What Happens When You Drink Coffee

 

What Happens inside your body when you drink coffee? This video will explain exactly what coffee does to your brain and how caffeine works. Also, find out what happens when you stop drinking coffee or caffeine. 

Every day, billions of people rely on caffeine to wake up and get through the day. In fact, It’s the most widely used psychoactive substance in the world. But what exactly happens inside your body when you drink coffee or intake caffeine? How does it wake you up, make you more alert, and increase motivation?  Well, when you drink coffee your body can experience many different changes and go through a number of different processes, but the actual intensity of the impact that caffeine has on your body is highly influenced by how much of a tolerance your body has built up to caffeine consumption over time. If you have low tolerance caffeine can send your energy levels through the roof and leave you feeling jittery and anxious. On the other hand, a high tolerance can make one or two cups of coffee feel like water. But in a nutshell, after drinking coffee, the caffeine is quickly absorbed upon consumption, going from your gut into the bloodstream. It'll then travel to the liver, where it gets broken down into compounds that affect the function of various organs. The main organ caffeine impacts is your brain. It blocks the effects of adenosine, which is a neurotransmitter that relaxes the brain and makes you feel tired. So rather than the common misconception that caffeine provides you with energy, it instead inhibits a neurotransmitter that makes you tired. You see adenosine is the broken-down product of cellular metabolism. As your cells work and perform their functions you build up more adenosine. By the end of the day, adenosine levels are normally pretty high. And when those levels rise, we start to feel tired and become sleepy. Caffeine blocks these effects that adenosine has on the brain. It does this by binding to the same brain receptors that adenosine would bind to. This means that when caffeine binds to that receptor, there’s no space left for the adenosine to bind to that same receptor, leading to a reduction in tiredness and an increase in alertness. This effect is further increased by the fact that caffeine also enhances the levels of adrenaline in the blood. It also increases brain activity of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and dopamine. These are both neurotransmitters which are chemicals of the brain that send signals and ultimately have an effect on many things including our mood and energy levels. So after taking in caffeine, norepinephrine, and dopamine further stimulate the brain, promoting a state of alertness, arousal, and focus. Not only that, caffeine also increases the sensitivity of your dopamine receptors. In combination with the increase in dopamine, you’ll get a double whammy so to speak in terms of how the dopamine will impact your body. This is great for boosting energy because dopamine is one of the most important neurotransmitters in your body. This is especially true in regard to exercise and athletic performance because dopamine is associated with movement. Dopamine is also a big part of the “reward center” of your brain, which is why, when activated (as in the case of caffeine consumption), you’ll feel happier and more accomplished. Another thing that dopamine will do is it'll make you feel significantly more motivated. This is why people that are low in dopamine have trouble starting and finishing tasks and staying focused. So to flip that around if you boost your dopamine levels with caffeine it can help you be more productive and accomplish more. It'll help increase motivation and focus while studying or working.   Now, aside from the psychological benefits, there are also a lot of health and performance benefits that caffeine can provide for your body. The totality of scientific evidence concludes that coffee is overall good for your health, and those health benefits include better glycemic control, better cardiovascular health, a small reduction in blood pressure, and even a reduced risk of cancer. (1) Some of these health benefits can be attributed to the high amounts of phytochemicals in coffee, specifically, it's polyphenols that have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. On top of that, some people also find that they can work out harder, are stronger, and have more endurance when they have caffeine before their workouts.  Interestingly, however, research indicates much of this might be the result of a placebo effect, meaning it increases performance because people believe it should instead of actual direct physiological changes. For example, one study found that believing you're on caffeine seems to improve performance more than actually consuming 6 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight, which is about five cups of coffee...