Quality Sleep and Caffeine Reduction

Sleep and Caffeine – The dysfunctional relationship…..

Sleep is one of the most under valued priorities in the Average American citizen. We are sleeping less in this day and age, than in any other time in human history. What most people don’t realize, is that sleep deprivation is directly linked to chronic disease. Here is a quote from the CDC (even the government knows it),Sleep and Chronic Disease. … Notably, insufficient sleep, has been linked to the development and management of a number of chronic diseases and conditions, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and depression. Jul 1, 2013″. So in my quest to learn more about sleep, I decided that I would embark on my own Sleep Optimization. What I didn’t know is that the number one thing effecting my sleep was my 12oz cup of coffee every morning.

How does Caffeine effect our sleep?

Caffeine has what is called a “half life”. An eight hour half life to be exact. That means that if you have 100mg of caffeine, it takes 8 hours for it to be half gone. So eight hours later you still have 50mg of caffeine in your system. This was shocking to me, because I am quite sensitive to caffeine. I decided to run an experiment to see if switching to decaf increased my sleep quality on my wearable sleep tracker. On the left, is a picture of one my sleep days with over wight hours of sleep and my normal activity. On the right is 3 days after the left picture, and after 2 days of using decaf coffee, in stead of my regular dark roast. So basically, I went from about 150mg of caffeine, to 15mg of caffeine per day.

Sleep and caffeine

less caffeine more sleep

After consecutive nights of seeing this information, I have become a believer that caffeine is definitely effecting our sleep. Along with tones of unnatural light, blue light from devices, and tons of cortisol killing our melatonin from too much stress.

For more information on how to optimize your sleep, I recommend researching the “Sleep Smarter” Book by Shawn Stevenson. Or listen to his Podcast called “The Model Health Show“.

In the meantime, if you have questions for me, you can email me at musclesandveggies@gmail.com.

Have a Wonderful day!

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