Can Coffee Cause Anxiety? Yes. Here’s Why and What to Drink Instead

There is perhaps no beverage more omnipresent across the world than coffee. The American Psychological Association reports that up to 80% of American adults consume coffee daily (Starbucks really nailed that market, eh?) Through countries and cultures, come morning, afternoon, or post-dinner, the smell of roasted coffee beans brewing will find its way to your nose in most parts of the world. An offering of hospitality, a treat, a tool, provider or warmth, sanity, and a morning standard, coffee in many forms is a very normal part of life for most of us. Despite the fact that the vast majority of consumers don’t think twice before downing a hot cup o’ joe, those who suffer from anxiety or social anxiety may want to think twice before hitting brew on that 12-cup pot. Say what? Can caffeine cause anxiety?

The simple answer to “can caffeine cause anxiety” is yes and if this is you, even moderating our caffeine intake may have a profound impact on our overall calmness and how we navigate the world around us. While caffeine is so very readily accessible and accepted in our world, it is in fact, a mind-altering substance. So, let’s talk about what exactly caffeine does to your brain, and let me give you some food for thought on the matter of mud. Cutting back just a bit or stopping caffeine altogether could be life-changing for you. 

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Jiving or Jittery?

In a 2013 review of published medical literature on coffee, researchers noted that while more robust and well-controlled research is definitely needed there are certainly some well-documented health benefits to drinking three to four cups of coffee a day (400 mg of caffeine). Regular consumption of coffee decreases a person’s overall risk for disease in life, also known as all-cause mortality. It also decreases the risk of cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke. Additionally, those who drink coffee regularly have a lower incidence of a multitude of cancers throughout their lifetime. Regular coffee consumption has also proven to be positive in lowering our risk for diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. Yes, yes, and yes!

Now that you’ve read about some of the pretty convincing health benefits of java, I’d love to dig into the nuanced reality that while it isn’t generally bad for most of us (along with being very socially accepted), slamming coffee or drinking more than a small amount per day, really doesn’t work for everyone. Furthermore, it might “not be working” for many people who have anxiety but don’t associate caffeine as a trigger.

Newer research in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that no more than moderate amounts of caffeine (four to five cups per day or less) is the sweet spot between getting too much coffee to do harm and just enough to reap some of the health benefits.

However, for the many people who are sensitive to outside stimulants, even drinking small amounts can cause mental health side effects such as anxiety and panic attacks. Anxiety and panic are two of the most common mental health disorders in the US, hence the potential for overlap and exacerbation of anxiety with daily caffeine use is high. Additionally, many of us over-consume caffeine or consume all day without ever living “uncaffeinated,” making it difficult to fully understand the true cause of anxiety. This connection between anxiety and caffeine is so common that there is actually a medical diagnosis named caffeine-induced anxiety disorder. 

So what is anxiety exactly? Anxiety is defined as an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts as well as physical changes such as: 

• Increased blood pressure
• Digestive upset
• Headache
• Insomnia
• Shortness of breath
• Increased heart rate
• Sweating 
• Muscle tension 

Harvard Medical School reports that using caffeine can cause symptoms identical to anxiety in many people such as:

• Nervousness
• Gastrointestinal upset
• Trouble sleeping
• Restlessness
• Fast heart rate 

Catch the similarities? If you’re already living with the symptoms in list A, why consume a substance that in theory should be aiding you, when in reality it causes a double down of your symptoms and can make anxiety worse?

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How does this all shake out in the brain? 

How does caffeine even work? Caffeine works in your brain by blocking adenosine, which is a brain chemical that helps us feel tired and relaxed. Systematically while blocking adenosine, caffeine triggers stimulating hormones (two of which are responsible for the “fight or flight” response), adrenaline, and dopamine. These hormones normally cause feelings of well-being, alertness, and focus. This is great after a long night of poor sleep with a cranky wakeful baby in your arms, or just to start the day. However, if you tend to relate to the descriptors: high-strung, anxious, or busy-minded, the activation of these brain chemicals can be an all too familiar stimulant, and really get your anxiety pumping by compounding on symptoms you may already be prone to.

Mindfully take note of what works for you

It’s a great idea if you suffer from anxiety and drink coffee to pay attention to when your anxiety is triggered. Do you chug coffee in the A.M. and then notice a wave of anxiety hit you as pull into work? It may be as simple as slowing down and thinking about your intake. With caffeine being such a commonplace beverage in our lives we sometimes don’t realize just how very much we are consuming or forget to pay attention to this as a possible trigger.

I recommend tracking the amount of caffeine you drink daily for a few days. Do you know how many milligrams you ingest? When we are comfortable in our ways, we behave less mindfully, especially with food and beverage choices. As a rule of thumb, there is typically about 100 mg of caffeine per cup of coffee depending on how strong you brew it, if you know you brew a strong cup, aim for a higher estimate. In general, drinking more than 400 mg a day is not recommended, and for sensitive individuals as little as 50-100 mg per serving could cause anxiety, especially on an empty stomach. There is a great list of caffeine content in common beverages from this healthline article that I’ve included below for your reference. 

