For all you Coffee Addicts! Good News or Bad News?
A study in the Archives of Internal Medicine (26 September 2011) reports that women who drink four or more mugs of caffeinated coffee a day have a 20% less risk of getting depression. Caffeine releases ‘dopamine’, the brain’s ‘happy hormone’.
This doesn’t mean that you should start using coffee as a kind of medication to overcome depression! What it does mean is that you really don’t need to get on a guilt trip for drinking coffee. Coffee does have quite a lot of bad press, but maybe if you’re overcoming depression, don’t add this to one of your ‘have-to-give-up’ lists. It can wait!
Years ago a friend of mine suffered from panic attacks every single morning while she was making school sandwiches for the kids. What an awful way to start the day! ‘Amy, do start your day with a nice strong cup of coffee?’ I asked. ‘Of course’, she replied. Bingo! I remembered reading a while back how coffee, drunk first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach can trigger panic attacks. Once she stopped this early morning adrenalin fix, the panic attacks stopped. What a simple solution!
Caffeine does have a short-term mood lift, and it also gives energy. That’s why it’s so often used as a stimulant when one has to stay awake.How many of us haven’t used coffee to stay up late at night to study! On the other hand, if you want a good night’s sleep, don’t think about drinking anything containing caffeine just before going to bed. Caffeine can cause sleep disturbances. If I have too many cups of coffee, after enjoying myself at a dinner party, I usually wake up at about 3 am feeling ‘tingly’ all over!
Coffee can cause a raised heart rate because of the caffeine, but the good news is that you won’t die from drinking coffee! There have been no reported cases of death from overdosing on coffee – you’d actually need to very quickly drink over 80 cups of coffee to do that.
Everything in moderation is probably sound advice!
Nicola says
Interesting reading about panic attacks resulting from early morning coffee on an empty stomach.
Graham says
This is really good news for coffee drinkers – we so often hear only gloomy reports about the best drink in the world.