You should wait that long before drinking your morning coffee

Coffee is the ultimate morning ritual. While there are many variables in a positive morning – showering, breakfast, a good night’s sleep – for many of us, coffee is one that makes it or breaks it. There is something special and effective about the first sip of coffee that wakes you up and brightens your mood. From an energetic standpoint, there is a whole science of how coffee works including the time you have to wait before drinking it.

The Huffington Post spoke to health professionals who found that the best time to have a coffee is about an hour after you first wake up. It has a lot to do with cortisol and our production of this hormone in the morning.

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Photo by Vladislav Muslakov via Unsplash

Your body naturally produces cortisol, the stress hormone, when you first wake up. This hormone does a lot of what coffee does, it wakes you up and gives you energy to get on with your day. By waiting a little while to introduce caffeine into your system, you are giving your body some space to experience the caffeine high it craves while preventing it from getting nervous.

“There is some science behind isolating caffeine and high-end cortisol so they don’t compete against each other and have negative effects on the body [like the jitters]“Says Tracy Lockwood, nutritionist and author. “Basically, you want the caffeine in coffee to shine as a solo artist and not be influenced by the strong effects of cortisol.”

Photo by Matthew Henry on Burst

Having your coffee first thing in the morning will give you some energy and motivation, but it will be a shorter and less powerful experience than waiting for the effects of cortisol to stop waking your body. The fact that coffee has become such a deeply ingrained part of our morning routine could also make the experience more predictable, consistent, and even boring for your body.

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There is no real way to drink coffee. What works for one person may not work for another. But if you’re interested in a different morning experience and looking for a longer caffeine spike, try postponing the first cup of coffee, especially if you want to feel a sustained surge of energy.