Below are ranges of caffeine contents in popular beverages:

• 8 ounces of decaf coffee contains 3–12 mg
• 8 ounces of plain black coffee contains 102–200 mg
• 8 ounces of espresso contains 240–720 mg
• 8 ounces of black tea contains 25–110 mg
• 8 ounces of green tea contains 30–50 mg
• 8 ounces of yerba mate contains 65–130 mg
• 12 ounces of soda contains 37–55 mg
• 12 ounces of energy drinks contain 107–120 mg

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Okay, I’m overcaffeinated and anxious: now what?

If you’ve overdone your caffeine for the day try this:

1. Stop drinking caffeine 
2. Drink water with electrolytes
3. Go for a walk 
4. Try eating food that will take time to digest and help slow the release of caffeine into your bloodstream
   • whole grains, beans, lentils, starchy vegetables, nuts, and seeds are good options 

Next: let’s make a plan for cutting back in the future. Consider weaning down over a period of a few weeks. Slowly start drinking less and less caffeine and pay close attention to how you feel. If you begin to get headaches, fatigue, or irritability you may be cutting down too quickly in your weaning schedule. On the flip side, these withdrawal symptoms are temporary, so it may be worth it to tough it out for a week or so if your anxiety is really out of control. Perhaps you will find that you still enjoy the stimulation, taste, and focus that just a ½ cup or one cup of coffee gives you! My whole life personally changed when I scaled down to ½ cup per day rather than 4-6 cups over the entire day.

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3 Great Coffee Alternatives

If you’re cutting back on coffee altogether and curious about replacing your morning cup with something that’s equally warm, delicious, and scratches the coffee itch, I have a few recommendations for you.

Looking for more options? Here are a few coffee alternatives that will give you a boost without the crash.

Does drinking coffee make you feel anxious? This could be the reason

By: Lifestyle Desk New Delhi | July 14, 2022 10:50 IST

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One must not give up coffee suddenly as it may lead to caffeine withdrawal (Source: Getty Images/Thinkstock)

For many, a cup of hot coffee is exactly what’s required to kickstart on a refreshing note. This is due to the presence of caffeine in your cuppa which “gives us the morning jolt we need,” according to nutritionist Bhakti Kapoor.

However, for several others, drinking coffee is linked to the feeling of anxiety and jitteriness, further making one feel agitated and restless. This is because your coffee contains more than just caffeine, the expert continued.

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She said, “In addition to being a stimulant, coffee is also acidic and diuretic. As a result, coffee will, both, give you energy and deplete some of your body’s vital resources.”

As such, if you are feeling anxious while drinking coffee, it is due to “the deficiencies brought on by frequent coffee consumption”.

Explaining the same, Shalini Arvind, Chief Dietitian, Fortis Hospital, Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore added, “Habitual dependency on caffeine is a concern, especially for those suffering from an anxiety disorder. It triggers the release of adrenaline, a hormone that gives a feeling of ‘high’ for a short duration followed by a long period of ‘low’. Caffeine also elevates cortisol levels, which can cause chronic stress.”

ALSO READ | Five common signs of digestive problems and how to combat them

Kapoor suggested the following three easy tips to get rid of your “coffee-related jitters and anxieties”.

 

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A post shared by Bhakti Kapoor (@gethealthyhigh) 

*Start your day with good fats. “Your body has fasted for a number of hours at night. Coffee is acidic in nature and, hence, shouldn’t be the first food you ingest in your body.”

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*Add some collagen creamer which makes your coffee “more nourishing”.

*Try and delay your coffee drinking time to around 9:30-10:30 am which is after your “natural cortisol spike” in the body.

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Arvind added that one must not give up coffee suddenly as it may lead to caffeine withdrawal for those dependent on it. “It may result in headache, fatigue, decreased energy, drowsiness, depressed mood, irritation etc. The frequency and amount of coffee consumption must be gradually reduced,” she said.

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Further, the dietitian suggested replacing coffee with healthy and tasty alternative beverages such as water, jal jeera, tender coconut water, warm water with honey and lemon, buttermilk or any healthy snack. “One can also start decaffeinated coffee and slowly reduce the consumption of coffee,” she advised.

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First published on: 14-07-2022 at 10:50 IST

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Fatalities about the dangers of coffee, which you did not know

Experts from the Institute for Cognitive Modeling talk about how caffeine consumption affects anxiety and why espresso is not the best drink during the war.

Research shows that cutting down on caffeine benefits people with anxiety disorders, but even one cup a day is a serious trigger for anxiety.

Think of caffeine as an “anxiety booster”. For example, if your anxiety is at level 5, then a few hours after drinking caffeine, it is likely to be at level 8, which rises to 10 or more in the evening.

Also, if you don’t sleep well at night, your anxiety will be even higher in the morning. But then you will most likely get your morning caffeine fix, which will start the same process again.

Scientists conducted a study looking at the effects of caffeine in patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) compared to healthy subjects and found that patients with GAD were abnormally sensitive to caffeine.

