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Hey! Remember that post about my self-diagnosed insomniac client I posted recently?
If yes! - Thanks for reading it! Carry on here...
If no - May you feel shame 😣...
(unless you want to read it here first to alleviate the weight of your shame. 😉)
I mentioned at the end of that post that in discussion, something randomly popped up that triggered me to have an epiphany. Ok, maybe that's a slight exagerration, but it was 100% an "AH-HA!" moment (for both my client and I)....
As you've read in the previous post about this client, she struggles with not only sleep but "sleep identity" as well and falling into the trap of telling herself she "never sleeps well". Reality is, yes she struggles, but it's NOT all the time. Not to mention, her body is NOT telling her it's a problem in the sense of energy and feel most days.
My client mentioned about having her late afternoon coffee around 4pm. She has 1-2 cups in the morning and then another at 4pm. Not everyday, but often. Well now, doesn't this open up new possibilities to experiment with! 🙂 YAY!!!!
Coffee Impacts the 'ZZZs'
It's not hard to understand that a STIMULANT (in this case, delicious coffee) can have a negative impact on SLEEP (which my professional experience would say is the OPPOSITE of stimulating... 🤔). Granted, we all metabolize caffeine differently. For most people, coffee WILL impact our quality and quantity of sleep.
A few coffee facts that should be considered:
We all metabolize caffeine differently, but we can often break it into two groups: Fast metabolizers and Slow metabolizers. For slow metabolizers (that's me I've learned over recent years) we need to be more careful with how much we consume as the caffeine can disrupt sleep, increase blood pressure (even in people without high blood pressure), non-fatal myocardial infarction (heart attack), worse PMS symptoms and higher risk of miscarriage (I'm safe from the last two at least... Phew!) 🤣
The half-life of coffee varies depending on your source of information AND how your body metabolizes it. As a general rule, the half-life of caffeine is 4-6hrs. This means if you drank 80mg of caffeine, after 4-6hrs, there will still be 40mg in your system.
Coffee interacts with many hormones and neurotransmitters. In particular in the case of hormones, they have their natural rhythms and flow throughout our days. The relationships are complex and therefore things like how we metabolize it, timing and how much we have will determine how our body responds to the caffeine.
******I shared a post last year about my "learn the hard way" experience with my love for coffee. If you'd like to dive a bit deeper with some of the facts (and negative impacts it can have, check it out here).
Back to my Client's Afternoon Coffee
We already know she enjoys a cup or two in the morning. We also established together that she drinks out of regular mug, not a massive 'Coach D' type mug that holds 3-4 cups of coffee in one (which I don't do anymore! 🤪). And now we know she has a late afternoon cup as well.
We don't know exactly how much caffeine she's having so let's make an educated, conservative guess of 80mg/cup. And let's just say for the sake of this post, she's having her first coffee at 7:30am as an example....
7:30am - 80mg caffeine.
9am - 80mg caffeine (totally 160mg in her system in the morning)
12:30-1pm - Let's say she's metabolized half the total. So there's now 80mg still to be metabolized at this time.
4:30-5pm - Her body has taken care of the morning caffeine. But wait! She's enoyed the 4pm coffee. Tack on 80mg more captain!!!
9-10pm - We're down to 40mg of caffeine to metabolize (as she aims to wind down)
2-3am - Success. We've taken care of the caffeine.
*Please remember, this is a fun and overly simplistic overview of a VERY complex process going on that is not as clear cut as this. It could be LESS time, it could be MORE time depending on the person. The point being it's EASY to see how our sleep can be impacted when a stimulant is still in our system at nighttime.
The Experiment
My client and I discussed a couple ways we can approach this experiment to see how it impacts her sleep (quality and quantity). I reminded her that we're not looking for "perfect" or "ideal" - We're looking for what works for HER. So let's take our time to experiment:
1) She can move her coffee back in the afternoon and over time we can see what may work for her. We can try a 1pm type time OR we can even just inch it back by starting with 3pm and over the coming weeks, slowly work backwards to earlier in the afternoon to see if something may work.
2) Switch to decaf for the afternoon coffee. This was HER idea actually and a good idea at that. Reminder - Decaf does have trace amounts of caffeine still, but not enough to significantly impact our sleep if we have one late afternoon like my client does.
There are a few other ways we could go about it, but in discussing it together my biggest point to her was "Do what will be the EASIEST for you to change". With that, she chose her decaf idea to start experimenting with.
We'll Keep you Posted on the Latest in this "Great Coffee Experiment"...
I reminded her in our discussion that this may not be "THE THING" that magically has her sleeping like a log. However, I did say with great experience and confidence I might add, that this WILL POSITIVELY have an impact on her sleep without question. I shared the story of another client who had a similar habit of afternoon coffee that was impacting her sleep (she was drinking it around 1-2pm though) and once we made that change (she went to decaf as well) it had a positive effect.
It's a great reminder of how amazing our bodies work: This little thing, this chemical/molecule called caffeine, like our hormones, can have such a MASSIVE effect on our whole system. I find that so fascinating every time! It's a wonderful reminder to us all that in nature, the smallest shifts/change can have significant results over time.
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