaps you have a really
stressful day, so you don't care.
Or maybe you work or study a lot
and just forget to drink water at all. Will you feel more tired
because of dehydration? Yup, you surely will. How will you deal
with sleepiness? You'll get more coffee. Will it help? Maybe it will. Or maybe it will not
if the negative effects of dehydration outweigh
the positive effects of caffeine. It's important to
understand that caffeine won't make you
dehydrated, right, but it won't make you hydrated also. Adding another complex
substance into your tired body won't really help and could
make you even more tired. So, be aware and
drink more water. Also, if coffee doesn't
make you sleepy but just doesn't hit you the
same as before – you could've developed
caffeine tolerance. And it could be fixed. It's not the topic of this video, but
one of the next ones, so stay tuned. And yup, that's
all for this episode. Thank you for watching it. It's time for me to sleep. Feel free to like this video or
subscribe, it makes a difference.
If you want more — check the
channel or the recommended ones. And, if you have questions or something
to say — let me know in the comments. Have a good night..