This connection between caffeine and anxiety is not obvious, because immediately after drinking coffee we feel great, and anxiety symptoms begin to appear only after a few hours.

Caffeine is characterized by increased mobility. The caffeine molecule is so small that it reaches the brain in just 20 minutes, easily passing the blood-brain barrier. Once the molecule is found in the brain, it blocks the uptake of adenosine, a neurotransmitter that signals the brain to be drowsy. Plus, caffeine stimulates the central nervous system and slightly increases blood pressure.

The fact that caffeine is associated with panic attacks has been proven by experiment. It turned out that 52% of people experienced panic attacks or anxiety after drinking coffee and caffeine. At the same time, a similar reaction was observed in 41% of first-line relatives, although people had never had panic attacks before. In some cases, caffeine also caused hallucinations (this is how the combination of caffeine and high stress levels worked).

Caffeine is not only found in coffee. It’s also found in black and green teas, sodas, and energy drinks, so to eliminate caffeine, you’ll need to eliminate those drinks from your diet as well.

By the way, giving up caffeine results in a complete withdrawal syndrome. It manifests itself in headaches, muscle pain, fatigue, apathy and depression.

Therefore, if you suffer from anxiety disorders and are addicted to coffee, it should be reduced gradually.

If you’re not ready to give up caffeine for good, at least try eliminating it from your diet for 60 days and track your anxiety levels during that period to note any changes.

1. Drink plenty of water throughout the day to stay hydrated and facilitate caffeine clearance.

2. Start drinking herbal teas. The best teas for anxiety are chamomile, valerian root, and oat straw.

3. If you experience caffeine withdrawal symptoms such as headaches, take a caffeine-free pain reliever if needed.

4. Breaking the habit of drinking coffee can be very difficult. If you still want to drink coffee from time to time, you should first avoid it for at least six weeks to completely detoxify your body.

Tags: women’s health, caffeine, the benefits and harms of coffee

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Milk and caffeine have nothing to do with it: why after coffee you want to go to the toilet0003

The urgent need to visit the toilet after a cup of coffee is not uncommon. It is often associated with the content of cream or milk in the drink, which can stimulate the urge, especially in the presence of irritable bowel syndrome. But in fact, not only lattes or cappuccinos have this effect.

It seems this week that the connection between coffee drinks and the urge to defecate has attracted an unprecedented level of attention (for reasons that are unclear). The American toilet paper brand Who Gives a Crap has released a gift set in which a festively wrapped roll is adjacent to a package of coffee beans. Toilet air freshener company Poo-Pourri has launched a collaboration with beverage brand Super Coffee (the launch slogan is “The Most Obvious Collab”). In the end, The New York Times published an article entitled “Why does coffee make me poop?”.

So why? Is it about caffeine?

Apparently not. Studies show that caffeine content does not affect urge intensity. One article published in 1998 found that decaf had the same colon stimulating effect as caffeinated coffee, while just a glass of hot water did not. Scientists from California came to the same conclusion in 2019: when studying the laxative effect of the drink on mice, they found that, regardless of the caffeine content, coffee stimulated intestinal muscle motility in rodents.

Isn’t milk to do with it?

Yes and no. On the one hand, studies use a drink without additional ingredients: sugar, cream, animal or vegetable milk. Therefore, we can be sure that it is coffee that is responsible for stimulating peristalsis. On the other hand, the addition of cow’s milk can actually increase the urge in people with lactose intolerance. At the same time, according to some studies, about 68% of the world population have difficulty digesting this milk sugar. If you fall into these 68%, coffee with milk can make the need to visit the toilet as acute as possible, and the urge itself will be accompanied by unpleasant gastroenterological symptoms (pain, “twisting” in the abdomen, bloating). If you feel that after a cup of cappuccino, you don’t just want to go to the toilet, but literally run to the booth, fighting for your life, try switching to lactose-free or plant-based milk.

Then how does it work?

Now many scientists are inclined to believe that it is in the entero-cerebral axis. The entero-cerebral axis is a two-way biochemical signaling system that occurs between the gastrointestinal tract and the central nervous system, the study of which has become especially popular over the past few years . The rate at which coffee makes many people want to go “big” is much faster than the rate at which the drink could pass through the gastrointestinal tract and directly stimulate the colon. Doctors suggest that the appearance of coffee in the stomach sends a signal to the brain, and it instantly instructs the colon to contract. The researchers hypothesized that it might not be caffeine that might be responsible for this effect, but one or more of the other chemicals found in coffee. It has not yet been possible to identify specific substances. But scientists are sure that their influence is in any case indirect, and our own digestive hormones lead directly to urges. For example, gastrin or cholecystokinin, the levels of which rise sharply after drinking coffee.

Is there any way to avoid this side effect?

Alas, hardly. It remains only to always plan time for going to the toilet after a morning cup of an invigorating drink, so as not to find yourself in a stressful situation on the way to work. But the good news is that coffee’s effect on the intestines can be beneficial for many constipated people. This is especially true for patients recovering from surgical interventions affecting the abdominal cavity. After such interventions, bowel dysfunction is common: bloating, pain, food intolerance, and gas accumulation.