The Coffee-Cortisol Connection, And Two Ways To Tweak It For Health

Health opinions on coffee vary from “it’s an invigorating, healthful drink” to “it will leave you a shaking frazzled wreck”. So, what’s the truth and can we enjoy it healthily? Dr. Alan Mandell weighs in:

Enjoy it, but watch out!

Dr. Mandell is speaking only for caffeinated coffee in this video, and to this end, he’s conflating the health effects of coffee and caffeine. A statistically reasonable imprecision, since most people drink coffee with its natural caffeine in, but we’ll make some adjustment to his comments below, to disambiguate which statements are true for coffee generally, and which are true for caffeine:

• Drinking coffee caffeine first thing in the morning may not be ideal due to dehydration from overnight water loss.
• Coffee caffeine is a diuretic, which means an increase in urination, thus further dehydrating the body.
• Coffee contains great antioxidants, which are of course beneficial for the health in general.
• Cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, is generally at its peak in the morning. This is, in and of itself, good and correct—it’s how we wake up.
• Coffee caffeine consumption raises cortisol levels even more, leading to increased alertness and physical readiness, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing, and in this case, problems can arise because…
• Elevated cortisol from early coffee caffeine drinking can build tolerance, leading to the need for more coffee caffeine over time.
• It’s better, therefore, to defer drinking coffee caffeine until later in the morning when cortisol levels naturally drop.
• All of this means that drinking coffee caffeine first thing can disrupt the neuroendocrine system, leading to fatigue, depression, and general woe.
• Hydrate first thing in the morning before consuming coffee caffeine to keep the body balanced and healthy.

What you can see from this is that coffee and caffeine are not, in fact, interchangeable words, but the basic message is clear and correct: while a little spike of cortisol in the morning is good, natural, and even necessary, a big spike is none of those things, and caffeine can cause a big spike, and since for most people caffeine is easy to build tolerance to, there will indeed consistently be a need for more, worsening the problem.

In terms of hydration, it’s good to have water (or better yet, herbal tea) on one’s nightstand to drink when one wakes up.

If coffee is an important morning ritual for you, consider finding a good decaffeinated version for at least your first cup (this writer is partial to Lavazza’s “Dek Intenso”—which is not the same as their main decaf line, by the way, so do hold out for the “Dek Intenso” if you want to try my recommendation).

Decaffeinated coffee is hydrating and will not cause a cortisol spike (unless for some reason you find coffee as a concept very stressful in which case, yes, the stressor will cause a stress response).

Anyway, for more on all of this, enjoy:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

• The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)
• Caffeine: Cognitive Enhancer Or Brain-Wrecker?

Take care!