Waiting to Drink Coffee Until Noon Is a Useless Trick
When is the best time to drink caffeine in the morning? If you’ve never thought much about it, you’ll probably drink coffee as soon as you can. On the other hand, if you’re always looking for ways to optimize your life (maybe we’d even say “hack it”), you may have heard the advice to wait until mid-morning. Good news: you can opt out of this supposed hack. There’s no need to delay your morning caffeine intake. Drink whenever you want.
We’re even guilty of promoting this hack: In 2013, we shared a blog post by a neuroscience graduate student who claimed that 9:30 to 11:30 is the ideal time to drink coffee. Since then, cutting out morning caffeine has become a topic of conversation among biohacking podcasters, TikTok yoga/hormone coaches, and other influencers of dubious authority.
Meanwhile, real scientists are studying these tips for delaying caffeine consumption and have thoughts they’d like to share. In March, a group of sports scientists published a rebuttal to common myths about caffeine and included a section claiming that morning coffee is healthier and more effective than early morning coffee. Spoiler: the arguments are not justified. For most people, it’s probably best to drink caffeine in the morning if they feel tired.
The Cortisol Myth
Cortisol is a hormone that our body uses to combat various stresses (good and bad). Don’t believe influencers who try to convince you that all your problems in life are due to a cortisol imbalance ; Most of the time, fluctuating cortisol levels are for a good reason and you don’t need to worry about them.
So what does caffeine have to do with it? Well, there is some evidence that caffeine can increase cortisol levels in our body. Anti-cortisol influencers try to tell us that cortisol spikes are always bad (not true) and that delaying caffeine until later in the morning will lower overall cortisol levels (which is not actually supported by research).
As the authors of the myth-busting article note, this effect on cortisol is not limited to the early morning; if you delay your caffeine intake, you won’t avoid the surge, you’ll just delay it. And if you have a habit of drinking caffeine every morning, evidence suggests that the cortisol response decreases over time and may not be seen at all in people who are accustomed to drinking large amounts of caffeine (for example, 300 milligrams per day or more). .
A more reasonable argument, which this student made in our 2013 article, is that we get a free surge of cortisol every morning, and this can help improve alertness. So, if we get the cortisol boost for free, why add caffeine on top? This isn’t a reason why you should avoid caffeine in the morning, it’s just an option you have if you’re one of those weirdos who jumps out of bed energized in the morning. (PS I hate you.)
Adenosine Myth
Another version of this myth involves adenosine. Adenosine is a neurotransmitter, a chemical that brain cells use to communicate with each other. Adenosine builds up in our brains throughout the day and is part of what makes us sleepy . Caffeine blocks adenosine, which is a simplified version of why caffeine helps us stay awake.
One of the reasons why caffeine delay is sometimes given is that when we first wake up, adenosine levels are low and levels decline. Therefore, there will be no need to block it. But this is not true; Adenosine levels actually increase around the time we wake up. Myth-busting scientists sum it up sharply: “In light of this pattern, any suggestion that adenosine levels continue to decline after awakening demonstrates a misunderstanding of the influence of the sleep-wake cycle on adenosine and does not form a poor basis for recommending delayed caffeine intake.”
The Myth of the Daytime “Crash”
What about the idea that delaying your caffeine intake will reduce your chances of having a mid-day energy crash? This argument has never really sat well with me since a lot of other things probably contribute to this feeling (like a post-lunch carb coma or just the fact that you’ve been sitting at a desk for so damn long and maybe feeling a little burnt out).
Sports scientists also have thoughts on this matter. They note that research shows that regular caffeine use is not associated with any kind of daytime crash. They also note that if it was truly a concern, you could simply drink a little more caffeine to counteract it. And if you delay your morning coffee, you may need a second dose later in the day than if you started drinking caffeine first thing in the morning. Drinking caffeine in the afternoon can disrupt your sleep, so if you’re concerned about your sleep schedule, it makes sense to drink caffeine earlier rather than later.
Bottom line: Drink coffee whenever you want .
With all this in mind, there’s no need to put off your morning coffee (or energy drink, or charged lemonade, or whatever else people are drinking caffeine with these days). However, I want to make it clear that I support you no matter when you want to drink coffee. If you actually find that your days go better when you have your first coffee at 10am, great, I’m not here to stop you. But if you’re bleary-eyed at 7 a.m. and you’re clenching your knuckles until Andrew Huberman or your favorite TikTok health expert says it’s time: just drink some coffee already.