Wake Up, Wait An Hour, Drink Coffee

Many people drink coffee as soon as they wake up in the morning, even saying that they need the caffeine kick to open their eyes. But scientists say that drinking coffee so soon may not be the best way to maximize the benefits of the beloved black beverage.  

Wait for an Hour

Even when you have coffee in bed with your breakfast, you may want to delay drinking it up to an hour after waking up. You will probably feel grouchy about being deprived of your morning caffeine kick but there’s a reason for waiting.  

In the hour after waking up, your body produces the highest level of cortisol; there are actually three daily peaks for cortisol production. While cortisol is known as the stress hormone because the body produces it in higher amounts under stress or pressure, it’s also called as the alertness hormone.  

Think about it: When you’re under stress, you also feel more physically and mentally alert. You’re also experiencing signs of the human body’s fight-or-flight response, thus, your increased alertness level. You feel like you’re more attuned to your surrounding and ready to fight or run in a second.  

When you consume coffee as soon as you get out of bed or before an hour after waking up, you’re teaching your body to make less cortisol. You are then interfering with your body’s natural biological processes, particularly in decreasing the cortisol’s alertness effect. You may even develop a higher tolerance for coffee so you can become akin to an addict – you have to drink more just to get the same high.  

Don’t Let Your Colleagues Wait

But what about the succeeding cups of coffee? You should consider drinking your next cups outside of the two peak times for cortisol production, usually between 12 noon and 1 p.m. as well as between 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. You may, for example, drink coffee at 10 a.m. and then at 3 p.m.

How can you apply said information when you’re planning business meetings for your fellow coffee drinkers? For one thing, you can schedule a meeting between 8 a.m. and 12 noon as well as between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.; these are office hours anyway so you shouldn’t have a scheduling problem.

For another thing, you should order the food and drinks so that these can be served as fresh as possible. You can also ask the Dunkin Donuts crew to deliver the order 5 minutes before these are to be served so that your colleagues will enjoy the hot coffee.  

And don’t forget to provide cream and sugar, too. Not everybody likes to drink black coffee.