Mornings in Minneapolis, MN and nationwide can be rough and comes way too early. As the week goes along, that snooze button appears more and more tempting. Late nights and the energy it takes to meet all of the demands in daily life don’t help you pull yourself out of bed in the morning to do it all again. As an attempt to help “cure” this problem, many look to coffee for the answer. Looking forward to that caffeine boost the second the alarm sounds is just the right amount of motivation you need to pull the covers off in the morning.
If this describes you, or if you have Caribou Coffee as part of your morning routine, then these 3 tips can help you make the most out of your daily coffee.
# 1 – Wake up and wait at least 15 minutes
After you wake up, wait at least 15 minutes since your body has a natural desire to sleep more. It is perfectly normal to wake up still tired, even after a full nights rest. This is what is known as ‘sleep inertia.’ More often than not, if you have gotten a full nights rest, this feeling should wear off approximately 15 minutes after getting out of bed. If you start drinking a cup of coffee before letting your body wake up naturally, you will likely consume more caffeine throughout the day than you actually need. One way to do this is to wait until you get to work to get your freshly brewed coffee out of the Keurig coffee machine in the break room.
# 2 – Wait 1 ½ hours between cups of Java
The desire for that instant energy boost is what is expected from that first cup of coffee. The reality is that nobody feels the effects of caffeine as soon as their favorite Dunn Brothers roast touches their lips. It takes a while for the body to process the liquid and to get the caffeine to play it’s role. When a person downs cup of coffee after cup of coffee, they don’t give their body the chance to process the first dose of caffeine before they start adding more. This is why many people attribute their energy boost to their second or third coffee of the morning. Since it takes about an hour and a half for the caffeine to kick in to it’s full effectiveness, you aren’t getting anywhere any faster by drinking a whole pot of coffee in the first two hours of waking up. This is one of the perks when using a single serve Flavia coffee machine or Starbucks Coffee maker, you can only make one cup at a time, removing the temptation to finish the entire freshly brewed pot.
# 3 – Mix it up
You know how if you have the exact same workout routine everyday you won’t get any stronger and you plateau? Well, drinking your coffee at the same time everyday is very similar. When you have it in your routine to drink your coffee at the exact same time every day, your brain will come to expect that caffeine feeding, simply causing that cup of coffee to maintain your alertness instead of boost your energy. This leads to drinking more and more coffee to get the same effects that you once had. This is building up a tolerance toward caffeine. By mixing it up to different times of the day, or day of the week, your coffee intake will be more of a surprise to your brain. This will maximize the effectiveness of the caffeine in that cup of Starbucks coffee.