REMEMBER WHEN drinking coffee used to feel like a real boost – not just something you needed for survival?
Here’s how to get that back.
1. Don’t binge.
The average cup of coffee contains around 100-150mg of caffeine. If you were to have two of these first thing, you can expect a sudden boost of energy… followed by a prolonged crash, as the caffeine gradually clears from your system overthree to four hours.
2. Step away from the espresso and get a filter.
According to this guide based on a 2004 study, the best way to get a boost from coffee is to drink about half a cup or less per hour – every hour. To deliver that effectively, you’re going to need to have a pot brewing.
(Or just spend your entire workday making coffee, which might be fine.)
3. But if you ARE going to have a jolt, do it mid-morning – not first thing.
The time when caffeine is most effective, writes neuroscientist Steven Miller, is between 9.30 and 11.30am. That’s because our levels of cortisol – which corresponds to alertness – are at their highest between 8 and 9am. As Lifehackerobserve:
If we drink coffee when our alertness is already at its peak, we’re wasting the potential alertness boost we get from the caffeine.
4. CUT BACK on your coffee consumption.
I know, I know. But look: the more coffee you drink, the more your body expects it. In fact, we become addicted – so that espresso isn’t a boost at all, it’s just a way to function normally.
Instead, if you limit yourself to one or two cups a week – ideally at different times each week – you’ll still get the boost you used to get when you first drank coffee. Remember that? Wasn’t it great?
5. Pour some sugar on it.
The combination of caffeine and glucose has cognition-boosting effects that are not present when either is consumed alone, according to this 2004 research paper. (This could also suggest drinking Red Bull, but who wants to do that?)
