How To Sleep After Drinking Too Much Caffeine?
Are you struggling to fall asleep after sipping your cup of coffee late at night? Let’s try to find out how to sleep after drinking too much caffeine?
Coffee is one of the most consumed caffeinated beverages that people love drinking. A fresh cup of coffee is included in your morning routine to get you through the day ahead without feeling burned-out. Maybe some nights you’re having some glasses of coffee to give you an extra boost of energy because you’re cramming for something. This may be a good idea but having coffee past 3 pm can have a negative impact on your quality of sleep. There’s a possibility too that you’ll be struggling to sleep after your late night coffee. But no need to worry because this article will help you know how to sleep after drinking too much caffeine.
How Caffeine Affects Our Body?
Why do you feel refreshed and energized after drinking a hot cup of coffee? How can a few ground up beans give you such a rush of energy? Scientifically, our bodies naturally produce adenosine, a sleep inducing chemical that makes us feel fatigued and sleepy. When caffeine enters your system, it blocks the adenosine from entering your brain, which causes you to feel stimulated and awake. Obviously, your internal bodily process is counterproductive when you want some shut eye after a late night cup of coffee.
According to studies, the half-life of coffee is about 5.7 hours meaning it takes 5 ½ hours for just half of the coffee in your system to dissipate. It’s possible to fall asleep after you consume caffeine. Here are some ways on how to prepare your body’s sleep mode:
- Stay away from your electronics. Since caffeine is a stimulant for your brain as well as constant buzzes or beeps from your phone’s email, social media, and text message notifications. They prevent your brain from entering a relaxed state. Getting sleep after a cup of coffee or two is already an uphill battle, why not shut down all of your electronics? Because the blue light that emanates from your gadgets like your cell phone, laptop, or television can make it more difficult to fall asleep. This light can halt your body’s production of melatonin, the hormone for your sleep-wake cycle. So make sure to turn off all electronics, and keep your gadgets from your bedside table.
- Meditate. Again, when you’re trying to fall asleep after drinking caffeine, you have to relax your body and mind. One of the best ways to achieve this is to meditate, practice mindfulness, or focus to achieve deep relaxation. To do this, you can sit or lay down in a comfortable position and take deep, unforced breaths like you normally do. As you inhale and exhale, focus on your breathing and body movement. After doing so, you can start to feel relaxed and hopefully feeling sleepy. This activity is called light yoga, a great way to relax both your body and mind. Here are some gentle poses for winding down after your night coffee:
- Child pose. This relieves the tension in your back, neck, and shoulders.
- Low lunge. This is perfect for those who sit all day long. This relieves tension in your hip flexors and stretches your hamstrings, glutes, and groin region.
- Butterfly pose. This promotes mindfulness and relaxation as you gently stretch your inner thighs and lower back.
- Seated side stretch. This simple pose is so easy to do and is beneficial for your body and muscles.
- Take a short walk. Light exercise is also one of the best ways to make yourself feel tired. You can go on a 2-mile run at 10 pm at night or earlier. Walking is a good way to wind your mind and body down before bed and hopefully force that extra caffeine energy out of your system.
- Read a book in bed. This is a good way to de-stimulate your mind, reduce stress, and induce your tired eyes. Studies show that reading a book for only 6 minutes at night can reduce stress up to 68%, so this is a good try if you want to fall asleep at night. It helps you to feel sleepy, heavy feeling eyes due to constant left to right eye movement.
Again, Caffeine and lack of sleep are most of the common forms of a vicious cycle. People consume caffeine because they don’t get enough sleep and caffeine prevents them from getting the amount and quality sleep they need to feel awake and energized. But there are other numbers of ways to break this cycle and still get enough sleep while consuming caffeine. Here are some tips on how to sleep after drinking too much caffeine.
Don’t consume caffeine late in the afternoon
If you want to sleep at 10, you should avoid caffeine after 12 noon but if you consumed 200mg of caffeine at noon, based on caffeine’s half-life of 5.7 hours, you would still have over 50mg in your system at 10 pm. This excludes the caffeine you consumed earlier in the day, which is also still being processed. If you have a high sensitivity and low tolerance to caffeine you may need to stop your consumption earlier.
Know your personal safe daily dose of caffeine and avoid having more than that
You can check yours by using a caffeine calculator, but for most individuals, it is between 300-400mg per day. Insomnia is one of the leading caffeine overdose symptoms and can prevent you from getting the sleep you need.
Don’t consume caffeine as soon as you wake up in the morning. According to research, caffeine works best taken 1-2 hours after waking. When we first wake up, our bodies are in a natural awakening state. If you wait and consume caffeine after this awakening state is wearing off, it’ll be more effective in helping you feel alert. Also, it will help keep you from consuming too much caffeine, which would interfere with your sleeping pattern. Thus, it is best to know some ways on how to sleep after drinking too much caffeine to prevent any sleeping disturbances.
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