Hi there, it's Matt here and welcome back to the podcast. So this is going to sound strange coming from, someone like me, but I'm going to suggest that you drink coffee because the health
benefits associated with coffee are numerous. And many of them are significant and I'll explain exactly why. This is the case a little bit later on.
Since today is going to be the first of a two-part series, all about coffee caffeine and their interaction with this thing called sleep in. This first episode will focus on how caffeine works and then how caffeine can impact your sleep at night in several different ways. And then, in the next episode, we'll find out more about exactly why coffee can offer these health benefits despite the highwomen.
Harmful impact that caffeine can have up on your sleep. So let's start with exactly how caffeine works. Now in our previous episode on sleep pressure. We learned all about how caffeine can keep you awake during the day here. We're going to focus on how caffeine can impact your sleep at night. Caffeine is in a class of drugs that we call the psychoactive stimulants, and I'm sure that you knew that calf.
In was some form of a stimulant. However, there are several hidden consequences of caffeine that you may be less aware of one of these, is the duration of action caffeine has what we call a half-life of about five to six hours in the average adult. In other words, after five to six hours, 50% of that, caffeine is still going to be in your system and what that means is that caffeine will then have a quarterly.
Life of about 10 to 12 hours. So in other words, let's see that. You have a cup of coffee at 2 p.m. In the afternoon. Almost a quarter of that caffeine could still be circulating in your brain at midnight or perhaps even more than a quarter of that caffeine and the probably rather crass analogy. Here, would be that if you have a cup of coffee at 2 p.m., It would be the equivalent of getting into bed at midnight.
Night and just before you turn the lights out, you Swig a quarter of a cup of coffee and you hope for a good night of sleep and it tends not to happen. And in part, this comes back to the stimulant properties of caffeine. First caffeine is going to make it more difficult for you to fall asleep. When your head hits the pillow, add it to. This is the fact that caffeine will increase levels of anxiety. So as you're lying, there not being able
Will to fall asleep. You suffer that sort of terrible experience of a racing mind that won't shut off. And I almost liken this to a sort of a Rolodex of anxiety that can flood your brain due to the effects of caffeine. The second and related issue is that not only will caffeine make it harder for you to fall asleep. It will then also make it more difficult for you to stay asleep soundly across the night.
Right, and this is because caffeine will make your sleep more unstable. In other words, it will cause you to wake up more frequently at night and the consequence is something that we call Sleep fragmentation, meaning that your overall sleep, efficiency, or the quality of your sleep becomes significantly worse when you have caffeine on board.
The folks
supporting today's podcast are inside tracker. If you've not heard of them inside tracker is effectively a personalized biometric Health platform and they will analyze your blood and your DNA to try to better understand what's going on inside of you. Why did I want them as a sponsor? Well, I am someone who is perhaps overly pedantic about knowing
My own health status and this is where inside tracker comes into play without pedantry. I have to say a trained individual from inside tracker. Will conveniently come out to your home at a time that you wish and they'll draw a, we sample of blood. And then after running a set of Diagnostics on that blood and the DNA contained within inside tracker will do two additional things first. They'll give you a full set of results. Of course, that
Drive the different sort of blurred and metabolic and hormonal, Health metrics. And also give you some nice reference guidelines to say, are you inside, or are you outside of typical standard Rangers? The second benefit of inside tracker is one that I think makes them a standout in the space inside tracker not only tells you your data but then in a personalized way unique to your biometric status and your goals.
They will offer suggestions as to changes that you may wish to make to adjust some of those numbers and try to better optimize them, which is to say better. Optimize you the individual, the person. So if you want to try inside tracker just go over to inside. Tracker.com forward slash Matt Walker and you'll get 25% off any one of the program offerings. So that's
Inside tracker inside tracker.com forward slash Matt Walker. And there you can just have a flick through the menu of different offerings that they provide and select the one that feels good to you. And with that, let's get back to the
podcast.
Now,
as a quick aside, some people will tell me, look. I am one of those individuals and I can have an espresso with dinner and I fall asleep. And I stay asleep. So no harm. No foul. Well, yes, and no, even if you fall asleep easily and then you stay asleep across the night. Caffeine will still decrease the amount of deep sleep that your brain can generate, and I'll go into that in far greater detail.
In the second episode, but I make that point because most people are not consciously aware of the lack of that deep sleep, even though they don't remember having a hard time, falling asleep or staying asleep. And in fact, why don't I just pause for a second. Let's Linger on this common statement that I receive from people about their sensitivity. What we know is that the effects of caffeine are highly variable from one individual, to the next? I said earlier that.
The quarter life of caffeine is somewhere between 10 to 12 hours. But that's for the average adult. It's really quite different from one person to the next that you will pass on the street. Now using a variety of different assessment techniques and methods. What we've recently discovered is that your sensitivity to caffeine is due in part to your genetics and different people will have a more or less efficient version of an
Enzyme that breaks down caffeine. And if your, if your nerd, curious like me, the class of liver compounds that were talking about here or called cytochrome p450 enzymes. I've always thought, by the way, that cytochrome p450s would be a great title for an album. Don't you think that would be brilliant? No, probably just me. Anyway, getting back to the story.
Some people will have a version of that enzyme that allows them to metabolize the caffeine very quickly. Whereas other people will have a version of that enzyme or set of enzymes. It turns out which is much slower in its speed of breakdown of that caffeine. And as a result that caffeine will linger in their system far longer than it would do in someone who can metabolize it quite quickly. And for those people who can't metabolize it and cleanse the system.
The caffeine as quickly. Those are the people who are highly sensitive to the effects of caffeine, by the way, unfortunately having run my own genetic screening test. I am one of those slow caffeine metabolizers. Ah, it makes me so sad because I adore the smell of freshly ground coffee. I love that ritual. I would say. However, that decaffeinated coffee, if you find the right, one can be almost as extraordinary.
Again, I'm telling my story. This is not about me. This is about you. And this podcast, if you would like to know, by the way, which caffeine sensitive type, you are, there are several genetic testing kits out there, and I won't name names that you can easily buy online and they will often assess those specific set or relative genes. And once again, if you're curious the two most relevant genes for you to look out for regarding this caffeine, sensitivity are called.
Cy P 1, a 2, and a ahr total alphabet spaghetti. Wasn't it? And with that spaghetti thrown against the informational wall of today's episode? I will close it out for today and I will see you in the second part of this two-part series on caffeine and there were going to address a question that I get asked. So,
So much, which is the following, how can a cup of coffee be associated with so many health benefits, despite the damaging impact that you've, since told us that caffeine can have up on your sleep. And I'll also describe one of the additional and perhaps most concerning effects of caffeine on your sleep. No matter whether you are a slow or fast metabolizer, but for now, I will simply say, good night. Thank you so much.
Search for listening and thanks again to the sponsors for supporting this podcast. Please go over and check out that link that we mentioned. That would be so helpful to me and supporting the podcast. But mostly thank you again to you for listening, and please tune in to the next episode. This second episode all about sleep and caffeine for now. Take care, and I'll see you next
time.
