Contents:
- Medical Video: Why Does Coffee Make Me Tired? │How Caffeine Is Quietly Sabotaging Your Energy Levels
- Understand how coffee works in the body
- Why is drinking coffee still sleepy?
- 1. Lack of sleep
- 2. The body has difficulty digesting caffeine
Medical Video: Why Does Coffee Make Me Tired? │How Caffeine Is Quietly Sabotaging Your Energy Levels
For some people, coffee has become a part of everyday life that cannot be released. Without drinking coffee, it is very difficult to stay focused on working. However, there are also people who have drunk coffee still sleepy.
Apparently, there are indeed several reasons that drinking coffee does not work for certain people. Here's the full explanation.
Understand how coffee works in the body
To understand why, even after drinking coffee, it is still sleepy, you must first know how coffee works in the body. Basically, substances that make you more focused and awake after drinking coffee are caffeine. Caffeine is a stimulant that stimulates activity in the central nervous system. You will also feel more powerful for a while.
In your body there is a compound called adenosine. If the nerves in the brain catch and bind adenosine, you will be drowsy and want to rest. Well, caffeine is a substance that is very similar to adenosine. So when you drink coffee that is high in caffeine, your nerves will actually catch caffeine, not adenosine.
However, if the effect of adenosine makes you sleepy, caffeine actually makes your mind fresher. This is why drinking coffee can make you more alert and focused.
Why is drinking coffee still sleepy?
How the caffeine works on everyone's body is indeed the same. What's different is your body's reaction to these stimulant substances. Here are two possibilities why after you drink coffee it's still as sleepy as before.
1. Lack of sleep
For people who really lack sleep, a cup of coffee has no effect on your nervous system. This was explained in a study at the conference of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society in the United States (US).
According to this study, the more you lack sleep, the body will produce much more adenosine compounds. The point is that the brain catches the signal to rest. As a result, caffeine in a cup of coffee will lose against adenosine in your body.
When you drink coffee, your nervous system has already caught and bind adenosine first. Caffeine that enters the body becomes redundant and can not work because it can no longer place in your nervous system.
So, even though you have already drunk several cups of coffee after staying up all night or several consecutive nights, you may not feel any effect.
2. The body has difficulty digesting caffeine
If you have slept enough but drinking coffee still makes you sleepy, the cause can be a gene in your own body. Yes, apparently there are special genes that regulate how sensitive your nervous system is to caffeine.
This gene has been found in several studies by experts around the world. One of them is from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in the US. Genes coded CYP1A2, AHR, POR, ABCG2, and CYP2A6 are genes responsible for digesting caffeine. Previous researchers from the University of Toronto in Canada also managed to find these genes.
People who have the perfect combination of these genes can digest caffeine faster. So, the effect of coffee becomes faster. However, the body of some people find it difficult to digest caffeine so even though they drink coffee they are still sleepy. Because the body has not finished digesting caffeine.
